Thomas (1814-1857) was one of the most important in the list of American sculptors who possessed marked traits of originality; his style had a certain classic grandeur. His statue of the Genius of Liberty on the Capitol at Washington possesses considerable merit, but its beauties are effectually concealed by its being placed at the preposterous height of two hundred and eighty-eight feet above the ground, where only the fowls of the air can perceive it. his statue of Orfibens, simple, suggestive, and severe in style, is one of the best ideal sculptures produced by an American artist.
Horatio Greenough (1805-1852) enjoyed a great repute in his time, which we are reluctantly, obliged to consider in excess of his actual merits as an artist. He had good opportunities for study abroad, but impresses one as a man of general intellectual force and culture, but with no special calling for sculpture. He executed a number of vigorous, truthful portrait-busts, as of Fenimore Cooper and La Fayette, but in venturing after expression of the ideal lie cannot be said to have reached satisfactory results. Few statues have given rise to more conflicting crit icism than his statue of Washington in the National Capitol. Colossal in size, seated on a massive throne, half nude, holding a Roman sword in his outstretched left hand, it seems an absurdity in this age thus to represent so recent and well known a character. The impracticability of the idea of imitating the antique in order to produce a good sculpture was never more forcibly displayed.
Doze Palmer, one of the most original of American sculptors, was born at Pompey, Onondaga county, New York, in 1817. Exercising the calling of a carpenter, Palmer did not yield to his artistic yearnings until he was thirty. Soon after, he removed to Albany, and lie has always had his studio iii that city. For some years Palmer has discontinued to practise his art. His success in winning popularity and money was rapid. This we think was due partly to his choice of popular subjects and partly to the element of surprise, which attracted attention to one who with so few advantages had been able to achieve any results resembling good art. In point of original ability Palmer undoubtedly ranks high, lint lie never accomplished what might have been done if lie had enjoyed greater educational advantages. Ile adopted an American type of beauty, intellectual but passionless, and displayed a fancy akin to that of Thor waldsen in treating light symbolical subjects; but all his statues show imperfect knowledge of the figure and a restricted perception of the underlying principles of plastic art. Palmer exercised a beneficial
influence in aiding a number of prominent young artists of Albany whom he had admitted to his studio; among them are Lannt Thompson and Joseph S. Hartley (q. v.).
Lanni Thompson, born in Ireland in 1833, is one of the most correct of American portrait-sculptors, and is able to suggest character in por traiture with dignity and repose and a certain classical quality. An eques trian statue of General Burnside by Thompson is a work of considerable merit. Respectable equestrian statues have been produced by several American sculptors, of which specially deserve mention that of General Washington by Thomas Ball (born in 1819), in the Public Garden at Boston; one of the same subject in Union Square in New York—notable for being the first important piece of bronze statuary made in the United States—and one of General Scott at Washington, both by Henry Kirke Brown (1814-1886); and the statue of General Thomas at Washington by J. Q. A. Ward. These are all meritorious works, although none are of the first rank.
John Quincy Adams Ward, born at Urbana, Ohio, in 1830, is one of the most prominent sculptors of civic monuments in America. His bronze statue of Washington in front of the Treasury Building in Wall street, New York City, and his statue of the Indian Hunter (pl. 49, fig. 2) in Central Park, are works in which there is little to criticise ; they are correct in composition and detail. If they do not impress one like the masterpieces of antiquity, it is doubtless because they are the product of an artist of great talent but of little genius. There is a certain indefinable quality in the works of genius which we can feel when we cannot exactly analyze and define it.
IT'illiam Wetmore Story, who was born at Salem, Massachusetts, in 1819, is a very clever writer as well as sculptor. Story inspires sincere respect for his mental endowment, and the lofty character of his works in marble does not lessen this respect. Such dignified compositions as his Cleopatra, Medea, and Jerusalem Lamenting (pi. 47, fig. 4) are of a highly-intellectual cast, but, unfortunately, are lacking in inspirational power. They suffer by the side of the marbles of Praxiteles, Michel angelo, or Giovanni da Bologna. A sculptor of perhaps less repute, but of more warmth of imagination, was W. H. Rinehart of Baltimore.