The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1902-03-03

St Gaudens went 10 Paris, settled down
for awhile I'm 1870 in Rome and in 1880
returned to New York. with which city
he has long been identified, although
his work is and has been in every sense
cosmopolitan. The works for which he
Is well known and even famous are
comparatively numerous and In this
connection need not be mentioned, he
himself being brought I'm here merely
TO show the influence that he exerted
upon MacMonnies, who has always
been ready 10 acknowledge his indebt-
edness TO his brother sculptor
II was in 1850 that MacMonnies was
admitted 10 the st. Gaudens studio.
when he was only seventeen years old,
and he worked hard not only there, but
I'm the night classes OF the Art Students
league and the Academy Of Design.
These preliminary years in the best stu
dio of America, says one who knew him
| well when I'm Paris, had been of incalcu-
| liable value TO him. st. Gaudens,
whose interest in beginners is so well
| known, had never looked upon him as
a mere prentice Indeed, he once told
me that since guiding MacMonnies
| progress almost from childhood he had
come TO feel toward him as though he
were his own boy
| All those fortunate enough 20 be in
| tinatelv acquainted with MacMonnies
testify to his genial. happy disposition,
| his freedom from aIectation and the
many admirable qualities that make
him one OF the most beloved and Iowa
| BILE of friends He has had the most
| wonderful success but it has never
! turned his head. he has been petted ana
| admired by the greatest men ana wom-
| en- OF Europe and America, but mas not
| been spoiled a particle. He Is the same
| frank and unaffected boy that he was
| when toiling hard for honors In Paris
and sharing lodgings with other poor
| students like himself.
Nearly six feet tall. slender and
| shapely, with fair hair tumbling IN pro-
| fusion about a delicate, sensitive race
nearly always illumined with CHEEKY
| smile eyes deep and earnest, clas-
| sicaIly chiseled mouth shaded by
| light musta che-such is MacMonnies
| the sculptor as VI find him today
"Mac" his student friends used to call
him; but, though they were wont TO
rally and chaff him after the manner OF
the Quarter Latin, no one ever ven
tured beyond q certain limit of reserve.
Mac" was always ready for fun and
frolic after work was done and recrea-
ton was in order: he would sail with
his gay friends on the Seine, indulge in
merry pranks and join in boisterous
song, but during the hours he allotted
to labor none was more diligent than
this young sculptor from New York.
who won the admiration OF his French
confreres by the readiness and dexter
ity with which at the outset he entered
upon his work.
If ever there was born sculptor. IL
| is certainly MacMonnies, and yet
there are some who predict for him a
greater career, il possible, as painter.
He went to Paris in 1884. but had not
been there long before an outbreak OF
cholera drove him TO Munich, where he
put in his time at school of painting.
He developed such a passion for pig
ments that an authority on sculpture
remarked of him not long after Sue
cessful as MacMonnies is as sculptor,
he is a born painter. He Is really to-
day a painter with a chisel. His idea
of color seems instructive. In truth,
what less could one expect from rela-
tive of Benjamin West than that h
should have an intuitive feeling for
color?"
But the announcement In 1900 OF Mac
/
and take up the painters brush came
almost as a shock TO those who had
lovingly followed the successive step:
by which he had risen to the top notch
of his profession as a sculptor. They
argued that II would be impossible fol
one trained as a sculptor all his life tC
achieve success as a painter. But these
protests were only from those who were
unacouainted with his earlier years a
the brush for the fact Is that he v
more imbued with the color" of hi!
subjects than any other sculptor wh'
ever took a prize in Paris salons. 4
student artist who was with him IL
France says that the key OF his sue
cess was revealed after he had taken ;
arst prize In the exhibit OF drawing
which he made at that time-"sucl
drawings as no other sculptor perhap
had ever shown at the Beaux Arts
Gerome's boys and the painters OF tn
other ateliers swarmed about them an
acknowledged with frank admiration
that not one OF their own number coul
equal them. Others might finish NOR
and lick 10 greater smoothness, bu
here was a man who h!t the characte
every time and drew il with unfiinchin
accuracy. yet with mighty swing lik
an ola DdNNtI. NAiAbiNiSh "~o
revelation TO us ALL
Whether I'm Paris or in Munich Mac
Monnies was always working hard TO
ward the one end he had In view-suc
cess. After he had won that at sculp
ture. as has been said, he concluded {
try a change Of work. In relation {
this he himself remarked at the time c
his return TO this country, few week
since: Two years ago / became Ill an
had 10 stop for a rest. / painted som
portraits I'm Paris and am going TO do
little OF that work here before do any
thing more as a sculptor. IL Is well for
man to stop once in awhile to look q
what he has done with a critical ey
and get clearer view of things befoi
going on. That's what / am doin
now. | had been indoors too much, an
so I got outdoors and painted. On
summer was spent at little town
Normandy-Bo Jerome. There
nainted portraits OF Able Toussaint