The Denver Jewish news., 1925-07-16
Jewish Sculptor Drives
London Mad
Jacob Epstein's Hyde Park Memorial
Most Discussed and Most abused
Piece Of Sculpture of the Genera.
tion.
BY JosEPH LEFrMIcn

By JDSEfH IEfINltli
Copyright by Jewish rvlcg. Agency 1879
1t is no exaggeration TO say that
Jacob Epstein has driven this great,
wonderful old London and its gener.
ally calm Londoners mad, frantic, be-
side themselyes. 1t is no small
achievement TO drive any general
public mad about work of art, but
Epstein has done it-and not for the
first time in his life either. 1t is a
fatal facility of his to set the man in
the street, in rage about his work.
He did 1t with his Oscar Wilde monu-
ment in Paris, which was not allowed
to be unveiled because the public and
the critics resented IL. Then there
were his sculptures for the British
Medical association in the Strand,
which brought howl of protest from
all sides and controversy which
lasted for years. His Venus was at
tackled as an ugly, formless parody OF
the goddess of womanly beauty, and
his statue Of Christ was denounced as
a scandalous piece of sculpture, a
blasphemous conception and an out
rage to decent feeling.
Now his Rima, which was unveiled
about week ago by the Prime Min
lister, Mr.. Baldwin, at an official cere-
mony in commenSration of the great
naturalist, W. II. Hudson, to whom
the bird sanctuary of which the Ep-
stein panel forms part, h2s been dedi-
Gated, is the centre OF storm OF pro-
test more violent than any ever be-
fore levelled at Epstein by his critics.
OF course, defenders, too, are not
lacking, and important defenders,
men whose word demands respect,
and naturally, as the abuse on the at
tacking side grows more heated and
exaggerated, so the ardency of the
defenders becomes more fired and Ep-
stein is elevated by them into a sym
Dol, into something greater than him
self and all his work, and he becomes
the banner of the Modernists, the
high-brows and would-be high-brows,
the admirers of the daring and the
unconventional, and those who love to
set the Philistine by the ears in their
ever raging battle against the Quiet
lists, the technicians in art, and the
average everyday layman.
Epsteins panel in Hyde Park has
become a place of pilgrimage. Crowds
go there daily to stand in front of it
and perform the ritual of abuse. 1t
has become the sensation of the day
and Of the night.
II was almost midnight when quite
distance from Hyde Park | heard
an American tourist, in his unmis-
takeable American accent, asking a
policeman the way to the Epstein
monument.
Il went into the park this after
noon,' says a correspondent of the
Manchester Guardian" made for
the first policeman | saw and before
l could open my mouth, he said, go
along that path as far as you can and
you will find it on the right"
The criticism has been fierce and
heated. "The Hyde Park atrocity," is
a heading freely applied to the panel
in the press.
"You have misunderstood the idea
it is to attract the birds, not to
frighten them away" cartoonist re
marks of it, addressing Epstein. An
other cartoonist has brought together
collection of all the ugliest statues
in London-the Albert Memorial, the
Nurse Cavell Statue and several of
the drab, nondcscript generals who
are scattered about, unloved and un-
wanted in the London squares, and he
has grouped them about the Epstein
panel as if they of all things on earth
were holding an Indignation meeting
against its existence.
That is perhaps the best means of
defense of the Epstein panel-tlie on
ly defense-for if it is ugly, what in
Heavens name are these others, and
why is there no. howl of protest
against them?
But the answer is simple, because
they are dull and they interest no
one, not even to protest.
Although the Hon. Stephen Cole.
ride, himself an artist and the son of
the famous Lord Chief Justice, at.
tacks even that defense by saying
that those of US who are disgusted
with the Epstein performance have
no brief to defend the generals H.
Trafalgar Square or the statesmen in
frock coats in Parliament square Be
cause other things are ugly, the Ep-
stein memorial does not become beau
tiful. The standard of beauty we de
sire to set up for emulation are the
masterpieces, not the ineptitudes and
the unhappy monuments and statues