314 



FINE ARTS. 



charge of neglect of aesthetic culture so fre- 

 quently brought against them. It would be too 

 much to expect that any considerable number 

 of the many public statues, monuments, or 

 other forms of memorial or purely ornamental 

 art, recently completed or still in pogress, 

 should stand the test of severe criticism, but 

 the desire to possess them indicates an increas- 

 ing interest in art in the abstract, which in time 

 may ripen into enlightened discernment, and 

 which will induce the critic to overlook their 

 shortcomings. It is worthy of mention also, 

 that within the last few years sculpture in 

 America has sought, more than painting, to 

 identify itself with popular impulses, to sym- 

 bolize thought and feeling, and to illustrate the 

 active life of the nation. It has, in a measure, 

 become the exponent of our recent history, while 

 painting has been but slightly influenced by the 

 ideas of patriotism, devotion, or unity, which 

 the civil war evolved. Whether this tendency 

 is destined to be of a merely temporary charac- 

 ter, or whether it will develop a national school 

 of sculpture, it would be premature to inquire ; 

 but that it will produce a healthy reaction 

 against the pseudo-classicism, and the academic 

 conventionalisms which have so long controlled 

 the^practice of th^ art, can scarcely be doubted. 

 It is safe to assert that the influences which 

 could induce a sculptor to model the figure of 

 "Washington in the costume of a Roman sena- 

 tor will have little weight with the men who 

 are to produce the statues of our present gener- 

 ation of great men. The city of New York, 

 which has gained an honorable preeminence as 

 the chief seat of painting in the United States, 

 is less distinguished for its encouragement of 

 plastic art. But a single statue, that of Wash- 

 ington, by II. K. Brown, as yet adorns its 

 streets or squares, and to this solitary specimen 

 no addition seems at present likely to be made. 

 In the embellishment, however, of the Central 

 Park, which is destined at no very remote day 

 to become the field for the display of signal ar- 

 tistic triumphs, something has been done, and 

 much is promised to be done, which will help 

 to compensate for the poverty of the rest of the 

 city in public monuments. The building with- 

 in this enclosure, formerly used as an arsenal, 

 has recently been appropriated for the recep- 

 tion of gifts of statuary or other works of art, 

 and will doubtless in time assume the propor- 

 tions of a museum. At present it contains an 

 invaluable collection of eighty-seven casts in 

 plaster of works by Crawford, presented by his 

 widow. Among these are thirty-five statues, 

 including his Orpheus, America, Patrick Henry, 

 Jefferson, and Beethoven, and twenty-two bas- 

 reliefs. The remaining casts are designated as 

 sketches. In addition to these the Park pos- 

 sesses a statue of Flora, in marble, by Crawford ; 

 statues, in bronze, of Eve and Commerce, a 

 colossal bust of Schiller, and some small groups 

 in bronze. The bronze cast of Ward's " Indian 

 Hunter," destined for tie Park, will be sent to 

 the French Exposition of 1867 for exhibition 



before being set up in its final resting-placo, 

 and the Shakespeare monument has advanced 

 no further than the foundation, laid some years 

 ago. The gateways for the four southern en- 

 trances to the Park, for which Mr. R. M. 

 Hunt, an architect of New York, furnished 

 the plans in the summer of 1863, have never 

 even been commenced. The Park Commis- 

 sioners, after determining in 1864 to proceed 

 forthwith with the work, decided in the 

 spring of 18G5 to take no further action in the 

 matter. In preparing his designs, Mr. Hunt 

 aimed to make the gateways correspond in mag- 

 nitude and in their general architectural char- 

 acter with the buildings which will hereafter 

 line this portion of the Park. Hence he drew 

 freely upon the resources of monumental art, 

 and employed sculpture and symbolical deco- 

 ration on a scale seldom attempted in this 

 country. It is understood that the rejection 

 of his plans is based partly on their presumed 

 inconsistency with the fundamental idea em- 

 bodied in the laying out of the Park, and 

 partly on the great additional expense they 

 will probably entail. An interesting exhibition 

 of statuary, by Larkin G. Mead, Jr., of Ver- 

 mont, was opened in New York in the begin- 

 ing of May. It comprised four statues, "Echo," 

 " The Mulatto Girl," " The Battle Story," and 

 " La Contadinella," a statuette of u Sappho med- 

 itating the Plunge," several busts, and a plaster 

 model of the national monument to President 

 Lincoln, fifteen feet high, of which a descrip- 

 tion will be found elsewhere. " The Battle 

 Story " is a group consisting of a returned sol- 

 dier, holding on his knee a little girl, to whom 

 he relates the story of some hard-fought field. 

 A copy of this, of a size half larger than life, is 

 to be placed on the grounds connected with 

 "Fitch's Home for Disabled Soldiers and Or- 

 phans of Soldiers who have Lost their Lives in 

 Defence of the Country," at Darien, Conn. In 

 October and November an exhibition was held 

 of some of Mozier's chief works, including 

 " The Return of the Prodigal Son," " Undine 

 Rising from the Castle Well," and " Jephthah's 

 Daughter." Among the productions of the 

 year may be mentioned three new groups by 

 Rogers, whose genius so happily illustrated 

 characteristic scenes of the civil war. They 

 were entitled "Drawing Rations," "Uncle 

 Ned's School," and " The Charity Patient," and 

 showed no lack of the earnest naturalism mani- 

 fested by the artist in previous wx>rks. A new 

 worker in the same field has appeared in the 

 person of. Samuel Conkey, whose statuette, " In 

 the Wilderness," is founded on an incident of 

 the battle-field of the Wilderness. Among new 

 sculptures received from Europe was a figure 

 of Isaac about to be offered up for. sacrifice, by 

 Randolph Rogers, besides busts of Washington 

 and Franklin, by Powers, and a statue of 

 Bacchus, by Miss Stebbins. Ideal busts of 

 Mephistopheles, Imogen, and Childhood, of 

 considerable promise, by Thomas Gould, a 

 young sculptor of Boston, whose portrait bust 



