Augustus Saint-Gaudens
American
(1848 - 1907)
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was born on March 1, 1848 in Dublin, Ireland to Irish mother Mary McGuiness and French father Bernard Paul Ernest Saint-Gaudens. His parents moved to America six months after his birth to escape the famine that plagued all of Ireland, and Saint-Gaudens lived out his boyhood in New York.
In Saint-Gaudens’ series of reminiscences, he describes his childhood as filled with “great visions and great remembrances.” (1) He said of his childhood home in New York that “the smell of cake in the bakery at the corner of the street, and of the stewed peaches of the German family in the same house” stuck with him throughout his life. (2)
Saint-Gaudens worked in his father’s shoe and boot store until 1861 when at the age of thirteen he started an apprenticeship under a cameo-carver named Louis Avet. Saint-Gaudens polished stones and ran various errands for his employer until he grew skillful enough to carve cameos himself from stones, wood, and ivory. Beginning in 1864, Saint-Gaudens attended free art lessons at Cooper Union in the evenings. He returned home late from these lessons and afterwards sketched far into the night. He took further classes at the National Academy of Design beginning in 1866.
Saint-Gaudens witnessed the beginning and end of the American Civil War and observed the recruitment, drills, and marches of Union soldiers from the windows of the cameo workshop. At eighteen, he lined up outside New York’s City Hall to view the corpse of President Abraham Lincoln. He was so fascinated with this long, lean man that he stood in line a second time to secure a final impression of Lincoln’s grand stature. Later, in 1887, Saint-Gaudens would sculpt Standing Lincoln for the Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois.
Saint-Gaudens was one of the earliest American sculptors to study his craft in Paris. In 1867 he travelled to France to see the Paris Exposition, and then enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, studying under renowned sculptor Francois Jouffroy (1806-1882). The Ecole des Beaux-Arts’ style emphasized the power of dynamic form suggesting fluidity and movement in sculpture (rather than the predictable stability and static nature of classical sculptural forms). It was under the instruction of Jouffroy that Saint-Gaudens learned to enliven his sculptures through both this dynamic approach and the subtle manipulation of modeled texture.
When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, Saint-Gaudens fled to Italy in order to please his mother who worried for his safety. He spent most of the next five years in Rome and Florence, where he studied classical sculpture and copied antique sculpture on commission. Saint-Gaudens was especially drawn to the works of Florentine sculptors Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) and Donatello (1386-1466), respectively.
It was in Rome that he met his spouse, Augusta Homer (the first cousin of American painter Winslow Homer). She was from Boston and was herself an artist. For her, Saint-Gaudens carved the last of his cameos as an engagement ring. His in-laws put a lot of pressure on his artistic ventures, as they were anxious to see that their daughter was well supported and they were far from confident that Saint-Gaudens could provide that support.
Saint-Gaudens’ first major commission upon his return to the U.S. was a memorial honoring Admiral David Farragut (1876-1881) in New York’s Madison Square Park unveiled in 1881. Saint-Gaudens took a distinctively different approach to this military figure and veered away from the generalized, static form of a hard-nosed, stoic sailor. Rather, Saint-Gaudens emphasized the particularity and individuality of Admiral Farragut. In his right hand the admiral clutches a pair of binoculars, and the hem of his robes are blown about by imagined seafaring winds. These details expand upon the larger narrative of Farragut’s naval experience, and distinguish the figure from similar memorials of the time. Saint-Gaudens would continue to employ subtle narrative details that elaborate on the subjects in his later works.
Despite this evocation of naturalism characteristic of Saint-Gaudens’ time, most of Saint-Gaudens’ works still hold strong ties to traditional, classical, sculptural practices and techniques, as evidenced in The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial (1884-96), which references comparable relief sculpture found in Europe’s triumphal arches, and the Amor Caritas (1898), which features an allegorical figure similar to the winged Nike which originated in Roman copies of classical Greek sculpture. Perhaps the most telling expression of antique roots in Saint-Gaudens’ sculpture commissions is Sherman Monument (1892-1903) located in Central Park’s Grand Army Plaza. A winged figure of Victory precedes Sherman, who rides atop a massive horse frozen mid-stride, two hooves lifted in the air. The composition derives inspiration from the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius (173-76 CE) and other Roman equestrian statuary that Saint-Gaudens surely studied during his time in Italy.
Yet, despite the obvious classical references, his work departs from that tradition in that it personifies “types” that evoke traits associated with American character. Farragut is the steadfast American—a reliable but fierce naval admiral. Shaw is the wise and calculating strategist whose loyal troops will follow wherever he may lead them. Sherman is both a terrible conqueror and the restorer of peace after long turmoil. Even Saint-Gaudens’ allegorical figures, such as the Victory, have less to do with the embodiment of an abstract idea and more to do with representation of American democratic ideals.
(1) Saint-Gaudens, Homer, ed., The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 2 volumes. (New York: Century, 1913), p. 41.
