Evening star., 1925-03-03
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

Is It the artistic temperament" :"
such as SO often accompanies genius,
that is now rocking Stone Mountain,
Ga, as an earthquake sways the
continent?
Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor Of
the gigantic, the dreamer of the
grand, the carver of whole noun
tain into granite group Of statuary
greater than was ever carved before
by the hand OF man, is a fugitive,
arrested on the complaint of alleged
narrow minds" Of local lawyers and
merchants. wholly lacking in art
sense" accusing him OF malicious
mischief in his alleged destruction
of his own models for the mountain
masterpiece.
These narrow minds" composing
the commission, discharged" the
sculptor, and they would employ an
other to proceed with the work They
had decided that Borglum was not
progressing with business-like speed.
He, in turn, claims that the commits
sion was not functioning, and was
behind with the funds to the amount
OF some 100000, which was due IN
proportion with the actual progress
already made. He alleges that the
commissions overhead expenses in
funds were out of proportion to the
efficiency of their services, and that
his demand for an audit had been re-
fused.
More especially, he declares that
the models which he had destroyed
some weeks before his discharge"
were his property, the children of his
art-imagination, which could not be
given over to any other sculptor.
- y
Imagine the sacrf1ege of CONNER
cialIy trained man who had engaged
Meissionier of a Baudry or a
whistler to paint a masterpiece, in
the midst of the work, bursting into
the studio and setting UP the claim
that since he had supplied funds with
which the canvas had been bought
he retained the right to stop the
work to some student who painted
with more modern, impressionistic
speed.
Who owns the art behind fits exc
cution? Wherein liea the property
right? Does the chief value of an art
design lie in the materials of tangible
paper or plans or clay or granite or
machinery? Or, does II chiefly and
essentially lie In the art? Can an art
design be seized from its author and
banded over to another without the
consent of the original artist? Can
q half finished poem be completed by
another than the poet who con-
ceived Il?
Some time ago whistler was suing
a recalcitrant customer for the price
Of a picture, and the lawyer of the
defense, thinking to show the un-
reasonableness of the claim, asked
how long it had taken him to paint
the canvas. Was It day or month?
whistler's answer was that 1t was
his whole lifetime Of study. Art, in
deed, "is long"
The tragedy of stopping progress
upon the granite mountain bas-relief
Is not an incident of mere local con-
Germ. 1t is not at all confined to sec
tionalism in its COMMUNICATING the
heroes of the Lost Cause. Such
sublimity as is there conceived be-
longs not merely to the South--not
merely to America-it Is the product
of universal art, such as brought a
world guardianship OF the great ca
thedrals of Europe against the raw
ages of the World War. 1t stands in
protest against vandalism, regardless
of property titles, whether national
or individual.
The fact that the Borglum figures
are still partially unhewn does not in
the least modify their present ex-
istence as priceless art. Was It not
Michelangelo who asserted that his
statues already existed in the un-
carved marble before he touched it,
for being in his mind, all that re-
manned was to cut away that part of
the stone which surrounded his
dream? 1t was the dream that lies
hidden in the granite mountain which
brought tears to the eyes of Borglum