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.) 

 

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: United States Coin Designs

Ten Dollar Gold Coins by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Twenty Dollar Gold Coins by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

"After the erection of the new studio on the spot where the old one had burned, my father turned not only to the reconstruction of the statues which he had lost, but before long to a monument to Marcus A. Hanna, memorials to Christopher Lyman Magee and James MacNeill Whistler, the Caryatids for the Albright Art Gallery, the United States coins, and other commissions.

The scheme for the United States coins - the cent, the eagle, and the double eagle - also originated about this time at a dinner with President Roosevelt in the winter of 1905. There they both grew enthusiastic over the old high-relief Greek coins, until the President declared that he would have the mint stamp a modern version of such coins in spite of itself if my father would design them, adding with his customary vehemence, 'You know, Saint-Gaudens, this is my pet crime.' Saint-Gaudens wrote Roosevelt, 'The making of these designs is a great pleasure, but the job is even more serious than I anticipated. You may not recall that I told you I was 'scared blue' at the thought of doing that; now that I have the opportunity, the responsibility looms up like a spectre.'

He first purposed to model the cent with a flying eagle, the formal lettering treated in a new fashion, and to execute for the gold coins a full-length figure of Liberty mounting a rock, with a shield in her left hand and a lighted torch in her right, backed by a semi-conventional eagle, with wings half-closed. For one reason and another, however, the scheme proved impracticable. So after months of confusion, he settled that the one cent would exhibit a profile head and the lettering; that the ten-dollar gold piece should carry the same head, with the inscriptions shifted, and the standing eagle; and that the twenty-dollar gold piece should exhibit the full-length figure of Liberty, without wings or shield, and the flying eagle.

To accomplish this result, my father altered and realtered the coins for a year and a half. The flying eagle he developed from the bird on the 1857 'White Cent.' In all, he created seventy models of this bird, and often stood twenty-five of them in a row for visitors to number according to preference.

The profile head he modeled in relief from the favorite, but superseded but of the Sherman 'Victory,' adding feathers only upon the President's emphatic suggestion. 

Finally he attached the difficult problem of the inscriptions by placing upon the previously milled edge of the coin, in one case, the forty-six stars and, in the other, the thirteen stars with the 'E Pluribus Unum.' The motto 'In God We Trust,' as an inartistic intrusion not required by law, he wholly discarded and thereby drew down upon himself the lightning of public comment. It is interesting to discover in regard to this that Secretary Salmon P. Chase received quite as severe a censure for placing the words upon this coin as was aroused by their removal." 

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 Seated Lincoln

"Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State"
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "The larger productions of the years which followed, began with a second Lincoln for Chicago, Illinois, wherein my father realized his long-cherished hope of returning to one of his earlier commissions and of developing it again according to his later ideas. It is interesting to record that he nearly lost this opportunity, however, through that very absorption in his work which had placed him where he stood. 

As in the case of the first Lincoln monument, so with the second, the Committee asked him to enter a competition, which, of course, he refused to do, and then came again with a direct offer. Near the time of this second visit, about noon of a Sunday morning, my mother went to the studio where my father was working alone. On a large board was written: 'Lincoln Committee, Century Club, ten o-clock.'

'Have you see them?' asked my mother. 'Great Scott! No!' cried my father, staring at the board. He had forgotten his appointment, engrossed in his task. At once my mother hurried to the Century Club to inquire about what had happened. Alas! Here she found only a note saying they had waited an hour in vain. From the Club, she went to the hotel where she met Mr. Norman Williams and another member of the Committee who intimated that any man so oblivious to punctuality should not be entrusted with the monument. Nevertheless, she succeeded in setting matters straight.

So now, Saint-Gaudens began the project. He set his mind this time upon Lincoln the head of state, rather than Lincoln the man, as in his earlier monument. Accordingly, to reach his solution of combining the personal with the national, he shifted the three four-foot models of the statue back and forth over seats of countless shapes and sizes; he added thereto the flag of the United States. 

While the statue progressed, Saint-Gaudens' answers to a number of questions which arose concerning it clearly revealed how he never hesitated to tread on the toes of Nature if forced thereto in the process of gaining the effects of Nature. As in the standing Lincoln he had lengthened the body a trifle at the waist, so here he slightly elongated Lincoln's legs from the knee down, to guard against the foreshortening by the low point of view of the visitor. On the other hand, he spared no pains to obtain correct materials for costume and figure. He even asked Mr. John Bixby, who posed for the statue, to wander among the farmers dressed in black broadcloth of the cut of Lincoln's time, that he might wear the proper wrinkles in the suit."

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Advice to Artists

"Sherman Monument"
(detail of wing overlapping trousers)

"Sherman Monument"
(detail of coat overlapping hand and hat)

Augustus Saint-Gaudens said: "If you have modeled your best sculpture in the small, you should have accomplished your best results for your work when it is made big. Your subject should contain both the detail required upon close inspection, and the breadth that makes it tell at a distance." 

Homer Saint Gaudens added: "This need for carrying power he constantly dwelt upon in his modeling. I remember that one day as he watched four or five assistants engaged on various portions of the Sherman, he broke the silence with: 'I am going to invent a machine to make you all good sculptors.' 

