Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Critiques

A.P. Proctor standing with his
Theodore Roosevelt sculpture

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "A number of young men made themselves known in the last five years of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, men such as A.P. Proctor, James E. Fraser, H.A. MacNeill, Adolph Weinman and Albert Jaegers. At the date of my father's death his interest in them was probably as vital as in any other members of his craft, because in them, he believed, lay the immediate future of American sculpture. Here are three letters he wrote concerning them. [They also speak to us of those qualities in art he admired.]

The first he sent to his brother, Louis Saint-Gaudens, concerning the latter's figures for the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Washington: 'I wrote a line or two on your ensemble drawing the other day, but as I was feeling miserably I said as little as possible and failed to tell you how well the thing looked as a whole, how the figures carried together harmoniously and yet were diversified... There is no doubt that the work cannot be too direct, that large simple lines and planes with strong dark shadows are the essentials.'

The next letter was to Mr. A.P. Proctor, for a long time my father's assistant: 'I return to you today the sketch of the lion... I think it is excellent as all your work is. I only feel that for architectural work it should be more in planes, more formal... You will forgive me for speaking just as frankly as I always have about your work, and as I wish people to do with me. I think you have not insisted enough on the nobility and force and power of the mane of the lion...The head does not bear the importance to the rest of the body - the overpowering importance that one generally feels with a lion...'

In the following letter my father speaks of Mr. Albert Jaegers, a younger sculptor in whom he took an unusually deep interest: 'I may have been prejudiced in the character of Jaeger's work but it appealed to me in a singular way and it really taught me a lesson in my own work. I certainly wish that I could have done that figure in its dignity, directness, and simplicity. I think also that the poetry of the groups on the side is very fine.'

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Time to Return

"The Children of Jacob H. Schiff"
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Homer Saint-Gaudens summarized his father's time abroad by saying: "His three-year sojourn in Europe had been made chiefly that he might compare his work with what was being created on the other side of the Atlantic. The trip, however, was valuable to him not only for this, but as well because, on his return, he found himself able to look upon American art with a fresh eye and to see therein qualities which would compare honorably with those of any other art then being created in any land."

Augustus Saint-Gaudens wrote: "This Paris experience, as far as my art goes, has been a great thing for me. I never felt sure of myself before, I groped ahead. All blindness seems to have been washed away. I see my place clearly now; I know, or think I know, just where I stand. A great self-confidence has come over me, and a tremendous desire and will to achieve high things, with a confidence that I shall, has taken possession of me.

I exhibited at the Champ-de-Mars and the papers have spoken well, and it seems as if I were having what they call a 'success' here. I send you some of the extracts from several of the principal artistic papers here... Four of these have asked permission to reproduce my work..."

"But coming here has been a wonderful experience, surprising in many respects, one of them being to find how much of an American I am. I always thought I was a kind of a cosmopolitan, gelatinous fish that belonged here, there, and anywhere. 'Pas du tout, [not at all]," I belong in America, that is my home, that is where I want to be and to remain, with the Elevated Road dropping oil and ashes on the idiot below, the cable cars, the telegraph poles, the skyline, and all that have become dear to me; to say nothing of attractive friends, the scenery, the smell of the earth - the peculiar smell of America, just as peculiar as the smell of Italy or France - and the days like today." It was time to return to Cornish.

To be continued

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

 

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Paul Dubois

"Jeanne d'Arc" by Paul Dubois

"Among the other men of my acquaintance at that time there stand out most vividly Paul Dubois and Auguste Rodin. Paul Dubois held a higher place in my esteem than any of the others, for his 'Joan of Arc' is, to my thinking, one of the greatest statues in the world. I know of but one or two that I would rank higher. For elevation, distinction, and nervousness of style it is extraordinary. It is one of the works that makes a man wish to strive higher and higher, and to criticize his own results to a degree which would not be possible if Dubois and his productions did not exist.

Though a man of rather austere countenance, Dubois had a kindliness underneath, and the 'young eye' which a French friend of mine said was the distinctive quality of an artist's face. I came in personal contact with him only between 1898 and 1900, when I saw him at his studio, and he was good enough to invite me to dine at his house. He was amiability and kindness itself, and that is saying a great deal when one considers the continued and constant calls that were made on him by young men, his admirers. 

At that time he had begun his sketch for a great monument to the Franco-Prussian War. His work meant the modeling of many figures, and, although seventy-two years old, he said to me, 'You see, I expect to live forever.' He had the groups set up in his studio, and I was particularly taken by the kindness with which he asked me if I would really tell him what I thought of his sculpture.

