House 
Vol. V 
and 
May, 1904 
Garden 
No. 5 
A Quadriga, by Philip Mar tiny, for the Liberal Arts Building 
THE SCULPTURE OF THE LOUISIANA 
PURCHASE EXPOSITION 
By L. R. E. PAULIN 
U P to the time of the Centennial Expo¬ 
sition sculpture in the United States 
was essentially an alien art. Our best known 
sculptors had imitated, renovated and rear¬ 
ranged the ideas and forms with which thev 
had become familiar during the days of their 
training and residence in Italy. So domi¬ 
nated were they by the conventions of the 
prevailing pseudo-classicism that today their 
works, for the most part, appear artificial, 
uninspired and lacking in force. 
With the year 1876, as Lorado Taft notes 
in his recent work, “ The History of Amer¬ 
ican Sculpture,” there came a revolution. 
“ The change in American sculpture which 
the Centennial period ushered in was not 
one of name alone, but of spirit: the work¬ 
ing of new influences now became evident. 
These influences were the exchange of a 
cold, impersonal classicism for an expressive 
and often picturesque truth, destined to at¬ 
tain in its highest manifestations to a new 
idealism. Broadly speaking, it was the sub¬ 
stitution of the art of Saint Gaudens for that 
of Hiram Powers, though, of course, no 
transition is so abrupt as such a statement 
would suggest; nor could the sculpture of 
H iram Powers ever have begotten unaided 
the sculpture of Augustus Saint Gaudens.” 
In a very large measure this change was 
due to the awakening of the national con¬ 
sciousness in the days following the Civil 
War. Coincidently, the younger generation 
of artists had abandoned the studios of Italy 
and sought schooling in the freer atmosphere 
of Paris. During the last quarter of a cen¬ 
tury the advance has been steady and gen¬ 
eral. While foreign travel has been made 
easier, good art schools abound at home. 
Popular taste has undergone a radical 
change for the better, in spite of all the pes¬ 
simists may say. The multiplication of 
municipal art societies and commissions cer¬ 
tainly proves that there is a widespread 
demand for better things. The material 
prosperity of the country has served this end 
Copyrighted IQ04 by Henry T. Coates & Co. 
207 
