The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1851-08-22


At the thought of resigning the luxuries there.
This is sight No. 1, mo is the fare.)
Oh how shall grieve
When leave!
CArARAcr HOUSE, NIAGARA, June Is, 1851.
-----
Greenough's New Group OF statuary.
correspondent of the New York Home Journal
writing from Florence, in Italy, furnishes the fol-
lowing:
HGreenough's studio now contains colossal
group into which he has packed the thought and
toll Of twe~tx years; and think that II VIII prove
a safe inv Nss mt OF his highest hopes OF lame
You may re.hGinber that Congress, In the admins
tration either of Gen. jackson or OF Mr. Yam buren,
gave two orders for groups for the sides OF the great
staircase fthe Capitol. One was conferred upon
Persico, and the other upon Greenough Persico
executed his task hastily, and received the APP
pointed sum for the labor OF year or two. Green
ough proceeded in a very different spirit: Jealous
of his own and his countrys fame, but indifferent
to considerations Of profit, he determined to re-
pay the confidence of the nation with the irult OF
the best years of his life. From the hour that
the order was received up to the present moment
this great theme has occupied almost exclusively
his time, gshis mind, his hand. determination
thus unrnercenary is the best security Tor true
and right spirit of art. Such conduct will COM
mand the public confidence and respect, as we'll
for the man as for the artist. He may rest with
pride from his labors who, after reviewing, amend
ing, retouching his work, with all the possibilities
of renewed suggestion, through protracted years
of effort 10 at last conscious that he has given the
utmost product of his abilities. ought TO add In
this come xon that MIR. Greenough In his personal
qualities is truly dignihed and respectable char
acter more anxious to secure his own selfrespect
than to advance his fortunes, and as elevated and
honorable in his feelings as he is courteous and
high bred in manner.
1.-THE group represents an American hunter In
the act Of seizng an Indian who was about to TOM
ahawk q mother and her infant. The white man
has approached the savage from behind, and hay
ing seized him by the arms, and pressed him with
bending knees TO the ground, stands frowning
above his subjugated foe, who with his head thrown
back gazes upward at his conqueror with surprise
and terror At the feet of the pair woman, press
ing her babe to her bosom. sinks in alarm and ag-
ony. The thought embodied in the action of the
group, and Immediately communicated to every
spectator ID the natural and necessary superiority
of the Anglo Saxon to the Indian. 1t typihes the
settlement of the American continent, and the re-
spective destinies of the two races who here come
into collision You see the exposure and suffering
of the female emigrant-the ferocious and destruc-
tive instinct of the savage, and his easy subugation
under the superior manhood OF the new colonist
The impression of absolute and inevitable mas
terry on the part of the latter which is conveyed by
the relative attitudes of the opponents is the one
leading sentiment which strikes the observer III an
instant. The figure of the hunter ID about nine
feet in height, and thoroughly vigorous and ath-
letic. He hunting frock and cap HIS
attitude and expression, though STERN earnest, and
concentrated, are calm, sell controlled, and ma
iestic. His features present perhaps the noblest
type of native manliness that ever Issued from the
imagination of the sculptor. They are thorough
Iy national. They exhibit not merely the great
pecuiarities of the Anglo Saxon race, but are
marked by all those charac teristics, not easy to
define, but impossible to mistake, which constitute
the distinction between our own countrymen and
the English.
takably native American And never can the
inherent grandeur of that character be more wor-
thly embodied. He whose destiny is TO convert
forests into cities who conquers only TO berate,
enlighten. and elevate; who presents himself alike
at the defes of lonely widernesscs and the gates
of degraded nations, the representative and To-
gate of laws, and polty, and morale; he, the type
of your own glorious nation stands before you Ills
countenance is indignant, yet dignihed; blaze
with energy, yet unpcrturbed; though IT looks
frowningly, yet something of sorrow mngles in its
anger there is nothing vindictive or resentful IN
it the cloud of passion has passed from the surface
of that mirror of high thoughts and heroic feelings,
and the severity of its rebuklng force ID shade
saddencd and softened by the melancholy
thought of the necessary extinction OF the poor saw
age whose nature is irreconcileable with society.
Though the features not at all reproduction
of Washington's, there is sublime Washington
anism of sentiment and character In the Inquire. Ii
is Just the attitude and head that the youthful
Washington would have presented had he been
called upon TO in such scene during one OF his
wanderings in the forests OF Virginia The freedom
firmness, ease, natural grace and inherent force
of this magnificent form are those OF one conscious
of an irresistible ascendanttoo proud to feel tri-
umph in prevailing over such foe-too gentle not
to contemplate with regret the necessary extirpa-
ton even of the treacherous and malignant. The
hopeless, powerleHs inferiorty into whichthe Indian
has sunk in the hands of the hunter appears to be
the result not of any effort in the latter, but of the
action and movements of the victim; he seems to
have writhed and twisted himself into subsection;
and such is the mutual position of the parties, that
the more the Indian struggles and exerts himself,
the more completely will he work himself under
the power of his controller The physical-or, to
use favorite word ofthe day, the ethnologica-ds-
tinctions of the two races are finely and accurately
marked, not only in the heads but in the limbs.
The artist has obviously been Familiarity acquainted
with Indian habits, and has studied their pecularl-
ties with The different conformation of limbs,
which produces suppleness in one case and force
in the other, is delicately but decidedly manifested
and you the contrast between the softer and
more rounded sincw Of the red man, and the sharp
er muscle and steel-lke lines of the tendon of the
white man. The head of the Indian combines, in
ideal truth, every great and characteristic Inca
ment that may be the walls Of Catlin's
Gallery of Chiefs; but even if the heads were con-
cealed or struck off, eye acquainted with the
peculiarites of the Indian figure would Immediately
discriminate the races to which the two belong
'sThe composition alone of the group would raise
the work into the first rank of great productions in
art"