I remember the time when he told me with amused irony of his experiences with the Committee concerning the statue of Joan of Arc. This had cost him, outside of what he had received, thirty thousand, or fifty thousand francs, I forget which, probably the latter, yet the Committee acted with him as if he had been trying to deceive them. This is a common experience, but to think that it occurred with him, and that, despite all his labor and toil and the extraordinary beauty of his creation, he should submit to experiences of that kind, shows us how we are all, big and little, in the same box."

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Reminiscences of Whistler

"Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: 
Portrait of Thomas Carlyle" by Whistler

"Not long after my arrival in Paris, MacMonnies, who was quite intimate with Whistler, brought us together. So from that day, more and more frequently as time went on, Whistler would come to my studio at dusk on his way home from work. And in my studio he would sit and chat in his extraordinary, witty fashion. He was certainly a remarkable man. If he liked you at all, he would take you at once into his confidence in a most attractive manner, telling his adventures and stories with a verve and wit that are indescribable. 

At times, he, MacMonnies, and I, and occasionally an old French friend of Whistler's student days, dined at Foyot's, opposite the Luxembourg; and a dull moment was impossible with his extraordinary character descriptions of people and his biting irony. We formed a strange, lantern-jawed trio, he, MacMonnies, and I; he dark, MacMonnies blonde and curly, and I red, where time had left the original color. 

He was small, but lithe and thin and active. His studio, at the top of a long flight of stairs, was very high; and his paintings, which were numberless and which he was chary of showing, were piled in stacks against the wall. 

The following incident describes what I think an interesting side of Whistler's character. I was crossing the Pont des Saints Pères in a cab and he was walking in the same direction. As I overtook him I called, and he jumped in and sat alongside of me. On that day I was experiencing a sense of elation which comes to every artists, and when he asked, 'Well, Saint-Gaudens, how are you? I replied that I had just stuck up one of things in the exhibition and that I was feeling somewhat cocky about it.

'That's the way to feel!' he suddenly exclaimed. 'That's the way! If you ever feel otherwise, never admit it. Never admit it!' It seems to me that this reveals something of the quality of the man, the bravery of his attitude toward life. One had but to see his portrait of his mother, his 'Carlyle,' 'Piano,' and one or two other canvases, to realize that, though covered by his extraordinary wit, there was in his nature a deep substratum of true feeling.'"

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: J.S. Sargent, Pt. 2

"Portrait of a Boy (Homer Saint-Gaudens
and His Mother)"by J.S. Sargent

"During their many years of friendship, Sargent and Saint-Gaudens also offered each other advice and encouragement on commissions, especially when Sargent embarked on the production of sculpture. When Saint-Gaudens moved to Paris in 1897, he was consulted on the enlargement and patination of Sargent's relief decorations for the ambitious mural cycle on the development of Western religious thought (1890–1916) for the Boston Public Library. He reported to Rose Nichols in 1899 that Sargent had visited him in Paris: "He came to see me about the enlargement of his crucifixion for the Boston Library. It is in sculpture…. He has done a masterpiece".

Saint-Gaudens even dispatched his trusted caster Gaeton Ardisson to London to assist Sargent with a nine-foot crucifixion in gilded and painted plaster for the library's Dogma of the Redemption mural. Sargent also relied on Saint-Gaudens to oversee the casting of several reduced bronze casts in Paris, one of which he requested that the sculptor keep for himself as a token of gratitude.

Saint-Gaudens died in 1907 in Cornish, New Hampshire, where in 1919 Augusta and Homer Saint-Gaudens established a museum known as the Saint-Gaudens Memorial. In 1964, the Memorial transferred the property and contents to the National Park Service; it is now operated as the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. Among the earliest Memorial trustees was Sargent: he was on the board from 1922 until his death three years later, for a time holding the position of first vice president. Thus Sargent's final tribute to Saint-Gaudens was a posthumous, but tangible, act of friendship.

And what became of Homer Saint-Gaudens and his painting? After working in journalism and theater, Homer served as director of the Department of Fine Arts of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh from 1922 to 1950. Sargent's painting hung in the dining room in Aspet, the Saint-Gaudens family home in Cornish, until 1907; Homer Saint-Gaudens sold it to the Carnegie in 1932 after it had been on loan there for many years."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Sargent and Saint-Gaudens" by Thayer Tolles, the Marica F. Vilcek Curator of American Painting and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: J.S. Sargent

"Violet Sargent," 50"x 34" 
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

After reading a brief comment on Saint-Gaudens' friendship with John Singer Sargent, I wished to know more, and was excited to find this excellent article by Thayer Tolles on that very subject on The Met website:

"Augustus Saint-Gaudens's esteem for John Singer Sargent is captured in an 1899 letter that he wrote to his niece Rose Nichols: 'He is a big fellow and, what is, I'm inclined to think, a great deal more, a good fellow.' Both men had a gift for friendship and shared many mutual friends and sitters including William Merritt Chase, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Ellen Terry. 

