House & Garden 
created by the finished 
work. On the other 
hand, the crowding of 
the figures, when 
viewed from a distance 
and at a great height, 
would certainly tend 
to bewilder and con¬ 
fuse the eye. 
For purposes of 
convenience, Mr. 
Calder’s studies of the 
nude male figure, as 
such distinctly, may 
in a general way be 
referred to a class by 
themselves. To mark 
but one dominant 
feature that runs 
through the group— 
they are all of the 
sane and wholesome 
type, and yet there is 
no suggestion in them 
of monotony or repe¬ 
tition, such as one 
sees, for instance, in 
Rossetti’s women, 
with all their strange 
beauty. They are 
nature’s types and at¬ 
titudes,not theartist’s. 
In the“ Narcissus” 
we see the shapely 
youth, with sidelong 
face, lost in adoration 
of his own figure re¬ 
flected in the pool, 
story briefly told in 
A LECTERN 
Designed and modeled by A. S. Calder 
Cast in bronze by Bureau Brothers 
tator chooses to moralize 
There is the whole 
bronze. If the spec- 
upon the vanity 
of youth and the significance of the Greek 
legend, that is his affair. But that is not 
the artist’s purpose or business. In “ The 
Dozing Hercules”—of which a terra-cotta 
cast stands in the garden of Mr. Charles L. 
Borie at Jenkintown — there is no more 
parade of plot or moral than in the 
previous figure. The young god, wearied 
by his labors, sits crouched in slumber 
by the wayside; the head sinks between 
his brawny shoulders; the body relaxes in 
its brutish strength, and the club slips 
from his nerveless fingers. In this, as 
in the seated figure 
of a man — done as 
a study for Momus 
— the modeling of 
the figure is of extra¬ 
ordinary merit, al¬ 
though nowhere does 
one detect any desire 
on the part of the 
artist to indulge in 
any tours de force or 
to achieve unusual or 
strained effects. 
By contrast, the 
realistic sketch of 
“The Miner,” which 
is a study for archi¬ 
tectural sculpture, is 
thoroughly modern 
in theme and concep¬ 
tion. Modern, too, 
in another sense—not 
the best, perhaps — 
is the 'sentiment of 
the figure Mr. Calder 
calls “ Primal Dis¬ 
content.” The tech¬ 
nical skill of the per¬ 
formance must excite 
admiration. It is 
decidedly a feat 
to do so difficult 
a thing so well. But 
the question remains 
whether Mr. Calder 
has not gone too 
far in attempting 
to convey through the medium of a solid 
material a meaning which calls for more 
subtle and flexible means of expression. 
At least, it may be said, he has plenty 
of good company in the venturesome 
experiment. 
Just a word should be added, in conclu¬ 
sion, of those things in minor vein—urns, 
vases and hermae — which furnish pastime 
for Mr. Calder’s fancy and fingers. One 
must rummage through the corners and 
closets and shelves of his studio to see them, 
hoping, at each discovery, that some day 
soon he will take time to give the best 
of these tentative projects final and useful 
form. 
3 2 5 
