14

AN ILL US TRA TED MONTHL V
JO URNAL,
DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS AND THE
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Headquarters City Fire Department ,
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,
Ga.—Bruce &
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Cincinnati Crematory.—
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Residence for Mr. Garnett. —A. S. Eiehberg, architect,
Augusta, Ga.
THE DECORATIVE FEATURES OF SCULPTURE.*
IT
would be pardonable in me, perhaps, if I looked a
little ahead to see,
in the now rapidly developing
recognition of the worth of women in public affairs, an-
other source of difficulty to the future sculptors, if their
only chance for distinction lies, as it does
now, in por-
trait statues too; and difficult as it now is to make a
male standing statue in modern costume suggestive of
the figure beneath the garb, still greater will the diffi-
culty become Avhen dealing with the fashionable dress
of the other sex.
Let us, for all reasons then, be prepared for the erec-
tion of the coming memorials by having homes made for
them in buildings that are now being constructed, so
that architect and sculptor may combine together and
work out, each in their several ways, one common idea.
To do this would be to return to our best traditions; it
would emphasize the object of a building, and, by accent-
uating the
past deeds of great men in the scene of their
labors, serve as a stimulus to coming generations.
With this simple principle in our minds we shall be
better able to understand how it is that the sculpture of
*
A lecture delivered in the Applied Art Section at the Society of Arts,
London, by Mr. E. Roscoe Mullins.
the end of the last century and the beginning of this has
so little of permanent value or interest to us, although the
sculptors were, individually, often men of
great ability;
one or two, indeed, such as Roubiliac, of exceptional
ability. One feels that the works of men like Bacon,
Banks, Wilson, Gibson and others are misplaced, or,
rath-
er, as if they were not intended for
any particular place at
all, but were executed for a museum and for
any
old
corner where there was room. They do not touch us as
they should, in spite of, as in those by Roubiliac, their
great merit in execution. But not only are they not
decorative in treatment, they are not representative of the
leading thoughts of that age. I suppose the two leading
ideas of that time were the establishment of our colonies
and the abolition of slavery. Yet neither of these
great
subjects inspired our sculptors then—at least I can think
of no important work that would typify them. When
not engaged upon portrait statues, their skill was exer-
cised in creating a Venus, a Diana or a Cupid, which, at
the most, could only rank as conventional classical imi-
tations, not especially beautiful in themselves, and pos-
sessing for a future age none of that archaeological inter-
est that work, true to the thoughts and aspirations of its
own time, must always have.
The chief exponent of this experimental art was John
Gibson; to me there is a special sadness in looking
back on his life and works. We are conscious now.
of the
weakness of his work; but, even in my
student days,
most art lovers that I came across esteemed him as the
finest sculptor of the day. It is not that fashion has
shifted from classical standards to the freer development
of the Renaissance —lovers of art will always love the
best Greek sculpture—but it is the want of aim in his
works and their isolation from the thoughts of the time
that has brought this neglect. There is a warning note
to sculptors in the words of his will, by which he be-
queathed his casts to the nation : —“Yes, I do feel,” he
wrote, “that the collection of
my models, seen together,
would be of use to young sculptors as to style.” Now,
not a soul but the very curious goes near them, and the
works represent a splendid gallery of an art that is dead,
because created apart and
away
from the needs of the
time and the sympathies of the nation.
Flaxman’s work was a glorious exception to this con-
ventional art, and redeems this period from the whole-
sale condemnation that would otherwise be justly meted
out to it. His reliefs are especially decorative, and when
placed effectively, as I have seen them, they have
great
power
in accentuating the purpose of a building. Those
that I refer to are panels from the Lord’s prayer series,
and are let into the wall at the east end of a church?
occupying the space where they serve as true sermons in
stone, without need of comment or words of any kind.
Such I maintain to be instances of true religious deco-
rative art. The inevitable result of detaching sculpture
from architecture, and looking upon
the art as independ-
ent of other arts and capable of stirring sentiment alone
and unattached, is this harping back on the old masters
and following in grooves dug out by them, working, that
is to say, according to theories rather than up to required
needs.
Theories must always be cramping and dangerous if
meant as a guide to future production. In sculpture
it has proved itself to be especially so, because
the art has been such a happy hunting ground for
the critic and connoisseur. Theories are only interest-
ing as gathering up
and focusing what has been
but not at all in deciding upon
the form future work
shall take. Of all theories, that based on the search of
beauty is perhaps the most destructive of all original
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THE SOUTHERN ARCHITECT.