The stillness promptly became uneasy. 

'It will have hooks for the back of your necks and strong springs.' 

The stillness grew even more uneasy. 

'Every thirty seconds it will jerk you fifty feet away from your work, and hold you there for five minutes contemplation!'"

He also disliked objects wholly analyzed, since he believed that the unreserved is the uninteresting. Accordingly, he experimented with Sherman's lowered right hand and hat until he had drawn across it a bit of the coat; and in the same way he satisfied himself by lapping the Victory's wing over Sherman's left leg."

To be continued

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

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: In Favor of Academic Training

"Portrait of Homer Schiff
Saint-Gaudens" by
Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "As one earnest of his enthusiasm [for the establishment of an American Academy in Rome] my father delivered two speeches. The task was ever fraught with much agony to his modest nature. But here he felt the cause too high and his own opinions too vital to hesitate on grounds of personal comfort. Therefore, early in its progress, he said in Washington:

"I have been asked to express my ideas concerning the Roman Academy. What I have to say can be said in few words and I take pleasure in so doing... because I am of the firm conviction that an institution, such as that, is an admirable one. My reason for thinking it admirable, is my belief that the strenuous competition required to gain access to the Village Medici, as well as the four years of study in that wonderful spot, tend to a more earnest and thorough training than could elsewhere be gained under the present conditions of life in our times.

In the repeated attacks that are made on the Roman Academy and on the Ecole des Beaux Arts and in the incessant cry for greater freedom in the development of the artistic mind, there is a certain amount of truth. But in such reaction the pendulum swings too far and the real question is lost sight of. There is a middle ground on which to stand. It seems to be rarely realized that the very men who are shown as examples against the schools were, if not actually brought up in the School of Rome, all men of thorough academic training. Only after such training does the mind become sufficiently mature and the individual personality so developed as to be able to indulge in unqualified freedom and liberty of expression.

Rodin, one of the leaders of the movement against Academic education, had a thorough and arduous training during the early years of his career, and I am of the opinion that that training instead of dwarfing or minimizing his extreme power of expression, has been of enormous assistance to it. Leaving out of the question the exhaustive early study of the great masters of the past, Michelangelo and others, and coming to our own times, to the brilliant men of the French school, we find that all have had the same early experience. Paul Dubois, one of the masters of French Art - although not a member of the Villa Medici - had a training fully equal to that which could be gained there, and is one of its strongest supporters. Houdon, Rude, Falguière, men whose work lives and breathes with divine fire, were trained there. Puvis de Chavannes and Baudry, to enter another domain, I may add to my list. It is needless to say that none of these were injured by it...

Four years of undistracted attention, devoid of pecuniary worries and surrounded by a sympathetic environment where the whole thought is directed to the highest artistic achievement possible in the formative years of a young man's life, can be anything but an enormous assistance and of vital importance to the few who have the divine gift. If it were but one in a century who was helped in this way, the institution would be worthwhile.

When this is accomplished there is nothing I shall be more proud to have my children's children associate me with than the achievement of this work." 

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 American Academy at Rome

The Interior of the Villa Mirafiori (The American 
Academy at Rome), 1910

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "It must not be thought that my father spent his whole time in Cornish. On the contrary, both his work and his outside interests frequently took him elsewhere. These interests were many and scattered, and he fled to them as a relief from his own troubles. He had to do, for instance, with the regulation of American Sculpture Competitions, the founding of an American School of Fine Arts in Rome, and the beautifying of the National Capitol in Washington.

Let me turn now to the American Academy at Rome, in which, as I have said, my father took a major interest. Its object is to provide for American students of the Fine Arts who already have laid at home a firm foundation for their work, much the same advanced instruction as the French Government offers in the Villa Medici. That this school might be firmly established with an endowment of one million dollars, my father lent his strongest aid, since he had never forgotten the poignant charm and deep inspiration of his life and work in the Eternal City. 

His first efforts began in company with a number of other artists who were working in the Chicago World's Fair, where, in short order, through their enthusiasm, the movement was set on foot. For some time their endeavors had poor success, despite the fact that, lacking an endowment, the friends of the undertaking used their own resources, and devoted art scholarships such as the Rinehart and Lazarus funds to support the pupils. At last, however, an exhibition of the work in the School, held in 1904, proved so satisfactory that Mr. Charles F. McKim and Saint-Gaudens set about taking advantage of the interest aroused, by soliciting subscriptions.

They were soon generously aided by Mr. Henry Walters of Baltimore, who, besides purchasing the Villa Mirafiori as a home for the Academy, presented them with one hundred thousand dollars to start an endowment fund. This lead was quickly followed by Mr. J.P. Morgan, Mr. William K. Vanderbilt, Harvard University through Mr. Henry L. Higginson, and Mr. James Stillman, each of whom, by giving one hundred thousand dollars brought the sum up to the five hundred thousand dollar point from which the rest of the endowment was obtained with comparative ease."

Tomorrow we'll hear from Augustus Saint-Gaudens himself on the benefits he saw in establishing the Academy.

To be continued

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