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.)