Lorado Taft

“ Before speaking further of our greatest sculptor, a few words should be devoted to the last and most distinguished of the pioneers, John Quincy Adams Ward (1830-1910) , who was privileged to see the triumphs of American sculpture at home and abroad, and to participate in them to the end. Always keenly alive and vibrantly responsive to the forces at work about him, he was ever a contemporary of the youngest men of his profession. Ward’s earliest success, “The Indian Hunter” in Central Park, New York City, was the result of a long journey among the red men. ”

“ It is difficult to realize that our actual achievement, from the very kindergarten stage of an unknown art to the proud eminence held by American sculpture in the Paris Exposition of 1900, was the work of but three score years and ten—was seen in its entirety by many living men. ”

“ Ward was born in 1830, on a farm in the neighborhood of Urbana, Ohio.
The beginnings of all arts in this country have been timid and imitative. Literature, music, and painting had something to found themselves upon in the national tradition; but sculpture was never abundant in England, and this art, usually one of the earliest, was the last to appear in America. Its first inspirations were Italian, and for half a century American sculpture was a crude parody on the art of Canova and Thorvaldsen. ”

“ The thoroughness of the Japanese is well known. Their intelligence, enterprise, and up-to-dateness have been illustrated many times in the arts of peace and in the science of war. In this one particular principle of concentration in study, and single mindedness in the enjoyment of beautiful things, the Japanese may well be taken as a model for the rest of mankind. ”

“ Success is deserved by hard work, although it does not always follow. But in the case of George Grey Barnard hard work combined with genius made him one of the great sculptors of America, and one of whom this country may well be proud.
George Grey Barnard was born at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on May 24, 1863. His father was a clergyman at Muscatine, Iowa, where the sculptor passed his boyhood. He delighted in stuffing the skins of birds and animals, and became quite an expert taxidermist. ”

“ In 1879 he modeled a bust of Emerson from life—a work so vivid and lifelike that the poet-philosopher said, “The more it resembles me, the worse it looks,” and then added, with a nod of approval, “That is the face that I shave.”
French’s art took rapid strides. He is known today equally well by his fine portrait busts and his great allegorical compositions. One of the most imposing of his compositions is the great heroic female figure entitled “Alma Mater,” seated at the approach to the library of Columbia University, New York. No American sculptor is better known than Mr. ”

“ He attends personally to every part of his work. And this “capacity for taking pains” accounts largely for his success.
Paul Wayland Bartlett was born amid scholarly surroundings at New Haven, Connecticut, in 1865. He was the son of Truman H. Bartlett of Boston, an art critic and sculptor. Many years ago Bartlett and his mother went to live in Paris. Here the young man found his vocation. When he was only fifteen years old he entered the École des Beaux Arts. He quickly became an excellent modeler. He worked hard, and in addition took up a course on animal sculpture. ”

“ Bartlett lived during this time in a quaint little street off the Rue de Vaugirard, where he had a little vine-covered studio. It was there that he began “The Bear Tamer,” which is now in bronze in the Metropolitan Museum of New York City. He spent a year upon it, and then became dissatisfied with it and spent another year in changing the composition.
Many works followed this successful effort. First appeared the “Ghost Dancer,” a vicious looking savage. Then came the equestrian statue of Lafayette, presented to the French republic by the school children of America ”

“ His cameo cutting naturally assisted him in the perfection of art in high and low relief.
When twenty years old Saint Gaudens was already a well trained artist. He went to Paris and worked in the School of Fine Arts in the studio of M. Jouffroy. There he studied the human figure in all phases, and quickly mastered it. A residence of several years in Italy followed, with constant art activity and steady artistic growth. He came back to the United States in 1874, and his first work was a bust in marble of William M. Evarts. Then came a commission for a large decorative relief for St. ”