File:Appreciation of sculpture; a handbook by Russell Sturgis (1904) (14595077418).jpg

Identifier: appreciationofsc00stur (find matches)
Title: Appreciation of sculpture; a handbook by Russell Sturgis ...
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Sturgis, Russell
Subjects: Sculpture
Publisher: The Baker
Contributing Library: Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Metropolitan New York Library Council - METRO

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expect of the thirteenth centuryFrenchman, and we shall not be disap-pointed in our search for it. Plate XXI shows a part of the middle door-way in the west front of Reims Cathedral,four of the statues of the north jamb. Theextremely elongated character of the Char-tres statues is not seen here ; these figuresare hardly more slender and tall than amodern sculptor would think appropriateto his purpose. Even the modern sculptorof the academic teaching now in fashion,would think himself free to increase therelative height of his figures for a definitepurpose. He would think himself free todo so—it does not follow that he wouldalways use the privilege. For let thisbe considered : when a certain equestrianstatue was exhibited about the last year ofthe nineteenth century and it was notedthat the rider, seated upon his war saddle,had such a length of limb that the wholefoot and some inches of the ankle (or theboot thereunto corresponding) were to beseen projecting downwards beneath the(80)
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The European Middle Ages belly of the horse, this wholly untruthfulrepresentation of the facts of nature wasdefended by the sculptor and by hisfriends, on the ground of the unusuallygreat stature of the officer whose portraitwas in hand, and the supposed necessityof insisting on the fact of the relativeheight of his figure ; also on the groundthat the pedestal was to be extremely highand that the figure would appear foreshort-ened. But that question, as to whether sucha device was justifiable in art, was carriedup to a tribunal of two or three sculptorshaving the best French academic teaching,and they said with one voice that theirschooling had been the other way, thatthey had been told to avoid such tricks, for, of course, the eye of the spectator al-lows for such foreshortening as would befound in even a much higher placing of thestatue, as upon a high wall; and, as for theunusual height of the man—it was not thehorse that should be dwarfed to produce thateffect. The Greek warrior

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