Art Out-of-Doors 



if not corrupting, the popular love of art, 

 can hardly be over-estimated. It is worth 

 while, therefore, to try to discover some of 

 the reasons w^hy our monuments are so sel- 

 dom good. 



They might, as a rule, be much more suc- 

 cessful but for a common mistake in their 

 first conception — a mistake against which 

 intelhgent sculptors have long protested in 

 vain. Nine times out of ten a full-length 

 figure is insisted upon when a bust, or an 

 architectural monument with a fitting in- 

 scription and, perhaps, a portrait-head in 

 relief, would be all-sufficient and, indeed, 

 distinctly more appropriate. This perpet- 

 ual demand for full-length figures works in 

 two ways against the sculptor's success. 



In the first place, the average of physical 

 dignity and beauty in our race is not very 

 high ; many men since St. Paul have been 

 weak in their bodily presence, although 

 giants in intellectual and moral ways ; and 

 since the time of St. Paul there has been a 

 great change for the worse in masculine cos- 

 tume, judged from the artist's point of view. 

 The modern portrait-sculptor has fallen upon 



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