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429
BY FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVB,
Late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
PART I.
Monumental statues, common in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Italy,
were hardly known during the Gothic or Mediaeval period of Western
Europe ; and they first appear in England in connection with the Lord
Arundel who collected antique marbles. He caused the bronze eques
trian group of Charles I. at Charing Cross to be modelled in 1633 by
Hubert le Sueur, who is called a pupil of the Italian sculptor, John of
Bologna. Before it was put up, the monarchy had been abolished ;
and it is a well-known story, how a brazier, who read the signs of the
times better than the politicians of the Commonwealth, concealed the
group when its destruction was ordered. But it is probably little
remembered by those who now pass it, that the vacant spot was selected
for the scaffold of Major-General Harrison and four other patriots who
suffered under the Restoration. There is something vindictive and bar
barous in the choice of this site for the statue ; something that recalls
old frightful tales of human sacrifice and superstition. But people
gossiped in those days as in ours, and much discussion seems to have
accompanied the elevation of the statue to the pedestal, which was
then elaborately carved for it, perhaps from the design, if not by
the hands, of Grinling Gibbons.
What can be the mystery, why Charing Cross
This five months continues still muffled with board ?
Thus, about 1672, sang Andrew Marvell—a writer from whose ode
on Cromwell, one of the noblest and most stately poems in our lan
guage, a more serious strain might have been expected.
Anecdotes about artists have ordinarily little more to do with their
art and the merit of it than these; but, in case of the Charles I., it is
such historical associations that lend the group its main value. Placed
well for effect, but (like other statues to be hereafter noticed) too high
for convenient study as a work of art, it appears to be in a tame, at least a
timid style, which hardly rises above the common monumental sculpture
of that day; and in the age of Vandyck, one would have expected a
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more picturesque and effective likeness, especially since, when seen in
front, one traces a distinct reference to that great painter’s equestrian
portraits. The horse is fairly natural, though not free from indications
that the artist was thinking of the ill-modelled breed of the ancient
Roman sculptors; and the best thing we can say of the group, is that
it avoids the bad extravagant style, which had by 1633 corrupted
Italian sculpture, and of which, .John of Bologna was one of the most
brilliant representatives.*
Strange, as it may seem, London contains at least one public sta
tue, the subject of which is hardly less uncertain, than if it had been
dug up in Greece or Italy. Probably during the reign of Charles II.
when Soho Square was begun, a stone figure was placed there, which
has been assigned to the unhappy Duke of Monmouth, to James II.,
and to Charles himself. The last appears the most probable. It is
a standing figure, clothed in English armour, but with a robe twisted
behind; a wig surrounds the mutilated features.
Cromwell still waits for his statue; and he, in truth, should be a
very powerful and accomplished sculptor, whose hands could safely
attempt the difficult task of doing justice to the great man who stands
up like some huge rock among the petty figures of the Stuarts. But
unless we commemorate a prince or a general (and Cromwell was
something more than most princes and generals), English funds are
rarely forthcoming. Men even greater than the Protector are equally
unrepresented. Yet there are few methods by which a wealthy man
might more certainly or more honourably hand his name down to
future generations, than by a first-rate public monument to departed
genius.
James II., by Gibbons the wood-carver, apparently completed in
1687, stands behind Whitehall, and considering its age and exposed
position, is well-preserved. He is in full Roman armour, laurelcrowned, and a robe falling behind him ; the attitude, that of a man
giving some command, is rather too showy, yet is rendered with ease
and a certain dignity, and there is a considerable air of likeness in the
harsh but narrow-looking features. The modelling is fair in its con
ventional way, which reminds one rather of the Roman-antique style
than of nature ; and it deserves special praise that Gibbons has known
how to take advantage of his material, and has given his figure the
comparatively disengaged or “ open ” attitude of which bronze, from
* For some of the facts stated in this paper, the writer is indebted to Mr. 0.
Knight’s “London” (1843), and Mr. P. Cunningham’s “Handbook” (1849).
�public States in ^oiWon.
431
its superior tenacity, admits. The drapery, from the same reason, has
been kept light and flat in the folds. These may seem obvious
merits; but it will be found that sculptors of much greater pretension
and experience than Gibbons, have not felt the difference between
working in stone, and working in metal, and have made their bronze
figures dark and heavy, by a massive treatment, which only looks well
in its own appropriate and light-coloured material. The artist received
¿6500 for this work—a very large sum, the time and the size of the
figure considered, and a proof that ho must have obtained fashionable
recognition as a sculptor.