(2) Op. cit. p. 12
American
(1848 - 1907)
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was born on March 1, 1848 in Dublin, Ireland to Irish mother Mary McGuiness and French father Bernard Paul Ernest Saint-Gaudens. His parents moved to America six months after his birth to escape the famine that plagued all of Ireland, and Saint-Gaudens lived out his boyhood in New York.
In Saint-Gaudens’ series of reminiscences, he describes his childhood as filled with “great visions and great remembrances.” (1) He said of his childhood home in New York that “the smell of cake in the bakery at the corner of the street, and of the stewed peaches of the German family in the same house” stuck with him throughout his life. (2)
Saint-Gaudens worked in his father’s shoe and boot store until 1861 when at the age of thirteen he started an apprenticeship under a cameo-carver named Louis Avet. Saint-Gaudens polished stones and ran various errands for his employer until he grew skillful enough to carve cameos himself from stones, wood, and ivory. Beginning in 1864, Saint-Gaudens attended free art lessons at Cooper Union in the evenings. He returned home late from these lessons and afterwards sketched far into the night. He took further classes at the National Academy of Design beginning in 1866.
Saint-Gaudens witnessed the beginning and end of the American Civil War and observed the recruitment, drills, and marches of Union soldiers from the windows of the cameo workshop. At eighteen, he lined up outside New York’s City Hall to view the corpse of President Abraham Lincoln. He was so fascinated with this long, lean man that he stood in line a second time to secure a final impression of Lincoln’s grand stature. Later, in 1887, Saint-Gaudens would sculpt Standing Lincoln for the Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois.
Saint-Gaudens was one of the earliest American sculptors to study his craft in Paris. In 1867 he travelled to France to see the Paris Exposition, and then enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, studying under renowned sculptor Francois Jouffroy (1806-1882). The Ecole des Beaux-Arts’ style emphasized the power of dynamic form suggesting fluidity and movement in sculpture (rather than the predictable stability and static nature of classical sculptural forms). It was under the instruction of Jouffroy that Saint-Gaudens learned to enliven his sculptures through both this dynamic approach and the subtle manipulation of modeled texture.
When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, Saint-Gaudens fled to Italy in order to please his mother who worried for his safety. He spent most of the next five years in Rome and Florence, where he studied classical sculpture and copied antique sculpture on commission. Saint-Gaudens was especially drawn to the works of Florentine sculptors Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) and Donatello (1386-1466), respectively.
It was in Rome that he met his spouse, Augusta Homer (the first cousin of American painter Winslow Homer). She was from Boston and was herself an artist. For her, Saint-Gaudens carved the last of his cameos as an engagement ring. His in-laws put a lot of pressure on his artistic ventures, as they were anxious to see that their daughter was well supported and they were far from confident that Saint-Gaudens could provide that support.
Saint-Gaudens’ first major commission upon his return to the U.S. was a memorial honoring Admiral David Farragut (1876-1881) in New York’s Madison Square Park unveiled in 1881. Saint-Gaudens took a distinctively different approach to this military figure and veered away from the generalized, static form of a hard-nosed, stoic sailor. Rather, Saint-Gaudens emphasized the particularity and individuality of Admiral Farragut. In his right hand the admiral clutches a pair of binoculars, and the hem of his robes are blown about by imagined seafaring winds. These details expand upon the larger narrative of Farragut’s naval experience, and distinguish the figure from similar memorials of the time. Saint-Gaudens would continue to employ subtle narrative details that elaborate on the subjects in his later works.
Despite this evocation of naturalism characteristic of Saint-Gaudens’ time, most of Saint-Gaudens’ works still hold strong ties to traditional, classical, sculptural practices and techniques, as evidenced in The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial (1884-96), which references comparable relief sculpture found in Europe’s triumphal arches, and the Amor Caritas (1898), which features an allegorical figure similar to the winged Nike which originated in Roman copies of classical Greek sculpture. Perhaps the most telling expression of antique roots in Saint-Gaudens’ sculpture commissions is Sherman Monument (1892-1903) located in Central Park’s Grand Army Plaza. A winged figure of Victory precedes Sherman, who rides atop a massive horse frozen mid-stride, two hooves lifted in the air. The composition derives inspiration from the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius (173-76 CE) and other Roman equestrian statuary that Saint-Gaudens surely studied during his time in Italy.
Yet, despite the obvious classical references, his work departs from that tradition in that it personifies “types” that evoke traits associated with American character. Farragut is the steadfast American—a reliable but fierce naval admiral. Shaw is the wise and calculating strategist whose loyal troops will follow wherever he may lead them. Sherman is both a terrible conqueror and the restorer of peace after long turmoil. Even Saint-Gaudens’ allegorical figures, such as the Victory, have less to do with the embodiment of an abstract idea and more to do with representation of American democratic ideals.
(1) Saint-Gaudens, Homer, ed., The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 2 volumes. (New York: Century, 1913), p. 41.
(2) Op. cit. p. 12
Artist Objects
