Daniel Chester French: Italy and Thomas Ball

"While Dan French's father in Concord was looking after his boy's interests at home, the son over in Florence, where his good luck seemed to pursue him, was trying not to have too good a time. 'They all do everything they can to make me happy,' he wrote. 'They not only treat me like one of the family, but they take me about to see everything and everybody - such interesting people!'

He lived with Preston Powers' family [Dan's friend and son of sculptor Hiram Powers], and within a few days of his arrival, he and Mrs. Powers, a young girl of twenty or twenty-one, went out in search of a room which would be suitable for a studio. They found one quite near the Porta Romana, outside which dwelt the numerous families of Powers, and Mr. Thomas Ball, at that time the most distinguished American sculptor as well as a man of a most wonderful personality.

Mr. Ball's villa was a large brown structure, in the middle of Italian gardens, a coterie of the literati, the musicians, the artists from America and England, and from the neighboring Florence, delightful surroundings for a young man who had led such a quiet life in a small town in America. To the youth it seemed incredible that such good luck could have come to him. 

Mr. Ball wrote to Dan's father:

My dear Sir: You would like to know why I have done this thing. I would ask you why the hearts and homes of the entire neighborhood were thrown open to your son before he had been here a week? Why do all the mothers (five at least), if he happens to be unwell vie with each other in their endeavors to make him enjoy it? Why did I, when I went from curiosity, to see his 'Minute Man,' notwithstanding its surprising merit for a first work, find myself when I left the studio, thinking much more about the artist than the statue? And why did I go again and take my wife to see the artist?

As far as I am concerned, I will tell you, I recognized in his simple, ingenuous artist nature, something more than talent; something indispensable to a true artist. And when he came here and took a studio not far from me, but too far for me to see him as often as was good for him, I thought how, twenty years ago, I came here to make my first struggle, and how welcome was the face of dear old Powers whenever it brightened my door. 

And then I thought how nice it would be, when I was up to my elbows in clay, on a ladder 15 feet in the air, to have someone that I could call upon to receive my visitors; and I decided at once to give him a corner in my studio and invited him forthwith. I find it works well... and if he does not try my patience...he can stay as long as he pleases... Believe me, my dear sir, it will always give me pleasure to do anything in my power to advance the professional interests of your son. Very truly yours, Thomas Ball

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Memories of a Sculptor's Wife" by Mary Adams French.)

 

Daniel Chester French: The Minute Man

The "Minute Man" by Daniel Chester French

"The town of Concord had decided to erect a statue of a Minute Man on the battle-field by the 'rude bridge that arched the flood.' The Commission appropriated one thousand dollars, and had unofficially asked Dan French, at that time twenty-one, to make the statue. The tradition in the family is that he made a sketch and took it down to Mr. Emerson and Judge Hoar, upon whose recommendation it was immediately accepted.

Of course this commission was a serious thing for a youth whose only training had been one month in the studio of Mr. Ward in New York, some lessons in drawing with Dr. Rimmer in Brookline, a prize in the cattle show the year before, and some advice from Miss May Alcott. 'I wonder whether I can do it,' he wrote to someone. 'By this time next year I shall know.'

He made his models, the second and final one in a room in a business building in Boston, with a poor light. He still wonders how he was able to do it. There was no one except a stray sculptor at that time who knew anything about the mechanics of the trade, so he and his father went to work, and his practical mechanical instinct carried him through, though with various catastrophes. When his first model was finished, they got the plaster ready - the amount which someone had told him would be sufficient - made their mold, dissolved the plaster, stood the model on its head, and poured the plaster into it. There must have been a hole somewhere, underneath the hair perhaps, for all the plaster ran through the mold and out upon the floor - the last drop they had - so they had to wait for another day when they could renew their supply.

I don't remember whether it was the 'Minute Man' or whether it was a bust made about the same time which gave him great trouble as to the hair. They tried in every way to make it have a natural look, and finally his father said, 'Oh, take a brush and comb, and treat it the way you would treat hair, and I guess it will look like hair.' His struggles must have been of great interest and amusement to his family.

The statue was unveiled after Dan had gone to Italy for studies. His father wrote, 'A perfect spring morning. The sun is bright and the air still, and the bluebirds and robins are talking very busily about their nests... The old Minute Man does us credit... Everybody, great and small, is delighted. I confess to a great thrill at the sight of 'D.C. French' on the base!'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Memories of a Sculptor's Wife" by Mary Adams French.) 

 

 

Daniel Chester French: First Instruction

While still a teenager Daniel French
executed this bust of his father

"There was at that time in New England but little art but there was a love, as represented in old prints and engravings, a reverence for old furniture and for all inherited worth, that was at least appreciative. In Concord there was small need of money, small ambition for purely worldly success, and Dan French, with an absorbing interest in the worthwhile things of life, cared little, even at that period, for aught save to be left alone to work out his newly discovered vision of art.

His father wrote often for the magazines, was a man of literary attainments, and welcomed eagerly the first glimpse of anything like genius in his children. His family, who had probably never seen a sculptor in their lives, were amazed and interested, and his fellow townspeople immediately decided that something like a miracle had happened in their midst, that this young product of their beloved town was going to be the greatest sculptor of all ages.