The great William, fated to learn in England, by a bitter and
pathetic experience,
The unwilling gratitude of base mankind,
has but one statue—that in the centre of St. James’s Square. So far
us its distance from the eye admits of a judgment, this group (it is
equestrian) though rather clever and lively, appears to be in a poor
style, imitating the French statues of Louis XIV., and has all the look
of a contemporary production. Yet it seems certain that the younger
Bacon not only placed this figure here in 1808, but modelled
it. He speaks of it as “my equestrian statue,” in a letter which
has been kindly pointed out to the writer by Mr. G. Scharf; and
a print of the Square, dated 1751, shows a basin and fountain where
the group now stands. Except upon such evidence (especially when
one considers how unlikely it was that anyone should go to the great
expense involved at the above date), it might have been conjectured
that a contemporary statue had been presented to the Square by one
of the great families who have houses about it, and might have been pro
vided with its pedestal and “put in order” by Bacon. Though wantingin
dignity and grace, this group has some truth to character* in its expres
sion of will and energy. The curious way in which the hair of the
tail is detached in little masses in the direction of the horse’s pro
gress, was probably intended to increase this effect. But there is
always a want of due stability and repose when a figure appears to be
rapidly moving off its pedestal. The pause of arrested motion, the
moment of suspended action, by the laws of the material, is almost
always the right instant for sculpture to express.
Anne figures thrice: before St. Paul’s, and in the two Queen’s
Squares named after her. Of these statues it will be enough to
describe one. That in Queen’s Square West (apparently Portland
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public Statues in Mention,
stone painted) represents her exactly as she might have looked in one
of the pictures of the time, in full court-robes, wearing a crown, and
rising up or walking forward ; whilst the right hand is extended over
a cushion resting on a twisted column. The features are pleasing, and
though the work is without any trace of proper style, the figure has a
ladylike and dignified air. The broken sceptre now lies upon the
cushion,—an emblem of her ill-fated family 1—The quiet Square, with
its solemn but not ungraceful houses around, some still preserving
fragments of contemporary carving, the trees and the untrodden grassplats, is a fit place for the monument of the last reigning Stuart.
A figure of George I., showy but effective, and infinitely better
designed for its position than the Duke of York and the Nelson by
two once fashionable Academicians, surmounts the picturesque cam
panile of St. George’s, Bloomsbury.
George II. (or George I.,—the point is disputed), in Leicester
Square, has been lately mutilated and ordered for removal; equal acts
of folly, for though the statue was, perhaps, not of greater merit in
art than several of our most recent figures presently to be noticed,
yet it had real interest for all who feel that to love their land is to
love its history, and are aware how much a past period is vivified
and realized by the sight of any actual monument which the men of
that day saw and handled.
A second statue of George II., perhaps by the same hand as the
one of his father, stands like a Roman warrior in Golden Square.
This, again, is a stone figure painted over (with the exquisitely absurd
English taste in these matters) to look, no doubt, more like stone!
The statue is of the ordinary monumental sort, though very elaborately
wrought in the drapery and armour, which, from unskilful arrangement,
give it a clumsy air. The warrior character may here be accepted as a
not undeserved, if pedantic, compliment to the king’s distinguished
personal courage and firmness in danger. He and his father, in com
parison with their Stuart. predecessors, have, in truth, been rather
harshly dealt with in our literature, which forgets their good points and
cannot forgive their imperfect English.
The Duke of Cumberland, an equestrian bronze, set up in 1777
within Cavendish Square, is the last and perhaps the worst public
statue in the primitive style which need be mentioned ; for a standing
figure of Sir H. Sloane, by Rysbrack, in the Apothecaries’ Gardens at
Chelsea, though noteworthy as the first extant memorial to a private
citizen of distinction, hardly falls within our subject. Awkwardly
�public Statues in &onUon.
433
huddled together in his robes, and seemingly desirous to ride off and
hide himself, the statue of the Duke almost justifies a criticism which
it drew from Sir J. Reynolds—that modern dress was radically unsuit
able for sculpture. But no powerful sculptors had proved then, as
David d’Angers in France, Rietschel in Germany, and Watson and
Woolner with us, have since proved, that the reverse of Sir Joshua’s
verdict is the truth. Indeed, it is obvious to common sense, that if
we cannot clothe our contemporaries as they were really clothed, we
had better leave monumental sculpture alone.
