Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1907-08-22
Worthy of the Renaissance
BY Byron Williams.
Work of Augustus Saint -dsudens

Our greatest American SCULPTOR
the foremost sculptor of our age, in
fact-the one man who ranks with
the geniuses Of the Italian Renais-
sauce, has gone the way of all flesh;
Augustus st. Gaudens died at his sum-
mer home in Cornish. n. M. in his
Goth year. America only gave a home
and opportunity to this man, his gen
JUS belonged neither to his ancestry,
mis- BIRTH nor his environment; it
was an individual possession, and in
SO far, a mystery. Great sCulptOrs are
very rare, much rarer than great
painters, or even than great poets.
There az, those who call Augusta
ROuin, the famous FrenChman, d
great sculptor, forgetting or ignoring
that the very genius of sculpture is
form, and that Rodin cares nothing
for form. But st. Gaudens was above
everything a master of form; it was
the basis of all his works. 1t is to
be noted that unlike the sculptOrs or
the great FOrentine and Roman era,
st. Gadens was not for years called
upon to express imagination in fabuI-
Gus or fanciful tigures-what he was
called upOn to do was to interpret
in peTmanence the great ideas of d
heroic era in which he was launched
as a lad,-the great civil war enCOm
passing and compelling him at the
plastic age when ideas sink into the
heart aud soul OF a poetic youth
and into the susceptible and poetic
soul OF Augustus St Gaudens the soT-
row, the splendor, the romance, the
religion Of that period passed and
and made his life. For he was pow
erfu} in precisely these lnes-the
heroism and the grandeur of self-sac-
rifice and inspiration.
The greatest works of the sculptor
are the Lincoln" in Chicago and the
Robert G. Shaw monument in Boston.
1t is necessary to observe for tie
honor of the craftsman that while the
idea is in all respects great in the> {
and other works, it is the absolute
power Of the sculptor technically
which makes such things as the Lin
coin, the Shaw, the Farragut and the
Puritan so great as they are. St
knew how to WELD the chisel and al
though he employed the help OF work
men, he was the brain and soul that
made their work vital and he himself
filled every possible requirement Of
the sculptor
The Lincoln Of Chicago is one of
those tremendous legacies which may
sometimes be left by heroic age to
those succeeding. 1t bears a great
significance, in the fact that here.
more than anywhere else, is embodied
the whole soul of the war for the
union; the great, strong, rough-hewn,
mastery man, rising from his
chair al the borders of the great city
of the state which gave him as presI-
dent to the union,-he meant the long
life of Liberty, he meant the promise
and progress of the world,-and no
figure of the war would-have done it
All this is in the majestic statue OF
St. Gaudens. In lesser way, but still
superb, stands his Farragut on the
quarterback, mastering the ships al
the passage of Mobile bay, as Brown
ell described him in glowing verse;
in such strong grasp of the idea did
st. Gaudens make his strenuous study
of 1.-THE Puritan" not literal copy
of any Chaplin, but good exemplifi
cation of the fertile Puritan lineage