24 6 ARCHITECTURE 



him. Setting aside the political nature of such invitations as might be inspired by 

 the Foreign Ofiice, a debt is due in the case of Rodin to those whose initiative, through 

 the National Art Collections Fund, has secured for London a bronze cast of "The 

 Burghers of Calais," which is to be erected in Westminster. Rodin has in addition 

 been commissioned to execute a memorial to Whistler for Chelsea. 



Nowhere has Rodin won greater admiration than in America. In the last two 

 years the change has been remarkable. G. Borglum, the greatest sculptor perhaps 

 that America has produced (though Saint-Gaudens would usually be ranked 

 above him), and himself a disciple of the French master, has been to a 

 great extent the leading spirit of revolt. But unlike England, where only 

 that is accepted which has borne the test of time, America has no apron strings of 

 tradition to hold to, and with youthful enthusiasm the work of Rodin has been 

 bought for most of the important galleries throughout the United States. 



The influence is immediate, but not altogether received with understanding. The 

 exhibitions at the Pennsylvania Academy at Philadelphia have included some fine small 

 works and many that are unintelligible. The New York Academy, which must rank 

 second to Philadelphia, is no better. Here have been shown works in marble and bronze 

 that ape the general appearance of Rodin's work, but show much ignorance of the 

 art of sculpture and a lack of ordinary culture. The tightness and hard appearance 

 of much American work must be ascribed to the employment of plasticine, a modelling 

 paste of an oily nature, that does not require the constant damping necessary to clay, 

 but which has none of the freedom and looseness which clay affords. 



Architecture. In present-day English architecture it is exceedingly difficult to 

 differentiate between the efforts which have been purely individual and spontaneous 

 in their inception and those which have been inspired and brought about by some- 

 thing of a general movement, however sluggish or ephemeral. This is due to the lack 

 of any cult or fashion such as the genuine or emotional and hysterical secessions and 

 movements in the related arts. There has been, and in some of the Continental Euro- 

 pean cities there is still, a movement akin to Post-Impressionism; but in England it 

 has never taken root and is already practically dead. As in painting and sculpture, 

 it took the shape of a return to severe archaic simplicity. The British Medical Asso- 

 ciation building in the Strand is the most typical of the few examples in London. 



Perhaps the most encouraging feature of recent development has been the shedding 

 of much of the affectation of the archaic and a return to the classical examples of the 

 ornamental, if not always of the structural, in the art of building. In 

 this respect England seems to have only followed the example of the various 

 capital communities on the European Continent. Paris and Vienna, after 

 discarding the academic and searching vainly for a synthetic basis of design, have 

 returned to the classical forms of their forbears with perhaps a fuller understanding of 

 their application. Berlin and Munich, with their heavier handling of the same themes, 

 have developed a romantic manner of expression which is distantly, yet quite evident- 

 ly, related to the great period of the South German principalities, such as Wiirzburg, 

 Carlsruhe, etc. The influence set in motion by such achievements as the Kursaal 

 and environment at Wiesbaden, the Law Courts at Munich, and Reichstag and other 

 buildings in Berlin, and the Opera House in Stuttgart, has overborne the secessionist 

 protest whilst taking some suggestions from the life which was undoubtedly inherent 

 in so much, and to this extent at least it is now clear that it is indebted. The evolu- 

 tion and development of modern comfort and convenience, and the added intricacy 

 involved, have brought the modern architect in his search for suggestion to a livelier 

 appreciation and a more catholic view of much of the later Renaissance. 



The plastic treatment of classical forms, at one time decried like other art expres- 

 sions of the period, is now being absorbed by the European architect to the full in his 

 distraction at having to treat a complexity of inward utilitarianism with facades of any 

 grace. " Baroque " has ceased to be a byword for all that is licentious and ungoverned 

 in fancy, and the best examples are fast being recognised as peculiarly fit and purpose- 