But at that time there was no art school or art class in Boston, but he frequented the Athenaeum and studied the Greek casts there, modeled for a short time with J.Q.A. Ward in New York, and for a while in Boston with Dr. Rimmer, whose recognition as a sculptor, he always claimed, was not commensurate with his achievements. Rimmer was a very great draughtsman, and to him in after years Mr. French attributed the solid foundation of his work. Miss May Alcott, who had recently come back from her studies in Europe, did much to help him, both with her sympathy and with her tools. 

'Father talked to May Alcott about my newly developed interest in sculpture,' I have heard Dan tell many times in later life,' and she said, 'If he will come down to see me, I will lend him some tools.' I tell you I lost no time. I harnessed old Bucephalus, hurried down to the other end of the town, learned what I could in a short call, and brought a handful of tools back in triumph. One of these crude wooden implements I have always by me and am using it to this day.'" 

Some of Daniel French's sculpting tools

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Memories of a Sculptor's Wife" by Mary Adams French.) 

 

Daniel Chester French: An Introduction

Head of the "Lincoln" and Daniel Chester French

Daniel Chester French, the creator of the famous Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., was, at first, just one of Mary Adams French's cousins, but their lives were to become intertwined in the years to come, as he studied abroad and she grew into a young woman. This story is told in her book, "Memories of a Sculptor's Wife," which we shall take up at that point in their lives.

"When I was about sixteen, my cousin Dan came home from Europe and came with my young aunt Sarita to see me. I remember it perfectly, the first time I definitely remember him, in that square box of a convent parlor, the high room painted a gloomy brown, with horsehair furniture, and one entire side a square lattice, through which now and then a nun was permitted to talk to a friend. Dan was twenty-six, and, I thought, very handsome. It was romantic to tell to my school fellows of this new cousin, a sculptor - an unknown quantity in those days in Washington - who had lived abroad. He had just come back from his studies in Mr. [Thomas] Ball's studio in Florence, and spent the next two winters in Washington, where, though I saw him little, he brought a new and artistic touch into my life.

When I read of Raphael, 'whom the gods loved and whom women loved,' I have often thought that my artist was at least born with a golden spoon in his mouth. Of sturdy New England stock, a race of lawyers back of him, with an intellectual environment certainly unequaled in American life, Dan French seems never to have encountered the struggles of poverty and misunderstanding which have been considered - which he theoretically considered - as necessary to the development of genius.

His father was a judge, his two grandfathers were lawyers - one of them Chief Justice of the State of New Hampshire - while his life, during the most crucial years, was spent amid the 'high thinking and plain living' of Old Concord.

It was a simple and interesting life when I came to know it a few years later, but just before that time, while he was growing up, while his first statue, the 'Minute Man,' was coming into life, and during his two years in Italy in the studio of Mr. Ball, it must have been filled with an atmosphere of high purpose that was unusual as well as of great intellectual interest."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Memories of a Sculptor's Wife" by Mary Adams French.)  

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Curtain Drawn

Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial

 Concerning Augustus Saint-Gaudens' completion of the Albright Caryatids, Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "With that commission my father's work came to its end, closed while he was making almost superhuman efforts to keep active despite the progress of his illness. In that commission he gave his strongest indication of what his future work would have been, work notably of a monumental character he had never before attained. His sickness brought only feebleness of hand, none of mind. To the last his vision grew even fuller and deeper.

A few days before his death which came on August third, 1907, he lay watching a sunset behind Mount Ascutney, from 'Aspet,' the spot which years before had seemed to him restful and far away. He spoke out of a long silence, 'It's very beautiful,' he said, 'but I want to go farther away.'"

His obituary in "The New York Times" on August 8, 1907 read:

"Attended by artists of note from many parts of the East, the funeral services over the ashes of Augustus Saint-Gaudens were held late today in the small studio near the late sculptor's hom, 'Aspet.' The services were conducted by the Rev. O.B. Emerson, a retired Unitarian clergyman of Cambridge, Mass., while tributes to the life work of the deceased were paid by Kenyon Cox, the artist, and Precy Mackaye, the playwright. Arthur B. Whiting of Boston, presided at the organ, playing a number of selections throughout the service. 

Besides Mrs. Saint-Gaudens and her son, Homer, the relatives present included Miss Marie Saint-Gaudens of New York, a niece; Louis Saint-Gaudens of Plainfield, a brother; Dr. Arthur H. Nichols and wife of Boston, Joseph Homer of Brookline, Mass., and Mrs. O.B. Emerson of Cambridge.

The Summer colony of artists about Cornish was represented by Joseph Earle Frasier, John Flanagan, Mr. Keeck, and Adolph Weinman of New York, and Herbert Adams of Plainfield.

The ashes were interred in Ascutney Cemetery at Windsor, Vt., in a lot near that of Senator Evarts." 

