68 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
THE NATIONAL SCULPTURE SOCIETY EXHIBITION. 
No more beautiful exhibition of the National 
Sculpture Society which closed on May 21 st, has 
ever been given in this country. The unusual 
amount of excellent monumental work which has 
been called forth in the last two years for the decora- 
tion of the Library of Congress, made possible a 
more representative display than could be collected 
for the first exhibition of the society. And we re- 
member that that first exhibition was successful 
enough and convincing enough to constitute an era 
in our decorative art. 
As in the first exhibition, the third emphasized 
once more the interdependence of sculpture and 
foliage, and too much cannot be said in praise of 
the architectural 
arrange nr ent, 
the placing and 
grouping of the 
statuary, and the 
floral and terra 
cotta decorations. 
Instead of the 
general plan of 
an Italian garden, 
so well carried 
out in the first ex- 
position, an 
added character 
and an architect- 
ural construction 
were given to the 
three princ i p a 1 
rooms by arrang- 
ing the first as a 
bronze and white 
sculpture gallery 
which showed 
how our Metro- 
politan Museum collection might be arranged, but is 
not. The second was a conservatory, something after 
the manner of the peristyle of a Pompeiian house with 
vines hanging from the trellis overhead, and a low 
fountain by MacMonnies in the centre, which did 
not obstruct the view from the sculpture room to 
the farther wall of the Italian garden where Mr. 
French’s monument to John Boyle O’Reilly stood 
against a bank of cedars. The small gallery at the 
right of the conservatory was the memorial gallery 
in which was placed the recumbent portrait statue 
for a tomb by Frank Duvenick, Paul Bartlett’s 
bronze door for the Clarke mausoleum, the marble 
panel, “Imagination” by Olin L. Warner, as well 
as a bronze statuette of the Diana which Mr. War- 
ner exhibited two years ago, and which was con- 
sidered by many critics the most beautiful piece of 
sculpture in that exhibition. Rich leathers covered 
the walls and furnished a warm back ground for the 
marble and bronze, but the collection of exquisite 
bronzes by Mr. Warner which have been cast to be 
presented to the Metropolitan Museum by the 
Sculpture Society, emphasized only too clearly all 
that American art has lost in the untimely death of 
one of its greatest men. 
The “collectors’ gallery” on the left of the con- 
servatory contained a very interesting collection of 
portrait medallions and medals, Japanese ivories 
and reproductions of antique bronzes. Here also 
were the large and very elaborate andirons lor Mr. 
Vanderbilt’s southern home “Biltmore,” designed 
by Karl Bitter. The west wall of the garden was 
lost behind a 
broad cascade of 
water which 
plashed from step 
to step, flanked 
by hydrangeas in 
terra cotta vases. 
The base was a 
moss bordered 
fountain in which 
real turtles 
moved comfort- 
ably and took a 
lazy in terest in 
the thoro u g h 1 y 
charmed visitors 
who stopped at 
the foot of the 
terrace. The up- 
per terrace was 
decorated with 
flowering plants 
among which J. 
O. A . Ward’s 
“student” reclined — a splendid piece of sculpture for 
the decoration of the Garfield monument in Wash- 
ington. From the opposite end of the garden Mr. 
Ward’s “Indian Hunter” sprang forward. This is 
intended to mark the site of the home of James 
Fennimore Cooper at Cooperstown, N. Y., and 
which is already well-known to those who are fami- 
liar with and appreciate the few really good things 
sculptural to be found in Central Park. 
Among other charming things is the little fig- 
ure of an angel by Mr. French — a fragment from 
the Chapin Memorial at Milwaukee, and a portrait 
relief by Mr. Augustus Lukeman from a monument 
in Greenwood cemetery. There is something Greek 
in the expression of peace which the seated figure con- 
veys, rather than the modern sentiment of grief from 
which the ancients seemed so happily free. — M. T. 
THE CASCADE— ITALIAN GARDEN. 
(Illustration from Copyright photograph, by courtesy of the National Sculpture Society.) 