Sargent and Saint-Gaudens's own bond spanned decades, covering ground from Paris and London to New York and Boston. The two artists met in Paris in late 1877 or early 1878 while occupying nearby studios on the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. The two men regularly attended social gatherings at Frank Millet's Montmartre studio, a locus for American artists living in Paris who assembled as the cryptically named Stomach Club.

Sargent and Saint-Gaudens maintained their friendship over three decades as they both rose to the top of their careers and spent time on both sides of the Atlantic. On several occasions, they exchanged works of art as friendship tokens. First, they traded a cast of Saint-Gaudens's low-relief portrait of Jules Bastien-Lepage for Sargent's watercolor of a female figure from a visit to Capri in 1878. The location of Sargent's Bastien-Lepage cast is unknown, while the watercolor burned in a disastrous fire in Saint-Gaudens' Cornish, New Hampshire, studio in 1904, as did most of Sargent's letters to the sculptor. 

In 1890, when Sargent was on an extended visit to the United States, the two artists again exchanged artwork, this time on a more ambitious scale. It was then that Sargent completed his painting of Homer and Augusta Saint-Gaudens, with seven sittings taking place in his temporary studio at Madison Avenue and 23rd Street in New York. In return, Saint-Gaudens executed a bas-relief of Sargent's younger sister Violet, with Sargent ordering bronze and marble replicas. 

Saint-Gaudens first met Violet Sargent in February 1890 at William Merritt Chase's New York studio during a performance of the legendary Spanish dancer Carmencita. Said to be captivated by Violet's profile, Saint-Gaudens arranged to model her likeness. The genial, honest nature of their friendship is suggested in a letter that Sargent wrote Saint-Gaudens as to the most winning pose for his sister:

'I have a sort of feeling that, given my sister's head, I should rather have a rond-bon [high relief]—even ever so slight, than a bas [low]- relief…. However you know best and I am sure you will do something charming in any case and I will admire it tremendously…. At any rate pardon my silly interference. I am surprised at myself for behaving just like the worst bourgeois.'

In the end, Saint-Gaudens ignored Sargent's 'bourgeois' recommendations and completed a full-length low-relief portrait in which Violet is seated and playing a guitar."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Sargent and Saint-Gaudens" by Thayer Tolles, the Marica F. Vilcek Curator of American Painting and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

 

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Honors in France

"Amor Caritas" at the Luxembourg
Museum by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "Allied with work on the Stevenson came work on the other medallions, the 'Angel with the Tablet,' and the reduced bas-reliefs, which, together with the larger work in two exhibitions, had much to do with the French Government's creating my father an Officer of The Legion of Honor, with their making him a Corresponding Member of the Société des Beaux Arts, and with their offering to purchase certain of his bronzes for the Luxembourg Museum - in particular the 'Angel with the Tablet'.

What led my father to consider altering once more the ideal figure which he had developed from the Morgan tomb angel into the Smith tomb form, was that John S. Sargent had become interested in the composition of the Smith tomb figure and had desired to make a painting of it. Therefore, since my father had the greatest admiration for Sargent, he began to believe in a piece of his own work that could be paid so high a compliment. Also realizing that the most skillful sculptors in the world would see it in bronze, my father felt it needful to give his attention to each and every detail. As a result, though he made only the fewest changes in the general composition, he modeled the wings in a more formal fashion and simplified the drapery with the greatest care. Indeed this process of conventionalization went even to the inscription, where the pains he took to substitute the present result shows anew his anxiety over even the smallest trifles. 

It is pleasant to remember that the composition achieved such a success in the large that my father decided to reduce it to the small size now so frequently seen. He often announced his intention of producing this reduced figure in marble inlaid with gold and ivory and precious stones. Unfortunately he never found the time or the proper occasion.  

In a letter Augustus Saint-Gaudens explained:

'Since my last letter I have seen the Director of the Luxembourg. It is now settled that the Government is to purchase the 'Angel with the Tablet,' for which I will ask them a nominal sum, as I wished it clearly understood that it was solicited and bought, not offered by me to them. They said that Burne-Jones had given them a painting when they asked to purchase one for a small sum, as he felt the honor of being solicited. I said, 'That's the way I feel, too, and I would do likewise, but I do not wish to have it thought in France that I offered my work to museums.' 

Yesterday the gentleman, a government official, who was the intermediary between the Director and me in the affair at first, came to tell me that my name had been inscribed for the Legion of Honor, and that, if it were not officially put through in January, it would be in the spring certainly. He also took me to see two of the most distinguished of the new men here, and I have been loaded down with praise and attention by him and them; all of which is very pleasant, 'n'est-ce pas?'" 

To be continued

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