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

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Brooks

"Rev. Phillips Brooks" monument
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote of Augustus Saint-Gaudens' monument to Rev. Phillips Brooks, a respected and beloved Anglican clergyman and author of "O Little Town of Bethlehem":

"Indeed there were few objects in his later years that my father 'caressed' as long as he did this figure. He selected and cast aside. He shifted folds of the gown back and forth. He juggled with the wrinkles of the trousers, which invariably obstructed the development far more than their final interest justified. He moved the fingers and the tilt of the right hand into a variety of gestures. He raised and lowered the chin of this long-studied portrait until finally he left it lowered, since he considered the angle of the head a question of art and not of fact, and since he felt that he expressed more definitely the magnetism of the preacher by having him appear to talk directly at the visitor. He shifted the left hand first from the chest to a position where it held an open Bible, and last to the lectern; because, although the lectern has aroused argument as not being the point from which Brooks spoke, it was vitally necessary for the composition.

The process certainly brought my father pleasure. As long as he could stand and model for himself, he resumed his former habit of singing airs from old Italian operas and of whistling as he worked, after the fashion of the days in Rome and later in the New York Thirty-sixth Street studio. 

When he first turned seriously to the character of the figure behind Brooks, he designed sketches of fully thirty angels. But after coming to work in Cornish he received the suggestion that he substitute a Christ for the angel he had planned. The conception appealed to him more because of what he might develop in the composition and because of the fitness of the subject than from any desire on his part to portray an idea of the character of Christ. However, as was his custom, he sought a biography, and on being handed Renan's 'Life of Christ,' read it eagerly. Next he procured Tissot's 'Life of Christ.' After that, the story has it, he went to his friend, Mr. Henry Adams, explained what he had been doing and asked for another book on the subject. Whereat Mr. Adams promptly suggested one called the Bible.

From that time Saint-Gaudens began to express a genuine faith in his conception of the physical image of Christ as a man, tender yet firm, suffering yet strong. He wrote to Tissot on the subject:

'I am making a statue of Christ and turn to you as the highest authority in anything pertaining to Him. I would be most grateful if you could give me some information with regard to the shape and size of the garments He wore; details of arrangement I cannot get by simply studying the illustrations in your extraordinary work which I have the good fortune to possess. Will you excuse me if I take this opportunity to express the profound admiration I have felt for your art for a long time, beginning with the etchings of 'The Prodigal Son' which I saw years ago at Knoedler's in New York. Your sincerity and devotion have been a great incentive and inspiration to me.' 

The head of the Christ was one of the last two pieces of sculpture that he actually touched with his hands, and as it stood alone he felt most happy over the result. However, when the bust had been placed upon the figure he believed it too abstract and too remote...and wished the head draped and in shadow. Accordingly, he set upon the problem an assistant, Miss Frances Grimes, who, under his direction, modified the features until at last he undoubtedly gained what he sought because, toward the end of the commission, and of his life, he said more than once: 'There, it's all right now; all right now!'" 

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 Albright Caryatids

Augustus Saint-Gaudens' caryatids for 
the Albright Art Gallery, now the Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "The Albright Caryatids* strongly held my father's attention since he appreciated the rich worth of the architecture he was adorning. For such a building, bearing to him a strong note of Greece, he wished to create his caryatids as large, reposeful women, in no way personal and to some extent archaic. Short portions of letters which he wrote to Mr. Albright on the subject show his feelings toward them as well as the manner in which, from his first commission to his last, he ruminated over his tasks before ever he touched his hands to clay. He writes:

'The scheme is a most alluring one, admitting of infinite possibilities as regards treatment. I have thought of making twelve different figures, but this would be a formidable undertaking; besides, it seems to me now that it would not be necessary. I think that the system adopted at the Erechtheum, [an ancient Greet temple on the Acropolis at Athens], would be the best here, and to have two, three, or four different models of which the other figures would be replicas, modifications being made in each of the other eight, nine, or ten figures, in the folds of the drapery, some detail or accessory.'

Again:

'This doing something to recall the Erechtheum is what perhaps frightens me more than anything I have done in my life. It seems so presumptuous. However, we shall see.'

And again, much later:

'They have made good progress, I suppose on account of the years of thought, and the year of preliminary studies devoted to them before the actual large size figures were begun a year or so ago. It's not the finer but the brain-work that takes the time; and I knew what I wanted to do and have done it, in fact more than I proposed, as I have made three different heads instead of two.'

At last he decided that he would place palms in the hands of the end caryatids, while by the middle ones he should denote Architecture, Sculpture, Painting and Music. At the outset he studied the figure of Painting with detailed care, as all the others were to be variations upon it. For example he had cast a heavy plaster cap, under which the living model could pose for only a moment, though during that moment he could see her head at an angle which banished the hated 'stuck out chin.' His general scheme of drapery he drew from the decorative figures on a terra cotta Etruscan altar, but he developed those compositions mostly through deliberate and original thought, partially through accident. One morning, for instance, showing pleasure when he found that the garments had happened to be cut off in a way that cast a straight, dark line across the feet."

These final works of Augustus Saint-Gaudens were first displayed in 1921 at the museum as part of an exhibition of works from the Albright collection, but it was not until 1935 that all of them were permanently installed on the east facade of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Buffalo, New York. 

To be continued

* A caryatid is a sculpted female figure used as an architectural support to hold up a roff or cornice.)

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