Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Adams Memorial

"The Adams Memorial" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "It must not be imagined that during the stay of the Shaw Memorial in my father's studio that it occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of other work. Quite on the contrary, there were periods of months when he would refuse to look at this task, in order that upon seeing it once more he might have a fresh eye and unconsciously matured thoughts. In the course of the first ten years in the Thirty-sixth Street studio nearly forty other works, which varied in importance from large plaques to such smaller portraits as that of Miss Violet Sargent, modeled in exchange for John Sargent's painting of myself, were completed."

Among these concurrent commissions were also Augustus Saint-Gaudens' "Lincoln, the Man," for the city of Chicago, "The Puritan," which was so popular that he made forty reductions of it, and the "Adams Memorial," a grave marker for Marian Hooper Adams located in the Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C. 

The account is once more taken up by Homer: "He looked back with fondness to the time spent upon this latter monument, curtained off in a studio corner. Here was one of the few opportunities offered him to break from the limitations of portraiture, limitations from which all his life he longed to be free, in order to create imaginative compositions. Moreover, he constantly spoke to me and to others of his pleasure in suggesting the half-concealed, and because of this pleasure, the veiled face of this figure gave him infinite delight to dwell upon. 

At the date Mr. Adams gave Saint-Gaudens the commission, he felt in sympathy with the religious attitudes of the East. So my father sought to embody a philosophic calm, a peaceful acceptance of death and whatever lay in the future. He conceived the figure as both sexless and passionless, a figure for which there posed sometimes a man, sometimes a woman. 

A description was the end result was written up in a Parisian magazine:

'A woman is seated upon a block of stone, with her back against the monolith. She is covered from head to foot by an ample cloak which falls about her in simple, dignified folds. Her head alone is visible, a stern and forbidding profile. Her chin is resting upon her hand; her eyes are cast down. She is not sleeping, she is musing; and that reverie will last as long as the stone itself. Silent, dead as the world knows her, wholly absorbed in her reverie, she is the image of Eternity and Meditation... In me personally it awakens a deeper emotion than any other modern work of art.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.) 

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Shaw Memorial, Pt. 2

Details of the Plaster for the Shaw Memorial
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "I should dwell now upon the more serious aspects of the Shaw memorial as it emerged from one of my father's favorite low-reliefs to that extremely 'high' development, which he felt sure would be more effective in the open air. During the process he struggled with difficulty after difficulty, both technical and artistic. In one direction, for example, the constant wetting of the clay and the covering of the Shaw with damp rags became such a nuisance that  he began to look about for a substitute. The result was American plastoline [plasticine] now in common use. A great to-do also arose over such endless questions as those concerning the historical accuracy of the dress. For instance, when it came to the flag, he sent to have the original carefully sketched in the Boston State House.

Another thing were the countless legs and feet of the infantry which seemed to bewilder him, until slowly from the chaos he learned his lesson of dealing with repeated accents; a lesson suggested to him by the effect of the troops passing beneath his window in the days of his cameo cutting, by a French military funeral which he often spoke of as impressing him a few years later, and by the use of the spears and vertical lines in such compositions as Velasquez's 'Surrender of Breda.' 

For another thing, the problem of accoutrements, of the spotty effects made by the canteens, developed in him a sensitive regard for the rounding-off of mechanically hard lines, until the final and uninteresting became always slightly hidden and suggestive. The process took definite shape on a day when he complained to Frederick MacMonnies, then pressing out these canteens, that he hated them, as he did all things completely analyzed and shown. Whereupon MacMonnies replied, 'Hide part of them under the drapery.' At which my father tested his suggestion with such relish at the resulting mystery and charm, that he not only adopted it permanently, but instituted a system of what he later called 'fluing,' a general term including many devices, from the breaking up of lines to the filling of those black holes, which, if he placed logically in his desired folds of drapery, he would model to unsightly depths. 

