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signal has been given, and perhaps to see a picture or two of the various statues which he has already completed.

Bartholdi has been selected from the long list of artists in France, a country which at the present day stands incontestably first among Western nations in respect to art. Moreover, his work is an international one, designed to draw closer the natural bonds of sympathy between Frenchmen and Americans, and intended to remind all men of the early alliance of the two peoples, as well as the political action and reaction they have at various times exercised upon each other. It would be strange if a new and untried man should have been appointed for such a task: the present sketch may serve to show that the sculptor has already won a position by a goodly array of excellent works.

Auguste Bartholdi is from Alsatia,—a debated ground which has reared illustrious men ever since Kelts and Teutons first began there either to quarrel and kill, or to take each other in marriage, according as peace or war happened to be the order of the day. The heavy-handed Teuton, understanding the power of union and being less inclined to civil wars, has usually been the apparent victor, but the lithe Kelt has reaped the fruits of his antagonist's victory, and in the long run has so mastered the dull strength of the conqueror that the latter has generally been ready, after the lapse of a certain number of generations, to deny his own origin and ancestry for the sake of claiming that of his victims. We may presume M. Bartholdi's ancestors in the female line to have sprung from such mixed stock as this, and to have got from one race the fire, inventive talent, inspiration of the Kelt, from the other, the endurance and patient laboriousness of the German. In the line of males, however, the descent is not from an original French ancestor, but an Italian, as the termination of the name might suggest. The original Bartholdi hailed from the north of Italy in the neighborhood of Lake Como and came to Alsatia and Colmar some two hundred years ago. Colmar is a small town which unites to a modern bloom of manufactures the agreeable flavor of antiquity to be found in a cathedral of the fourteenth century and various other old buildings. His descendants have been citizens of Colmar ever since and have been, as a rule, clothed with some sort of authority, either spiritual or temporal. But for the most part the

Bartholdis have been preachers of the gospel. Hence the sculptor can not only claim for his immediate forebears the respectability of the cloth, but represents in himself at least three countries, namely, Italy, France and Germany. He is therefore more peculiarly fitted by descent to be the builder of a statue for America than if he were of less mixed parentage; for what are Americans but the result of a fusing together of the diverse nationalities of Europe?

But we ourselves have not been without an example of his talent in the United States. Before the presentation to New York of the statue of the young Lafayette, now standing at the head of Broadway on Union Square, Boston possessed a specimen of his craft. Every one who has been near the modern quarter of Boston, lying on made ground close upon the Back Bay, must remember the square church tower on which stand angels with gilded trumpets at the four corners just below the eaves. They lean out from the tower in such high relief that they almost form complete statues against the sky. The angels call attention to four friezes that run between them; instead of being near the street they are high up on the tower above the roofs of the adjoining buildings. These were modeled in M. Bartholdi's atelier in Paris. The figures on them are many, and have been cut in a peculiar style of bass-relief in order to overcome the height a which they stand as well as the sharp angle at which a person on the street below has to regard them. It is not generally known that the head on one of the figures is a likeness of President Lincoln. New York followed Boston in owning a specimen of Bartholdi's work when French citizens presented her with the Lafayette just mentioned. The energetic side of the sculptor's character is already seen in this bronze. He has made a portrait of Lafayette as he looked in his earliest days of fame, when, being still almost a boy in years, he was stung by the insolent indifference with which an English prince of the royal blood spokeof the discontented Americans. The authorities for his face and figure at that date were found in records of the government to which Bartholdi gained access in Paris. In this way Lafayette must have looked when he escaped from France in order to put himself at the orders of Washington. To express his impetuosity, his generosity of temperament, and to embody his response to Washington, M. Bartholdi has represented him in suspended but decided action. has taken advantage of the fact that a

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noble equestrian statue of Washington, by Brown, stands on Union Square not far from the site proposed. Hence he has made him in the act of taking a step in the direction of the great general and sweeping toward him with his left hand a mute offer

LAFAYETTE STATUE, UNION SQUARE, NEW YORK.

of his services. His right presses a sword to his breast with a gesture of devotion and as if making a vow. We may imagine the moment to be that when Washington told him that the American troops he would have to lead were badly drilled and worse equipped. "I have come hither," said Lafayette, "not to criticise, but to learn."

The young enthusiast in the cause of liberty stands on the prow of a galley, symbolically treated, which commemorates his adventurous trip over the Atlantic. How different-looking a man Lafayette afterward became can be seen in a picture hanging among the Lenox pictures at the library in Central Park. It was taken during his tri

umphal visit to the United States some fifty years ago. The lower part of the face had grown heavy and wrinkled. But the picture shows only a curious later phase of the real man, for of course Lafayette will always be the French noble youth who, by resolving to devote his energies to the liberty of the American nation, hastened and perhaps compelled the court of France into active measures against England.