These figures all date before sculpture was studied as an art in
England—nay, before it was thought possible that genuine English
hands could produce anything worthy to be called sculpture. It is
worth while recalling this state of things, for the encouragement of our
race here or across the seas. During the first half of the last century
nearly the same scepticism existed also in regard to our capacity for
painting. These arts, at least in their highest form, were supposed by
some natural law of selection to be confined to Italy—a country which,
for more than a hundred years, had not only ceased to produce the
great things which have justly made her celebrated, but had fallen into
a degeneracy, in which tameness and extravagance, both alike almost
entirely forgetful of nature, contended for the mastery. Yet the super
stition that Italian taste necessarily meant something superior, from
which the French had freed themselves, survived in England, and we
find even Reynolds apologizing with his graceful good sense, for
placing Gainsborough on a level with the Roman picture-manufac
turers of the time, not one of whom, to judge by their works, would
have been qualified even to “ set his pallette ” for our great landscapepainter.
“ Sturdy Hogart,” as Swift called him, was the first artist of power
who spoke out, somewhat rudely no doubt, against this silly supersti
tion, and satirized our art-patronizing classes for wasting their money
on the Italian charlatans and sharks who then abounded, in terms
which have even now not lost all their applicability. Hogarth’s own
pictures were, however, his best argument; Reynolds, Gainsborough,
and Wilson followed; and the English school of painting, in oil ant!
water-colours, whatever deficiencies it may be justly charged with, has
at least proved that we stand on a level with any other civilized race in
capacity for these forms of art. If our sculpture has not emerged to
similar excellence, it has not been from want of men equal to the best
of those hitherto known in Christendom, but from the want of general
VI.
28
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«Statues in bonbon.
public knowledge and taste on the subject, which has prevented ability
from obtaining fair play, or impressing itself on the country.*
Some revolution, analogous to that initiated by Hogarth, from the
books and reviews which have reached the writer, appears to be required
in America. There, as in eighteenth-century England, in spite of a con
siderable activity and pleasure in art, an unreasoning reliance on
European taste seems to prevail; a half-unconscious distrust of native
power ; a disposition, at least, among artists or their patrons to think
that art is only to be learned abroad. This is particularly perceptible
in case of sculpture, towards which the American mind shows a marked
bias, which should in time produce good work. In the interests of this
noblest of the Fine Arts, may an Englishman be allowed to observe
that it is an injurious tendency which leads American sculptors, like
some English, to settle in Italy ? Attractive as the prospect may seem
in the pages of a sentimental novelist, ignorant of art, everything is
there really against them: ancient models, mostly indifferent when
compared with our fragments of genuine Greek art, and rarely useful
as guides for modern practice; renaissance models, mostly unsculptural in style, however beautiful or grand in their execution; a native
modern school detestable in taste, though seductive by its showy
cleverness; above all, coterie worship of the most ruinous kind; idle
and dilettante wealth seeking to flatter itself by patronizing art, and
blinded in its pursuit by the flattery which it receives, in turn, from the
interested artist. This sickly maZanu was near ruining Michael Angelo
himself. It is, hence, little wonder that Rome, to the present day, has
bred no great or sound sculptor for centuries: at best a Canova, a
Thorwaldsen, or a Gibson, to show how fatal a delusion it is, even for
men with some natural vocation for the art, to put their trust in con,»
noisseurship and fashion, museums and mythologies.
It is about a century since the efforts of Nollekens, Banks, and
others, began to lift sculpture above the church-figure fashion, or the
mere imitation of French and Roman models; and there is hence
forward some attempt at sculptural style, although often imperfectly
carried out, in the public statues of London. Henceforth we
also notice another change which, though promising well, has but
partially fulfilled its promise. The royal family has hitherto filled
our list of public statues; nor, considering the considerable place
which the heads of every state, even if not to their own credit,
* The writer may refer those who are curious for further details on this point
to his “ Essays on Art,” Macmillan and Co., 1866.
�public statues in 3Lonbotx+
435
must necessarily fill in its history, should we grudge any of their
images as superfluous. But the more liberally we concede , their
claims, the more' will a high-spirited nation demand similar recognition
of those citizens who have been born “nobles by nature.” All kinds
of private merit were, from a very early time, honoured among the
Greeks by monumental sculpture; their healthy minds and lively
intellects soon saw that a musician might be not less of a public
benefactor than a ruler or a general; but in England these honours
were long confined to the royal lineage, just as Rome reserved a
triumph for members of the privileged houses. This feeling broke
down with us after the French Revolution, and a more liberal order of
things began. So sculpture, like all the arts, images the politics of
a nation. But the plan has failed hitherto in several respects, which
it is worth while to notice as lessons for the future. In the first place,
whether because a man of action has more powerful or more united
friends flian a man of mind, or through what is now spoken of as the
“Philistinism” of the race, intellect and genius have been almost ex
cluded from these national honours, and every foreigner in England has
remarked that the statues of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon,
Newton, and others of “the blood of the gods,” are conspicuous in
London by their absence. And a second cause of failure, when any
thing in this way has been tried, has arisen from the low state, not
only of sculpture, but of taste and knowledge of the art among us,
already alluded to. Without personal disrespect to men who follow
the art as they have received it, and might have made more of natural
capacity under a better system, it may be said that the large majority
of our professors bear the same relation to sculptors, in the strict sense,
that the Holloways and Morrisons bear to a Cullen, a Holland, or a De
Mussy. They are unscientific. The large majority of our patrons or
committees of selection, again, have no more fitted themselves, by study
of the art, to decide on the merits of the respective artists than an
average Englishman is qualified to decide between Armstrong or Whit
worth ordnance. If they were qualified, their first discovery would
necessarily be that there is no art wherein excellence is rarer than
Sculpture ; and in place of falling in with the thoughtless practice of the
day, and encouraging monuments and statues to every politician or
general of note, they would resolutely determine to have none unless
they could have them by first-rate ability. That one or two sculptors
of such rank should be found in any country is the most that can be
looked for; there have been many periods when no genius in this
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public Statues tn SLonbon.
