Robert Joseph Casey

“ This work is a colossal undertaking. A true, clear perspective of it as a whole must be maintained throughout its making. Handling a mountain of material is of itself a man’s job continuously. For that I calculated, but the housing and the danger of freezing and the responsibility of caring for so much I did not consider as I now would.
If a sculptor should undertake to do one figure a month, complete—twelve figures a year—it would be undertaking the unheard of in art. Yet as the work stands today, I’ve done much more than that. ”

“ They are the motive, spirit and purpose back of the Rushmore memorial.
We have not created a monument to Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln or Roosevelt, but to the meaning of those eleven words as maintained in our government by those four great leaders. Those words—man has a right to be free and to be happy—hold the Western experiment as the guide that leaped out of medieval Europe, more important to humanity’s immortality than creeds and governments. ”

“ Gutzon Borglum the sculptor, in his Saranac memorial bas-relief, has got beneath the surface and behind the mask as Saint-Gaudens, fine as his bas-relief is as a work of art, never did. I liked the first sight of Borglum’s work, and it grows on me. It has charm, it has strength, and it has pathos. ”

“ THE NOBLE SPORT And then there was the matter of The International Sporting Club. It was among Gutzon Borglum’s most altruistic endeavors and certainly one that can be viewed without any reference at all to his art.
It may seem to some readers that there is something of a retrogression when an artist involves himself in a sporting club—that the whole effort militates against his ideals of his craft. But that doesn’t seem to be the way Borglum felt about it. Boxing was just another odd subject that interested him and one with which he believed he could do something. ”

“ It is no exaggeration to say that a large part of the sculpture in this country is produced under false pretenses. Much of it is from the studios of celebrities, the labor, the thought and even the basic ideas of poor devils who are paid so much a day.
That the abuses Mr. Nocquet speaks of exist, there is abundance of proof. A glamor has been thrown about sculpture here that is not deserved. For a century the bulk of us have ambled along timidly, following a single lead, sniffing the trail, only to assure our questioning souls that we were on the beaten path. We fear a new lead. ”

“ More people know of him now than ever did when he was living, and to most of them he is a man whose sole work was the carving of Mount Rushmore. Few of them know of the tragedy of Stone Mountain. Virtually none has ever heard of his Wars of America Memorial in Newark—forty-two human figures and two horses cast in bronze.
Some of his pieces that few people know about—his horses, his figures of Lincoln, whom he devoutly loved, his statue to James McConnell on the University of Virginia campus at Charlottesville, his simple tribute to Edward L. Trudeau—show his genius as a sculptor. ”

“ On February 11, 1921, ten years after the completion of the Newark Lincoln memorial, Mr. Lum, acting for the three executors, awarded the commission to Gutzon Borglum and authorized him to go to work. When photographs of the model were published wagers were laid among artists that it would be impossible for any sculptor to keep his creative impulse fixed on one subject long enough to produce an art work of such proportions. They did not know that monotony or dulled interest was an impossibility to an artist who regarded variety not as the spice of life but as its bread and butter. ”

“ FOR THE PARKS It is one of the amazing things about a sculptor that the more work he does and the more recognition he gets, the more his friends demand that he stick to his proper business. And it is probably just as amazing that the sculptor doesn’t want to and seldom does. Somebody, commenting on the varied activities and interests of Gutzon Borglum, quoted a bit of apt philosophy: “I am a man; nothing human is alien to me,” which was Borglum’s estimate of the situation, all right. The constant urge to Art was something, he thought, that made his friends seem normal. ”

“ But there is much about it that anyone who cares may know.
Mrs. Helen Plane, an aging Daughter of the Confederacy, had dreamed one night that the history of the South’s Great Cause might be carved in vast figures on the surface of this cliff, General Robert E. Lee, President Jefferson Davis and a list of towering generals marching forever across the granite at the head of the defiant troops. She brought the matter to the attention of Borglum, and he was probably the one artist in the world who would understand what she wanted done and would find a way to get it done. ”

“ The piece of his carving that he himself loved best may have been the seated Lincoln at Newark, New Jersey. None of his other works—nor any sculpture in the world—is as big as the work on Rushmore. But not at this time will any expert in sculpture come to select one of the carvings of Mount Rushmore as Borglum’s masterpiece.
That is not to say that the Four Faces are not well done. They are. Lincoln’s has the same pathos that marks Borglum’s head of him in the Capitol at Washington. Jefferson and Washington come to us out of the unphotographed past of more than a century ago as real men. ”

“ Critics noted the anatomical perfection of the horse and the faithful picturing of the general as a young man. But their praise was for the terrific action in bronze sculpture—the captured fear and climax of battle. It is hard to imagine that this memorial and the monument to President Lincoln in Newark were both the work of the same artist. Lincoln, shown in a moment of deep dejection during the Civil War when the news from the front was bad, is pathetic. He is every man’s friend just as he is every man’s other self, face to face with unhappiness, harried by disaster. ”

