28 
House & Card 
AMERICAN SCULPTURE FOR AMERICAN GARDENS 
Infant Art Worth Fostering 
PEYTON BOSWELL 
R odin predicted that a new birth of sculp¬ 
ture would take place in America, and 
that a great school would develop here, com¬ 
parable to that which sprang from Ancient 
Greece to glorify her ideals in after ages. 
This prophesy of the greatest of modern 
sculptors, one of the most marked proponents 
of idealism in art, is worthy just now of a 
close analysis. 
A comparison of the development of the 
economic condition of Ancient Greece, coeval 
with the golden age of Grecian sculpture, with 
the present economic condition of America, un¬ 
mistakably reveals a parallel that seems to 
point to the fulfillment of Rodin’s prophesy. 
Periods of great wealth foster periods , of great 
art. It may seem at first very difficult to make 
this statement fit into a discussion of the ideal, 
but nevertheless it is true. The epochs of com¬ 
mercial aristocracy in Greece, of imperial pow¬ 
er in Rome, of far-flung trade in Italy, of 
monarchical splendor in France, all had as 
their concomitants periods of art development 
such as the world never saw before or after. 
The epochs of social change, of commercial 
decadence and economic poverty were char¬ 
acterized by periods of poverty in art. And 
now comes America, wealthy beyond any dream 
of the past, and at the threshold of an era of 
industrial aggrandisement and trade expansion 
of which she herself never dreamed. 
Grecian sculpture undoubtedly had its origin 
in the religious instincts and innate love of 
beauty of the ancient Hellenes. But in the 
days of Greece’s first struggles, when her people 
were primitive and tribal, when they lived 
sufficient unto themselves and wealth and pow¬ 
er had their seats in Persia and Tyre and 
{Continued on page 68) 
A fountain, by Mrs. 
Harry Payne Whit¬ 
ney, designed for an 
American garden. 
Courtesy of the 
Whitney Studio 
"A Girl Aquaplaning,” by RenaTuckerKohl- 
man, shows the freedom of interpretation 
characteristic of our American garden sculp¬ 
ture. It stands 20" high and is intended 
for a basin fountain or a small garden pool 
tvhere the water could be arranged to spray 
against the figure. Courtesy of the MUch 
Galleries 
In the cleft of a rock garden you discover 
a young Pan piping away. The gray stones 
are immediately animated and the rock 
plants vitalized. This figure by Janet Scud- 
der is in the Rockefeller gardens at Po- 
cantico Hills and shows the proper placing 
for such work—secluded and surprising as 
you come upon it 