But, most of all, the flying figure drove my father nearly frantic in his efforts to combine the ideal with the real. For the face he tried first the beautiful head of Miss Annie Page. But that, like the features of any model always became much too personal. So he relied wholly upon his imagination to produce a result which his friends and pupils have said somewhat recalled his mother and somewhat an old model in Paris; though I believe that every woman of beauty who was near him impressed his work. He even returned to the work in later years, having by that time come to the conclusion that the flying figure was not mysterious enough. Therefore he remodeled her once more during the last part of his life.

And what were his thoughts at spending so much thought and time on this monument? In a letter he said:

'Too much time cannot be spent on a task that is to endure for centuries, and it is a great mistake to hurry or hamper any artist in the production of work they have so much at heart. Time passed on it is certainly not money gained, and results from a conscientious endeavor to avoid the execution of an unworthy thing. You should consider yourself fortunate not to have fallen into the hands of a sculptor who would rush the commission through on time, regardless of the future, in order to get and make quickly the most money possible. A bad statue is an impertinence and an offense. Paul Dubois, the great Frenchman, spent fifteen years on his 'Joan of Arc.' I had the Shaw monument fourteen years, the 'Sherman' ten.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.) 

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Shaw Memorial, Pt. 1

Sketches in clay for Shaw Memorial

Plaster for the Shaw Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens
at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

"I had scarcely moved into the studio in which I would work for the next fifteen years, when I renewed my acquaintance with the man who was largely instrumental in obtaining the one piece of work which remained in that place through almost my whole stay. The man was the architect, Mr. H.H. Richardson, the work the Shaw relief. [The monument marks Robert Gould Shaw's death on July 18, 1863, after he and his troops attacked Fort Wagner, one of two forts protecting the strategic Confederate port or Charleston, South Carolina.]

Mr. Richardson was also a great friend of Messrs. Atkinson, Lee and Higginson. Consequently it was at his suggestion that they determined to see whether it was not possible to have me execute a monument to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, which had been proposed but abandoned. They had about fifteen thousand dollars, and I was engaged to complete it for that sum, since I, like most sculptors at the beginning of their careers, felt that by hook or crook I must do an equestrian statue, and that here I had found my opportunity. 

Therefore I proceeded with this theory until the Shaw family objected on the ground that, although Shaw was of a noble type, as noble as any, still he had not been a great commander, and only men of the highest rank should be so honored. In fact, it seemed pretentious. Accordingly, in casting about for some manner of reconciling my desire with their ideas, I fell upon a plan of associating him directly with his troops in a bas-relief, and thereby reducing his importance. I made a sketch showing this scheme, and the monument as it now stands is virtually what I indicated.

I began work on it at once, and soon it took up the entire width of the studio, as it stood about two-thirds of the way back from the street, with behind it a platform about eight feet high, on which I placed whatever statue I had to do that would ultimately be on a pedestal. However, I, through my extreme interest in it and its opportunity, increased the conception until the rider grew almost to a statue in the round and the soldiers assumed far more importance than I had originally intended. Hence the monument, developing in this way infinitely beyond what could be paid for, became a labor of love, and lessened my hesitation in setting it aside at times to make way for more lucrative commissions, commissions that would reimburse me for the pleasure and time I was devoting to this." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.)   

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Cornish, New Hampshire

"Now let me turn to other pleasures, and chief among them to my coming in 1885 to Cornish, New Hampshire. For this coming made the beginning of a new side of my existence. I was thirty-seven at the time and it dawned upon me seriously how much there was outside of my little world. We hit upon Cornish because, while casting about for a summer residence, Mr. C.C. Beaman told me that if I would go up there with him, he had an old house which he would sell me for what he paid for it, five hundred dollars. I insisted that I was not wealthy enough to spend that amount, but as Mrs. Saint-Gaudens saw the future of sunny days that would follow, she detained me until Mr. Beaman agreed to rent the house to me at a low price for as long as I wished. 

However, the experiment had proved so successful and I was so enchanted with the life and scenery, I bought the house the following year for a certain amount and a bronze portrait of Mr. Beaman.

