32 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



July, 1905 



American Garden Statuary 



By Harry Dillon Jones 



R<? HE use of cement is becoming more and more 

 important, not only to the architect, engineer 

 and builder, but also to the artist, for plastic 

 and sculptural purposes, and few realize 

 that, unlike Italian terra cotta, it can be 

 made to withstand the rigor of our North- 

 ern winters and is equally impervious to heat and dampness. 

 With certain treatment, a color, texture and durability is 

 obtained, reproducing to a remarkable extent the old stone 

 figures of another age. 



In a recent visit to Mr. W. R. Mercer's studio, in Doyles- 

 town, Pa., I was able to convince myself of this. Hitherto, 

 cement for plastic purposes has been of a cold, gray, Hat 

 tone, which did not lend itself to the ancient forms and ideas, 

 but after some years of experiment, Mr. Mercer seems to 

 have found a method by which he overcomes this defect. 

 The lover of art is thus able to have within his reach some 

 of the famous examples of ancient sculpture at a naturally 

 much reduced price. 



In the studio I saw fonts, urns, busts, bas-reliefs etc., 

 all destined for the decoration of a garden, which is Mr. 

 Mercer's specialty. In conversation with him, I discovered 

 that one of the great troubles encountered at the beginning 

 of the experiments was the making of a mold that would 

 encase the cement without taking it in so close an embrace 

 as to render its release impossible without breaking the cast. 

 This problem was solved by the use of flexible molds, pre- 

 pared in such a way as to avoid the repeated failure caused 



by the casts sticking and the cement 

 not properly hardening before the 

 disintegration of the composition 

 used in the mold. 



It is hard to enumerate the dif- 

 ficulties that beset the artist at this 

 juncture. Cement is a non-com- 

 bustible, hard, very durable and 

 cheap material, which can be cast 

 in a cold state by simply mixing 

 with water — hence its great adapt- 

 ability to the fine arts. It is, how- 

 ever, less ductile than plaster of 

 paris, and though this difficulty has 

 been overcome by stirring, pressure 

 and other methods of application, 

 its gray color and unsympathetic 

 texture have chiefly repelled the 

 artist. In combating the color cer- 

 tain pigments vitiate the strength 

 of the cement, others do not. Some 

 act chemically upon it so as to 

 transform the tint of the mixture. 

 Certain cements neutralize or 

 weaken when colored more quickly 

 than others, while the rapidity with 



which the cement dries, whether in the sun or dark, or 

 whether more or less subjected to dampness, will be found 



The Figure and the Pedestal 

 are of Cement 



American Garden Pottery as Applied to a Pergola 



