Appreciation of sculpture; a handbook by Russell Sturgis ... . group in its completeness,and gives one a thrill of regret that therewas absolutely no realistic thought as to thecostume and the personages allowed theartist, that he was left to the notions of therevolutionary epoch as to what would lookwarlike—that he armed his heroes, youngand old, with pieces of plate armor andshirts of mail gathered promiscuously froma great museum of all the history of thepast. It is no great matter here; the vigorand rush of the composition is everything;it is almost as absurd to find fault with thelinked m
Appreciation of sculpture; a handbook by Russell Sturgis ... . group in its completeness,and gives one a thrill of regret that therewas absolutely no realistic thought as to thecostume and the personages allowed theartist, that he was left to the notions of therevolutionary epoch as to what would lookwarlike—that he armed his heroes, youngand old, with pieces of plate armor andshirts of mail gathered promiscuously froma great museum of all the history of thepast. It is no great matter here; the vigorand rush of the composition is everything;it is almost as absurd to find fault with thelinked mail of th^ foreground heroes, as itis to object to the lorica worn by the fero-cious Bellona, who cheers her hosts on towar ; and yet one would like so much to seewhat Rude would have done with the dressof his own time, as worn by soldiers calledout on the levee en masse—a touch of realismin this great work would have been so greata strengthener of the patriotic sentiment!One would have liked those improvisedwarriors, the armed and arming citizens,[156]. Plate XLIII. ALTO relief called la Marseillaise; hy fran^ois rude, (1784-I855); ONE OF THE FOUR GREAT (;R0UPS ADORNING THE ARC DELETOILE, at PARIS. I Recent Art, Part II, Sentiment much better, had they been Frenchmen of1789 in dress, in form, in face, in bearing. Closely connected with this matter ofideal portraiture is that metaphorical orsymbolical sculpture of which we have somuch. The beginnings of American artaccept the symbolical as readily as does thedeveloped art of the French. Jean BaptisteCarpeaux group, The Four Quarters of theWorld following one another in order asmarking the revolution of the CelestialGlobe, is not more completely the embodi-ment of such abstract ideas than are thesculptures with which the Americans of ourown day adorn in plaster the great exposi-tions as they succeed one another, or com-plete in stone and bronze the permanentbuildings of the great cities. Plate XLIVgives this important group
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectsculpture, bookyear19
