860 AUGUSTUS SAINT GAUDENS. 



art that he loved and revered. Critical and suspicious of his own 

 work, proving and trying every experiment by which an^^ improve- 

 ment might be gained, entirely regardless of the time expended, his 

 successes were achieved by infinite patience and travail. This 

 thoroughness and conscientiousness had a marked effect upon his 

 contemporaries, and the example that he set by them and by his 

 absolute fidelity to his ideals of perfection, by his sincerity and his 

 impatience with sham and affectation, and, finally, by the superlative 

 excellence of the works themselves, was felt not only by his associates, 

 but wherever art was practiced in the land. 



Besides the general influence of his finished productions, he had a 

 more direct, if less extensive, influence through the sacrifice of time 

 and strength that he made in teaching modeling both in his own 

 studio and in the art schools in New York. His connection with the 

 World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 afforded another opportunity through 

 which his influence upon the art and artists of the country was widely 

 extended. He was one of the committee which conceived the splendid 

 plan of the Exposition and was the principal advisor for the sculptural 

 decoration of the grounds, aiding incalculably the impetus that was 

 given to art in general and to sculpture in particular by this great 

 object lesson. It was in Chicago that the movement was inaugurated 

 by McKim and seconded by Saint Gaudens that led to the founding 

 of The American Academy in Rome. Even more important was the 

 service that he rendered to the Nation as a member of the Commission, 

 appointed by Congress, which made the comprehensi\'e plan for the 

 development of the City of Washington, now being carried out. 



Of "Honors" Saint Gaudens naturally had many. The Degree of 

 LL.D. from Harvard, Yale and Princeton, his election as an Officer 

 of the Legion of Honor of France and as Corresponding Member of 

 the Socicfc des Beaux Arts in 1899, and his election as a member of the 

 Royal Academy of London in 1906 were among the most important. 

 Many medals came to him, also. 



An urbanite from infancy, it was not till he was nearly forty years 

 old that he discovered the country. In 1885 he began spending his 

 summers in Cornish, N. H. where he later acquired a home and lands 

 among the hills, and practiced, with the delight of a novice, the pas- 

 times of skating and swimniing, of tennis and golf, of which he had 

 been defrauded in his childhood. His position as a sculptor, and the 

 fascinating qualities of mind and heart that endeared him to all who 

 came near him, attracted to him many distinguished artists and 

 literary people who, with their disciples and families, made up the 