It was not long after our coming up here that Mr. George de Forest Brush, the painter, decided to pass the summer near us. He lived with Mrs. Brush in an Indian tepee he built on the edge of our woods, near a ravine, about five hundred yards from the house; for he had camped with the Indians for years and knew their habits. The spring following my arrival, my friend, Mr. T.W. Dewing, the painter, was casting about for a place to pass the summer, when I told him of a cottage that could be rented about twenty minutes' walk from my habitation. Mr. Dewing came. He saw. He remained. And from that event the colony developed, it being far more from Mr. Dewing's statements of the surrounding beauty than from mine that others joined us. 

The year after, Mr. Henry Oliver Walker bought land; and the year after that his friend, Mr. Charles A Platt, joined him. Mr. Platt brought Stephen Parrish [father of Maxfield Parrish], and so on, until now there are many families. The circle has extended beyond the range even of my acquaintance, to say nothing of friendship. The country still retains its beauty, though its secluded charm is being swept away before the rushing automobile..."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.)   

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Medallions

"Jules Bastien-Lepage" 
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

"At this earlier time, in addition to my larger commissions, I made medallions which I exhibited at the Paris Salon, along with the statue of Farragut, in 1879. Then, too, through a mutual friend I met Bastien-Lepage, who was in the height of the renown he had achieved by his painting of Joan of Arc. This picture Mr. Irwin Davis subsequently purchased and, at my earnest recommendation, gave to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Lepage was short, bullet-headed, athletic and in comparison with the majority of my friends, dandified in dress. I recall his having been at the Beaux Arts during the period I studied there, and my disliking him for this general cockiness. He asked if I would make a medallion of him in exchange for a portrait of myself. Of course I agreed to the proposal, and as his studio was not far from mine, the medallion was modeled during a period when he was unable to work on account of a sprained ankle. He moved away shortly afterward, and I saw little of him except for the four hours a day when I posed for the full-length sketch he made of me. This painting was destroyed in the fire which burned my studio in 1904."

At this point, Homer Saint-Gaudens interjects:

"Of all the lesser commissions modeled at the time, the low reliefs, in especial were of importance, as they marked the real commencement of the series of medallions which he developed through his life until they became the one form of his art in which he considered himself a master. Yet none of the medallions he then modeled satisfied him to the extent of that of Bastien-Lepage, both because he believed the relief was as near perfection as he ever came, and because he was greatly interested in a rare combination of talent and vanity in his sitter. One example of this remains by me: my father's amusement in Lepage's often telling him not to draw the hands too large, the painter giving, as an excuse for his attitude, the reason that the hands were of small importance in comparison with the rest of the figure.

In another way, too, the medallion nearly led to further pleasure, as upon Lepage's showing his copy to the Princess of Wales, she immediately suggested that my father make the portrait of the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII. Unfortunately, my father could remain only a little longer in Europe, so the relief was never modeled."

To be continued

* The inscription located across the top of the medallion reads: "JULES.BASTIEN-LEPAGE. AETATIS.XXXI.PARIS.M.D.C.C.C.LXXX.AVGVSTVS. SAINT-GAUDENS. FECIT." which means "Jules Bastien-Lepage, aged 31, Paris, 1880. Augustus Saint-Gaudens made [this]."

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.) 

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Farragut Monument

"Admiral David Glasgow Farragut" by August Saint-Gaudens
Pedestal by Stanford White

"One day when I had occasion to see Governor Morgan, he said to me, after questioning me about some old sketches I had made: 'I think there is a statue of Admiral Farragut to be erected in New York. Do you know anything about it?' 'No." 'Go and see Cisco.' Mr. John J. Cisco was a banker very prominent in affairs at that time. I took Governor Morgan's advice and visited him. 'Yes,' said Mr. Cisco, 'we have eight thousand dollars for a statue for Farragut, but, before deciding to whom it is to go, we shall have to have a meeting.' A meeting followed in a few days, and the work had been awarded to me, but 'only by the skin of the teeth,' five of the committee having voted for giving the commission to a sculptor of high distinction, while six of them voted for me. Again another glorious day! 

