Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1908-01-03
WOMEN ANGELS HA We BEEN
MADE INTO SEXLESS ANGELS
6culptor Borglum, Accepting the Conventional Artistic Notion,
Made Feminine Figures for a Cathedral and When the
Dyines Protested They Should Be Men, He Vi
Chiseled Out All Signs Of Their Sex. B

New York, Special: S%culptors have
been at work with chisels and mall
lets upon the faces and forms OF the
angels that adorn the new Cathedral
of st. John the Divine cutting away
the lines of softness and delicacy and
giving the figures a more virile APP
pearance.
ne were these angels. As
such they represented the ideal of an
angel which the sculptor, Gutzon Bor-
glum had conceived. Now they are
sexiess; neither men nor w~omen-just
angels.
Women angels!" cried the commit
tee OF reverend and earned ministers
Of the Protestant Episcopal church,
when they went to inspect the figures
which MI. Borglum had carved. There
are no women angels. All the angels
arc men. This will never, never do
In vain the sculptor showed them his
precedents. In vain he cited the angels
OF Perugino, OF Fra Angelica and OF
cur own American French, many OF
which are evidently women His rev.
erend and learned critics cared nothing
for precedent: all angels were male;
the bible always referred TO an angel
as me" the very word angel was mas
cuiine in all languages in which there
are distinctions of gender.
All the world took up the discussion
and many comments greeted the stern
attitude of the reverend and learned
critics. But these gentlemen had the
hnai word. Mr.. Borglum had to make
his angels over TO suit them.
THAT Is why the rounded busts OF
the statues have been hacked off; that
is why the waving locks have been
cut down: that is why the soft contours
OF the faces have been made more
angular.
Roasting his toes before the fire in
his studio in East Thirty-eighth street,
GutZen Borglum-for whom TINS con-
troversy has earned the sobriquet
THE Angel Child" laughed merrily
when asked to talk about the trans
formation OF his angels.
THE controversy was absurd" he
said. ut was so absolutely ridiculous
that 7 can hardly find an excuse for
speaking of II at all.
When I made those angels / did n
piece of work which involved as much
study. as much serious, heartfelt con-
temptation and consideration as the
modelling of a Virgin or other sacred
figure. / endeavored to draw an angel
not n man, nor q woman, but an an
gel. I'm modelling these figures ] made
what TO me expressed the highest, best
and most sacred OF all ideals. 1t was
to impart to- those faces and forms, as
nearly as possible. q semblance 10
something divine, something that when
We look at II we feel, Here is the figure
Of an angel, here is a representation In
human form of a perfect being which
has been carried I'm the imagination of
man since his brain was capable OF
comprehension. 1T vas to me the pro
ductfon OF an ideal / had cherished in
childhood: 1t was the result of flnan-
ciai i~dealization.
TIC say l was shocked when form,
figure and contour of face were object
ed TO on the ground that there were too
feminine, because there were no wom-
en- angels. and hat these must be made
10 look like men, Is but mildly express
ing my state of mind. Up TO that mo-
ment, q you asked me whether my
angels were men or women / could not
have told you, and the material side of
the question brought so abruptly to my
attention was n shock.
What did / do about the new mod
els? Well, in the beginning / absolute
ly swept aside all question of my max
ing che figures men / could not CON
slider the question of sex i'm the produc-
ton or such work. Making the new de-