Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-11-02

robes of the Inca were made of the fleece
of the vicuna, but the ancients were wiser
than their successors. They instituted
grand hunts of the vicuna, caught and
sheared them, and let them go to repro
duce their precious coat.
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY"
Professor Diderichsen's Great Group in
Carrara Marble.
There is a sculptor of Danish birth at
Chicago, Johann Gelert by name, but 1t IS
seldom that statuary comes this way from
the workshop of an artist of Denmark. At
so Fifth avenue, however, group IN Car
rara marble is shown which was chiseled
by one of the foremost Danish sculptors,
Professor Diderichsen of Copenhagen.
The group is called the "Struggl lie fer
Liberty" and embodles ideas which are
not very much to the taste of the crowned
heads and Conservatives of Europe.
There is fatality about certain artists.
No matter how much they are favored by
the powers that be, something urges them
to produce work that shocks their patrons
all the more because it does not openly
attack the political ideas to which the
latter have been bred, yet remains silent
protest against them and an Indictment to
aspirations in the people which they alb
hor Unless all the signs deceive, Prof.
Diderichsen has produced one oi those
groups which are not considered admissi-
Bile by the cautious officials in lands like
Russia, Germany and Denmark. Perhaps
Italy might exhibit the Struggle for Lib
erty:" certainly France would have no OBJ
lection on the score of its implied meaning.
In England the group would infallibly lay
the Professor open to the charge Of being
Home Ruler and sympathizer with the
Irish, if not Separationist of the sort
oftener seen in the Nightmares of true-blue
Britons than the flesh.
A Young man of herculean form springs
forward from the tree trunk to which the
hands are lashed, and seems about to rid
himself of the ropes against which he
strains. A young woman of mature figure
kneels by his side with hands bound be-
hind her back and looks up toward his
face On the other side little child lies
nearly at full length and raises a flower
toward the struggling father. 1t is fam
lily group, father mother and offspring ty-
plying thus mankind as well as narrower
conceptions having to do with the races
and nations. Whom could Professor Did
erichsen have meant by these three figures
in three different conditions of animation
and movement?
Those who are exhibiting the group will
have us believe that it was fashioned with
a definite purpose, to exhibit at the
Worlds Fair which was TO have been held
in New York, and with definite mean
ing, the breaking loose of America from
monarchism and slavery hundred years
ago. The woman they call Goddess of
Liberty; the child represents the States of
the Union in their infancy, beautiful
symbol of the dawn of new day in the
life of a nation" This explanation sounds
more like the words of the Snowman
adapting what he has to exhibit to the
local prejudices of the spectators than the
original meaning of the sculptor, If this
is what Professor Diderichsen meant he is
not to be congratulated on the way in which
he has expressed his thought. But if We
bring the meaning down to the present
day and consider the group symbolical of
the longing among many Europeans to
free themselves from monarchs, standing
armies, dreibunds and fossil remnants Of
the Middle Ages, we get something that
appeals to actualities and explains this
group at once. 1t is said that whereas
Professor Diderichsen was formerly hon
ored by visits of the King of Denmark to
his studio, since he modelled the group the
royal visitor has not darkened his doors.
Perhaps, if the legend be true, the King
perceived well enough that the American
h,,+ oil ,1,aY
which the bold sculptor was pointing
much nearer home.
Whichever view we take of it, there can
be no question but that the marble is a
beautiful one. The man and child were
modelled by him, the woman by his daugh-
ter. The woman is somewhat conven-
tional, though a very beautiful model.
Fraulein Liliencron stood for it, The
male figure, heroic in size, expresses well
a fierce resolve in his slightly-knit brow,
set lips and tense limbs. The torso and
arms are those of Hercules, and the mod
cling of muscles in terrible action is mas
terly. The face recalls Napoleon and By
ron; it is very beautiful, but the modelling
of the nose takes it away from Greek pro-
totypes. Undoubtedly the head is small
as compared with the torso, but not SO
small as that of the Farnese Hercules, for
instance. The modelling is on the line of
Thorwaldsen and Canova, as if Professor
Diderichsen had absorbed the influence of
the former master in the Thorwaldsen
Museum at Copenhagen, which is full of
the works Of that master. Yet it is only
fair to the living sculptor to say that he
has made the figure his own, not only by
the pose he has given it, but by the ex-
preston he has thrown into the features.
The central figure is enough by itself, in
teresting enough in its modelling, its rage
of conflict with its fetters, and its proud
and threatened look. The woman and
child detract from it, and one wishes them
away. Only, at distance, these subor-
dinate figures certainly group themselves
we'll, and give a certain element of rest to
what might without them be too violent an
action. Near the child, on the ground, lie
flowers, and under the more advanced foot
of the man is a yoke. In these days of
realism there is certain charm in work
which recalls the epoch Of symbols and of
classicism. We have it here with the
yoke, the ropes not easily explained in
cold blood, the scantily-draped figures and
the child offering flowers to father who
exerts himself like Milo Of Crotona try
ing to wrench loose from the tree. Here
is modern who has tried to attain pure
beauty in human figures as the Greeks
were able 10 do; but he is too modern, nev-
ertheless, to be content with that alone,
and stand or fall by it. He has the Ger
manic longing to tell good deal more, to
read a lesson to kinglets or inspire in
easy-going subjects his own longing for
reforms. No wonder the King pouted
The Struggle for Liberty" is more appro-
pirate to Unter den Linden than Central
Park 1t would be more keenly under
stood in Berlin, and would suit better the
artistic standards of Germans than OF
Americans.-Nesc York Times.
A Mustache Trainer.
/ saw the other day in a gentleman's
furnishing store in New York what to me
was a curiosity. 1t was plate of thin