Great American Sculptures PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ...who have drifted into art from other pursuits. It education, notwithstanding that we have a number of art schools and academies in operation; thirty or forty years ago it was an impossibility. Considering the disadvantages under which they have labored it is really wonderful that American artists, and especially American sculptors, have succeeded in doing such very excellent work as they must be credited with. A sculptor, even more than a painter, needs exactly the kind of training that can only be obtained in a school where the human form is made the basis of study. Dealing with the human form almost exclusively, it is essential that he should study it from a constant succession of living examples. The antiques, it is true, will teach him much, bat there is a great deal that they cannot teach him. Even, however, were it 'possible for a student to learn all that need be learned from the antiques, the fact that a close and exclusive study of them invariably has the effect of stifling real invention and real originality, and of inducing the artist to become a mere copyist of men long dead and gone, is of itself sufficient to compel a sculptor who wishes to preserve his own individuality, to go to the fountain-head from which the great master artists of the classic period drew their inspiration. Rogers when he decided to be a sculptor went to Rome, for it was there that the best opportunities were offered, both for the study of nature and of the noblest remains of antique art. He studied hard for several years, and he then came before the public with two statues which at once gained him celebrity, and placed him in the front rank of the sculptors of the day. These statues were a Boy and a Dog and Nydia the Blind Girl of Pompeii. The last...