difficult art has existed anywhere ; but the man of trained taste would
make this his first rule—to have excellence in sculpture, or give up
the wish for it. There is no pleasure, or life, or honour in a mediocre
statue. Genius can only be duly commemorated by genius.
With the development of sculpture as an art in England the indivi
dual style of the artist becomes also conspicuous, and must hence
forward be carefully considered in any attempt to criticise our public
statues. It may, therefore, be convenient to class them under their
respective sculptors. The first example in which the art raised itself
above the primitive style with which we have been hitherto engaged
was given by Bacon, in the bronze group of George III., which stands
■within the quadrangle of Somerset House; and it still remains one of
the best works in London. We are so familiar with the appearance of
this king in his later years, that it is a surprise to see him here with
the delicate and almost girlish features of his youth, as he might have
looked, before his mind clouded into obstinacy, when he made love to
Lady Sarah Lennox, or gossiped respectfully with Dr. Johnson in the
palace library. The figure is treated in a half-classical style, in a robe
which follows and displays the form, hair bound with a fillet, legs and
arms bare. The limbs are rather timidly modelled, but the attitude
has a fair degree of animation, and the draperies are managed with
carefulness and grace. Bacon, though a sound, was not an imagina
tive artist, like his distinguished contemporary Banks; he is, hence,
not happy in the emblems with which he has grouped the King.
George holds a classical rudder, and a classical galley lies behind him,
balanced on his right side by a lion. In itself this Hon is much better
modelled than those in Trafalgar Square, to be presently described.
The back is particularly good; but through an absurd diminution of
natural size, the effect is altogether thrown away. Below the king
the Thames, figured in Roman fashion as an aged but vigorous man,
reclines, with a vase and an immense “ cornucopia,” which—reversing
the error committed in regard to the lion—is far too large. This
figure is ably and powerfully modelled, but misses the repose of ancient
art: it reveals something of the extravagant taste of the Roman
sculptor Bernini, or of Bacon’s own contemporary, Fuseli. Altogether,
however, this group (especially when its date in our school is con
sidered) ranks as a very creditable work, and teaches a lesson greatly
needed now ;—how much care and completeness may do for the art in
the absence of those high gifts of genius which are only given once
or twice in a century to the sculpture of any country.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Public statues in London. Part 1
Creator
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Palgrave, Francis Turner [1821-1893]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 429-436 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Broadway 1 (1868). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue.
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[s.n.]
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[1868]
Identifier
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G5341
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Legislation
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Public statues in London. Part 1), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
London
Sculpture
Statues
-
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1ede449c1abb6ae2d79b155707cf9225
Dublin Core
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Architecture and Place
Creator
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Humanist Library and Archives
Date
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2016
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised items from the Humanist Library and Archives telling the story of buildings and spaces occupied by the Conway Hall Ethical Society (formerly the South Place Ethical Society). Also includes several born digital items.
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Subject
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Architecture
Conway Hall (London, England)
South Place Chapel, Finsbury
Mansford, Frederick Herbert (1871-1946)
Language
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English
Still Image
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Photo
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Photo of the interior of South Place Chapel
Description
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Interior view showing the back of South Place Chapel, with the organ, clock, paintings and sculpture.
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The City Studio
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<p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"> <img style="border-style:none;" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> <br /> This work (<span>Photo of the interior of South Place Chapel</span>, by <span><span>The City Studio</span></span>), identified by <a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
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OP31A
Subject
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Chapels--England
Church architecture--Details
Church architecture--Details
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image/jpeg
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Image
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Organs (musical instruments)
Paintings
Sculpture
South Place Chapel, Finsbury