Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

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ENGLISH.]
SCULPTURE
they are unfortunately much injured by the use of a thicker
outline on one side of the figures,-—an unsuccessful attempt
to give a suggestion of shadow. Flaxman’s best pupil was
Baily (1788-1867), chiefly celebrated for his nude marble
figure of Eve.
line- During the first half of the 19th century the preva-
eenth lence of a cold lifeless pseudo-classic style was fatal to
entury. individual talent, and robbed the sculpture of England of
all real vigour and spirit. Francis Chantrey (1782-1841)
produced a great quantity of sculpture, especially sepulchral
monuments, which were much admired in spite of their
very limited merits. Allan Cunningham and Henry Weekes
worked in some cases in conjunction with Chantrey, who
was not wanting in technical skill, as is shown by his
clever marble relief of two dead woodcocks. John Gibson
(1790-1866) was perhaps after Flaxman the most success¬
ful of the English classic school, and produced some works
of real merit. He strove eagerly to revive the poly¬
chromatic decoration of sculpture in imitation of the cir-
cumlitio of classical times. His Venus Victrix, shown at
the exhibition in London of 1862 (a work of about six
years earlier), was the first of his coloured statues which
attracted much attention. The prejudice, however, in
favour of white marble was too strong, and both the
popular verdict and that of other sculptors were strongly
adverse to the “ tinted Venus.” The fact was that Gibson’s
colouring was timidly applied : it was a sort of compromise
between the two systems, and thus his sculpture lost the
special qualities of a pure marble surface, without gaining
the richly decorative effect of the polychromy either of the
Greeks or of the mediaeval period.1 The other chief sculp¬
tors of the same very inartistic period were Banks, the
elder Westmacott (who modelled the Achilles in Hyde Park),
R. Wyatt (who cast the equestrian statue of Wellington,
lately removed from London), Macdowell, Campbell, Mar¬
shall, and Bell.
During the last hundred years a large number of hono¬
rary statues have been set up in the Houses of Parliament,
Westminster Hall and Abbey, and in other public places. in
London. Most of these, though modelled as a rule with
some scholastic accuracy, are quite dull and spiritless,
and, whilst free from the violently bad taste of such men
as Bernini or Roubiliac, they lack the force and vigorous
originality which go far to redeem what is offensive in the
sculpture of the 17 th and 18th centuries. The modern
public statues of London and elsewhere are as a rule
tamely respectable and quite uninteresting. One brilliant
exception is the Wellington monument in St Paul’s Cathe¬
dral, probably the finest plastic work of modern times. It
Stevens, was the work of Alfred Stevens (1817-1875), a sculptor of
the highest talent, who lived and died almost unrecognized
by the British public. The commission for this monu¬
ment was given to Stevens after a public competition; and
he agreed to carry it out for <£20,000,—a quite inadequate
sum, as it afterwards turned out. The greater part of his
life Stevens devoted to this grand monument, constantly
harassed and finally worn out by the interference_ of
Government, want of money, and other difficulties.
Though he completed the model, Stevens did not live to
see the monument set up,—perhaps fortunately for him,
as it has been placed in a small side chapel, where the
effect of the whole is utterly destroyed, and its magnificent
bronze groups hidden from view. The monument consists
of a sarcophagus supporting a recumbent bronze effigy of
the duke, over which is an arched marble canopy of late
Renaissance style on delicately enriched shafts. At each
1 Gibson bequeathed his fortune and the models of his chief works
to the Royal Academy, where the latter are now crowded in an upper
room adjoining the Diploma Gallery. See Lady Eastlake, Life of
Gibson, London, 1870.
end of the upper part of the canopy is a large bronze group,
one representing Truth tearing the tongue out of the mouth
of Falsehood, and the other Valour trampling Cowardice
under foot (see fig. 8). The two virtues are represented
Fig. 8.—Bronze group by Alfred Stevens from the Wellington
monument.
by very stately female figures modelled with wonderful
beauty and vigour; the vices are two nude male figures
treated in a very massive way. The whole is composed
with great skill and largeness of style. The vigorous
strength and sculpturesque nobility of these groups recall
the style of Michelangelo, but they are far from being a
mere imitation of him or any other master. Stevens’s
work throughout is original and has a very distinct char¬
acter of its own. He also designed an equestrian statue
of the duke to stand on the summit of the monument, but
in its present cramped position there is not sufficient room
for this.2 Owing to the many years he spent on this one
work Stevens did not produce much other sculpture. In
Dorchester House, Park Lane, there is some of his work,
especially a very noble mantelpiece supported by nude
female caryatids in a crouching attitude, modelled with
great largeness of style. He also designed mosaics to fill
the spandrels under the dome of St Paul’s. The value of
Stevens’s work is all the more conspicuous from the feeble¬
ness of most of the sculpture of his contemporaries.
In the present generation there are some signs of the
development of a better state of the plastic arts. A bronze
statue of an Athlete struggling with a Python, by Sir
Frederick Leighton, is a work of great merit, almost
2 The great merit of this work can now only be seen at the South
Kensington Museum, which possesses Stevens’s models and (on a small
scale) his design for the whole monument.
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