“ It often happens that a convert to a religious sect is more fanatical in his beliefs than one born into the fold. Gutzon’s father had come to the United States from Denmark to escape the ancient fetters of thought, and Gutzon himself had become thoroughly disillusioned by his years abroad. He considered America to be the last stronghold of freedom for the spirit. And he believed that the time had come for the country to express itself culturally. He had a theory that many people are born Americans though their physical birthplace might have been Denmark or Poland or Timbuktu. ”

“ The art schools of this country turn out young men and women by the thousands every year, and mostly they aren’t worth fifty cents a day to any artist or sculptor. It is a very sad fact.
The economic independence of every human being who feels that he or she wants to study art is something that we should not lose a moment to assure. I think the sweetness of life is not so much affected by any other dozen causes as by the present inability of the race to express its emotions in a creative way. ”

“ One man, long a member of the executive committee of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission, probably knew him longer in irritating circumstances than anyone else on earth. Once he came down from Mount Rushmore to Rapid City frothing at the mouth.
“All he knows about money for this business is that somebody has to dig it up,” he roared. “He thinks I make it out of something just because he needs it. He’d bust the whole state of South Dakota in two weeks just because he needs some dynamite or an A-rig.” ”

“ In the first place the construction of an armature for so huge a group was no small undertaking. It was built of heavy timbers, boards and lath and looked something like the pictures of the Trojan Horse. It wasn’t as commodious, perhaps, but several able-bodied men could work inside it—and did. A new studio was under construction with the sculptor supervising all details. And outweighing all physical handicaps was the mental strain of his work on Stone Mountain, where things were rapidly approaching a crisis. ”

“ Some reporter, trying to spur him into a grand speech, asked him if he would call the figures on Rushmore as perfect as they might be. The great sculptor shook his head. “Not today,” he said. “The nose of Washington is an inch too long. It’s better that way, though. We are slowly approaching perfection. It will erode enough to be exactly right in 10,000 years.”
Borglum, possibly, was not the man that a dullard could understand. It is not enough to say that he was a great sculptor—perhaps the greatest of his generation. He had to be many more things to get the Mount Rushmore memorial finished. ”

“ I find in my study of art that the real artist is nine tenths of the time a craftsman. It is only in that small one tenth of his time that he rises to the elevated position of prophet and master.
The question of art education in general involves what I call “betrayal by democracy,” though perhaps I speak with the prejudice of personal experience, being one of nine children who had no college degree. When democracy came into the American world the great mass of the people felt that the only advantage aristocracy had was “higher education.” ”

“ A political inquiry of this nature must inevitably arouse enmity and opposition in the most powerful quarters. The credit, nay, the very existence, of the government in power is at stake. An inquiry may seem to start something, but what it starts is an avalanche that will surely crush its initiators and the truth they seek to discover. Thus they will remain buried under the debris and obscured by the dust.
When Gutzon Borglum first took his demand for an aircraft investigation to the White House he was politely, if somewhat shortly, received by Joseph Tumulty, the President’s secretary. ”

“ Despite the course of ill luck, bickering and unexplained hatred that has accompanied it, the dream of Atlanta for a Confederate memorial—or the dream of Atlanta hotel men for a popular tourist attraction—is still showing signs of life. The state of Georgia has appropriated funds for the purchase of Stone Mountain and the establishment of a park at its base. An Atlanta sculptor has been appointed to take charge of any carving that may be done on the tremendous uplift of granite. ”

“ The poet offers his dream. The musician sings his song. And the world goes on, careless, unheeding. At last, saddened and spent for want of that sympathy which should have made life all joy and ecstasy, the painter turns his canvas to the wall. The poet drops his pen. The song of the singer is heard no more, and the world turns to ask the meaning of this silence.
Since Borglum’s death the figure has been carved in marble and is in California.
In the meantime a very large “pipe dream,” something made for his own pleasure, the sculptor said, was gradually taking shape in his New York studio. ”

“ From the top of Mount Rushmore four Presidents of the United States—Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt—gaze out from an unbelievable block of hard rock into glowing sunlight, placid but remarkably alive. Hundreds of thousands of persons have come from the far corners of the world to look at them, and are still coming in expanding companies. The money spent by the Treasury of the United States for the carving of this peak has long since been returned to its source through the gasoline tax of the tourists. ”

“ Gutzon had an immense faith in Paderewski. One day in Washington during the First World War, he stated his theory to Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane. “One of these days,” he said, “you people will realize that imagination and disinterestedness are powerful factors in the building of a state. I believe Paderewski is capable of rebuilding Poland and of rebuilding Europe if the occasion demanded. He is capable of any sacrifice, and he has the mind and soul to keep him going.” ”

“ This story is told to lend an encouraging, believing hand to all lonely, creative souls who are wandering into the uncharted, untraveled wilderness of God’s greater universe, finding through their own understanding new and undreamed worlds; and to those who continue alone to pour into unpeopled space their cry—unafraid, expecting no answer. Courage to stand alone; courage to master, to know, to do alone. Courage to spurn the tradesman’s reward and popularity. ”

“ She has been piping to Pan, who lies at her feet unmoved, unrecognizing, until she drops the pipes and the melody ceases. Then he is aroused and turns to see why the music is heard no more. It is one of the most typical interpretations of life. The artist paints his ideal vision. ”