4 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
NEW TYPE OF PARK MEMORIAL SCULPTURE 
J. Massey Rhind, the New York 
sculptor, has but recently completed an 
heroic bronze statue of Washington 
standing beside his horse with his hand 
on the neck, holding the reins, in a pose 
which he believes to be unique in eques- 
trian figures, and which is yet statuesque 
and entirely natural. This monument, 
which stands in Washington Park, New- 
ark, N. J., at the corner of Washington 
place and Broad street, was lately un- 
veiled as the second of a series of public 
monuments for the embellishment of the 
city of Newark provided for by the will 
of the late Amos J. Van Horn, a dis- 
tinguished merchant of that city, who 
left in his will the sum of $150,000 for 
that purpose. There still remains of 
this sum enough for further important 
works. In Mr. Rhind’s group the figure 
of the Father of his Country is some 
ten feet in height; he stands in full uni- 
form, his sword by his side and his 
heavy military cloak hanging from his 
shoulders, draped loosely behind him. 
With his right hand he still keeps con- 
trol of his horse, which paws the ground 
as if impatient at the delay; his left 
hand rests on his hip and the hilt of his 
sword, and his face is turned on the 
spectator standing in front of him. The 
whole group is erected on three great 
granite steps on the summit of a grassy 
eminence in the shape of a five-pointed 
star seventy-five feet from point to point 
and twenty-five feet in height. The man 
and horse and plinth were cast by the 
Roman Bronze Works. 
The group has been set on a turfed 
mound in a very impressive location on 
the parkway, and is a fine example of 
the more intimate treatment of our park 
memorials and sculptures, and of the 
effort to blend them more harmoniously 
with the park landscapes. 
RELATION OF SCULPTURE TO PARKS AND BUILDINGS 
An address before the American Institute of Archi- 
tects, by Herbert Adams, sculptor, of New York City. 
I am conscious that it is an honor to 
have been asked to speak before this body 
on the subject of the “Relation of Sculp- 
ture to Parks and Buildings,” but I should 
be dull indeed if I did not recognize that 
many of you are more competent to do so 
than I am. I should, therefore, feel less 
embarrassed if my audience were com- 
posed of committeemen and commissioners 
interested in erecting statues and monu- 
ments, rather than of architects. 
First, I will speak of the relation of 
sculpture to our parks. As a sculptor, pos- 
sibly I am expected to believe that parks 
should be bountifully supplied with exam- 
ples of our art ; but, as a matter of fact, I 
feel that the naturalistic park can get along 
very well with little from our hands — can 
be spared to advantage even the bronze 
panther crouching on the cliff, half con- 
cealed in the foliage. 
In this country, I believe, we are far too 
prone to place the statue of our hero or 
our honored citizen on the sloping bank 
hard by the popular drive or walk in the 
naturalistic park, to surround the pedestal 
with a mound of bedded plants, and then 
to rest secure in the satisfaction of having 
at once honored the dead and beautified 
nature. Perhaps we have dragged a rugged 
boulder to the lawn, mounted our hero 
on that, and then congratulated ourselves 
that we have been very artistic, while, as 
a matter of fact, we have only been avoid- 
ing the architect, or, rather, the cost of 
executing his design for a setting. 
The boulder idea in general I believe 
is one to be persistently discouraged ; it is 
very contagious ; it is one which has 
troubled the Art Commission of New York 
not a little. Had there been no restrain- 
ing hand in this direction, I fear that the 
important drives in Central Park and 
Riverside Drive would have been lined ere 
this with boulders bearing bronze tablets ; 
or perhaps there would have been only 
the boulders left, for there are individuals 
in that city who seem to have the idea 
that bronze as a metal has high value, 
and they frequently attempt to remove ac- 
cessible tablets without consulting the au- 
thorities. It is indeed surprising what 
care must be used in fastening a tablet 
so that it cannot be removed by an in- 
genious vandal, even in the heart of a great 
city. 
Certainly I believe that sculpture may 
be successfully used in connection with 
the naturalistic park; but this will be ac- 
complished, not by dropping it down here 
and there, with reference solely to its con- 
spicuous placing, but rather by treating 
some spot or portion in the park in a rea- 
sonably formal manner, and using sculp- 
ture in connection with such treatment. In 
fact, it seems to me that the approach or 
entrance to the naturalistic park offers 
especially good opportunity for the sculp- 
tor; indeed, if properly designed, it af- 
fords ideal possibilities for the sculptor’s 
art. I believe the approach could be de- 
signed so that it would present a satis- 
factory ensemble before all or perhaps any 
of the sculpture was in place, thus pro- 
viding suitable sites for the sculpture of 
the future. Of course, the general char- 
acter of the sculpture which was to be 
added would have to be worked out with 
the general scheme, and safeguards taken 
that this scheme should be adhered to. 
Think what it would have meant to New 
York City if FT lint’s scheme of twenty 
monumental gates for Central Park had 
been realized ! These gates were to have 
been known as the Merchant’s Gate, the 
Scholar's Gate, the Artist’s Gate, the 
Woman’s Gate, the Children’s Gate, etc. 
It would be impossible for one who 
lias never attempted to find a suitable place 
for a statue in a city like New York to 
imagine what a blessing such a scheme, 
intelligently carried out, would have been. 
With our congested streets running at 
right angles to each other, with our small 
parks laid out in winding paths and in ir- 
regular beds, with our big parks sacred to 
the landscape idea, the problem of locating 
monuments in our city is a most difficult 
one. 
We sculptors, therefore, beseech you, as 
designers of American cities, to give a lit- 
tle thought to the sculptural monuments 
of the future when you are planning parks, 
avenues and civic centers. You probably 
realize, quite as well as I, the importance 
of the setting and surrounding of works 
in sculpture — that a work of no extraordi- 
nary intrinsic merit is sometimes made im- 
pressive and important by its setting, while 
a work of high artistic quality may utterly 
fail to give its message, purely because it 
lacks the advantage of suitable setting and 
location. 
It would be presumptuous indeed on my 
part to attempt to explain to you what 
constitutes a good setting or a good loca- 
tion for sculpture, or how a city square or 
park should be treated to provide for 
sculpture. 
There is one essential point, however, 
which in general has been more fully ap- 
preciated by the sculptor than by the archi- 
tect. This is the rather universal impor- 
tance of having the sun back of the spec- 
tator when he is looking at a statue. If a 
statue which stands in the open is between 
the sun and the spectator, of course all 
modeling is wiped out and silhouette alone 
is seen. The sculptor, therefore, likes to 
face his work south whenever possible, and 
is particularly unhappy whenever it has to 
be faced north. 
