Esthetieally and Ethically Considered. 325 



At all events the column must not be adopted as a support for any 

 tiling foreign to its natural use, such as across, a statue, or any of 

 those ornamental bird-cage devices, so common in modern Italian 

 monuments. Th5 sense of congruity is shocked by the Christian 

 cross on the top of a pagan column, especially when placed, as I have 

 seen it, on the top of an Ionic column, with its capital of rams'-horns, 

 the imitation or suggestion of Jupiter's locks. A statue on a column 

 is always abominable in an artistic view, both from the sense of inse- 

 curity and of excessive remoteness. The Nelson monument, at Lon- 

 don, and the Washington monument, at Baltimore, are the time-hon- 

 ored jest of the artistic world. I cannot conceive a case where a 

 statue on a column could have any significance as a mortuary monu- 

 ment, unless it were a memorial of St. Simeon Stylites, who lived 

 constantly for fifty-six years on the top of a pillar, elevated in height 

 as the Saint drew nearer Heaven and to perfection." 



In regard to the use of statuary in out-door monuments, if it is 

 permissible in an esthetic view, of which I have some question, it 

 must be conceded that granite, the only fit and not over-costly mate- 

 rial for our clAatc, is very illy-adapted to statuary. In the very best 

 treatment of which it is capable, its lines are always harsh, both in 

 facial expression and in drapery. As to marble, it must be said that 

 unless a statue is more meritorious as a product of art, that can pro- 

 ceed from any place but an artist's studio, we can well afford to dis- 

 pense with it in our cemeteries. The statuary of the average grave- 

 stone manufacturer is quite detestable. Respectable statuary, like re- 

 spectable poetry, is unendurable. A pure and high work of the imag- 

 ination, like Palmer's Angel at the Sepulchre, at the Albany ceme- 

 tery, is exceptional, and outside the rule which we would lay down for 

 the exclusion of statuary from the cemetery. The same may be said 

 of the exquisite bronze ideal figure in the Troy cemetery. It may be 

 superfluous to remark, that the use of statuary in mortuary monu- 

 ments should always be emblematic or ideal ; any thing like portrait- 

 ure in a graveyard is not to be tolerated for an instant. The busts 

 or statues of private men are of little contemporary interest, save to 

 their families, and of none at all to general posterity. Let their effi- 

 gies be preserved at home like the Roman household gods. A shocking 

 display of family portraiture in a grave yard is found in one of the 

 most expensive monuments in this country, in central New York, 

 where life-size ^^a^z^es of the widow and daughter are weeping over the 

 hust of a departed husband and father, all under a great glass case. 



Even a portrait statue of a public man is better placed in a more 

 public and common situation. The proper place for our conven- 