I hired an enormous studio in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs in order to begin the large statue of Farragut. It was here that Stanford White came, and in that studio composed and made the studies for the pedestal of the Farragut monument, which he modified after his return to America. Not until the Farragut was at last ready to go to the bronze founder, did I leave this ballroom size studio to take a less ambitious one. I had the Farragut cast in Paris by a man named Gruet, but the first attempt failed, so that it needed to be done over. When it had been completed successfully we came back to New York, where I was destined to remain for seventeen years before returning to Europe, a period virtually launched by the unveiling of my statue in Madison Square upon the afternoon of the beautiful day in May, 1881.

These formal unveilings of monuments are impressive affairs and variations from the toughness that pervades a sculptor's life. For we constantly deal with practical problems, with molders, contractors, derricks, stone-men, ropes, builders, scaffoldings, marble assistants, bronze-men, trucks, rubbish men, plasterers and what-not else, all the while trying to soar into the blue. But if managed intelligently, there is a swing to unveilings, and the moment when the veil drops from the monument certainly makes up for many of the woes that go toward the creating of the work. 

On this special occasion, Mr. Joseph H. Choate delivered the oration The sailors who assisted added to the picturesqueness of the procession. The artillery placed in the part, back of the statue, was discharged. And when the figure in the shadow stood revealed, and the smoke rolled up into the sunlight upon the buildings behind it, the sight gave an impression of dignity and beauty that it would take a rare pen to describe."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.) 

* Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (1801-1870), began his military career at age nine. He served as a midshipman on the frigate Essex during the War of 1812, and led campaigns against Caribbean-based pirates during the 1820s. He later fought in the Mexican War. At the outset of the Civil War, Farragut’s Union sympathies compelled him to move from Virginia to Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. He won lasting fame by wresting New Orleans from Confederate control. Then, against all odds, his troops defeated Confederate forces to take Mobile Bay where he uttered the immortal words: “Damn the torpedoes. .. full speed ahead!" (Excerpt from: https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/madison-square-park/monuments/466)

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Back to the States

"Adoration of the Cross of Angels"
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

"At last, when my marbles were finished, I went back to America. I took a studio on the corner of Fourteenth Street and Fourth Avenue in New York, which still stands as I write. The first floor was occupied by the bank, the third contained rooms rented out to Odd Fellows Lodges for occasional meetings in the evening. There were but three floors and no elevator. I was the first tenant on the second floor. It became sad business going up an iron staircase alone, and walking across the big corridor to my room, my lonely steps echoing through the hall. I would turn on the water at the little wash basin, let it run continuously with a gentle tinkle, and thus recall the sound of the fountain in the garden at Rome.

Here were brought to me a couple of redheads who have been thoroughly mixed up in my life ever since. I speak of Stanford White and Charles F. McKim. White, who was studying with Richardson, had much to do with the designing of Trinity Church in Boston. He was drawn to me one day, as he ascended the German Savings Bank stairs, by hearing me bawl the 'Andante' of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, and 'The Serenade' from Mozart's 'Don Giovanni.' He was a great lover of music. McKim I met later on. A devouring love for ice cream brought us together.

One direct result of the various kinds of sculpture I executed at that time led to my association with Mr. John La Farge in the execution of the 'King' monument to go in the cemetery at Newport, Rhode Island. Part of the work I modeled in his studio in that town. It was absolutely his design, and possessed that singular grace, elevation, nobility, and distinction which is characteristic of what ever he has touched. I was the tool that modeled for him then, as I was subsequently in the painting I did for him as an assistant in his decoration of Trinity Church in Boston. Those again were great days, for he had with him at that time Mr. Francis Lathrop, Mr. Frank Millet, and Mr. George Maynard."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.)