But a subject which gave Bartholdi even better scope for the energy of his temperament was a commission for a statue of Vercingetorix, the Gaulish leader who roused his countrymen to throw off the yoke of Rome, the man who gave himself up to Cæsar when all was lost, in hopes that the conqueror would spare his fellow Gauls after satisfying his revenge on himself. The statue was exhibited in the Salon of 1870, and is now in the galleries of the French government. It was intended to be placed on a rock above Clermont, where it would be in strong relief against the sky. Owing to its startling action, the figure is so balanced that it can only be cast in bronze; stone would be unmanageable. Unlike the Vercingetorix of Millet, which stands on a hill overlooking Alise-Sainte-Reine, the ancient Alesia,-this statue is to show him in the tide of success, leading such a charge as Murat afterward loved. Millet's Vercingetorix stands in melancholy thought, meditating his sacrifice of liberty for the sake of his remaining followers, but that of Bartholdi is in swift motion, on horseback, as if madly charging on the enemy. is half turned in his saddle and calls on his men. The sword-arm is straight above his head, brandishing the weapon with an electric gesture of daring and command. figure is so managed that it can hardly fail to strike the attention a long way off. Bartholdi means that any one approaching shall be compelled to ask: "Who is this rider, so excited and impetuous?" A nearer approach discovers a Gallic horseman in full charge. "It must be Vercingetorix," the traveler will say to himself," who leads his countrymen against the Roman oppressors."

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Yet M. Bartholdi would be hardly fairly treated were his violent, emotional statues only to be mentioned. At Avallon there is a bronze statue of Vauban, who, although a soldier, was a philosopher of war. He is dressed according to his age, with curly wig, grave and ample coat, soldier's boots, and wears a sword. Near him are em

blems of fortifications and weapons for sieges. His head droops pensively, for he stands immersed in thought. This fine piece of work is of heroic size, and stands in a park at Avallon. Similar to the Vauban, but more concentrated and pondering, a marble statue of Champollion attests a further range of M. Bartholdi's genius. The Egyptologist is bent over with the gesture of a man wrestling profoundly with some weighty

HAND OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY.

secret. A sphinx's head at his feet, on which his eyes rest, symbolizes those Egyptian hieroglyphs which his penetrating mind did so much to unravel. This marble is in the Collège de France in Paris.

Again, a monument to Martin Schön at Colmar gives an example of M. Bartholdi's turn of mind to architecture. It is composed entirely of just such brown stone as we use so much for house-fronts in New York, and consists of a statue of Martin Schön, the illustrious painter and engraver of the fifteenth century, and an elaborate pedestal with figures and bass-reliefs, representing the four quarters of the globe. Colmar claims Schön as her citizen, not only in life but at birth. In his day and generation he was a great celebrity in the world of art, so much so that he obtained a special

name in France and Italy. His real name appears to have been Schöngauer-Martin Schöngauer-probably because his family originated in some place called Schöne-Gau, or beautiful meadow, in lower Germany. Hence Martin would be his proper name, and, as a distinguishing mark, Schön was added, partly because of the pun on his beautiful workmanship, partly because Schön is easier to use as a nickname than the longer version. At any rate Lamberto Lombardi writes to Vasari concerning him, as follows:

"Then arose in Germany a certain Beautiful Martin, an engraver on copper, who did not abandon the manner of Roger his master, but yet did not reach to the beauty of his coloring. From this Beautiful Martin are derived all the celebrated workmen in Germany; in especial that most lovable Albrecht Dürer, disciple of this Beautiful Martin, followed the manner of his master, approaching much nearer to the natural, etc., etc.

For this reason the citizens of Colmar, who have formed a Martin-Schön Club and purchased an old convent to serve as their museum, honored the old artist with a monument and statue. But although the Germans, possibly on such Italian authority as that just given, call Schöngauer a founder of a German school in the fifteenth century, yet the modern descendants of his fellowtownsmen do not seem ready, just at present, to claim the Teutonic relationship with great fervor. A proof of this lies in the cemetery at Colmar. M. Bartholdi is the author of a design for a grave-stone of singular vigor and boldness, which commemorates the men fallen in French ranks during the late Franco-German war. What the feeling in Colmar at annexation to Germany must be, can perhaps be learned from a brief mention of the design.

The head-stone is severely plain but massive, and upon it one reads these words only:

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"Morts en Combattant

14 Septembre 1870."

The grave is covered by two great slabs of stone, but one of these has been pushed up from below by an arm. This arm reaches out from the dark opening of the grave and gropes on the surface of the other slab for a sword which lies near. The arm and sword are of bronze. The idea of this tomb reminds one of the Gothic ghastliness that pleased Albrecht Dürer and the engravers of his day, but the monument is also one of those trumpet calls, silent but never-ceasing, which keep alive hatred and

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THE STATUE OF LIBERTY AS IT WILL APPEAR IN NEW YORK HARBOR.

finally summon a conquered nation to terrible acts of retaliation.

To give one more example of M. Bartholdi's range in smaller works of art one may further instance his "Grief." It is a woman bowed down and utterly overcome, who covers her head with her mantle and leaves only the outlines of her figure showing through, to depict her despair. This was exhibited at the Centennial. The fountain which was also to be seen there as a specimen of Bartholdi's work in that line has been bought by Congress, presumably for the grounds of the Capitol, at Washington.

It cannot fail to strike one who has examined the gigantic hand of the statue of Liberty which was exhibited at the Centennial and, later, on Madison Square, that a figure of this kind is, in a certain sense, a piece of architecture. To be sure, the figure is a statue as well, and its model requires as careful a treatment, if a somewhat different one, as a legitimate piece of statuary. But it has to be built up like a light-house and its walls calculated for the resistance it will offer to winds and weather. The pedestal to the statue of Martin Schön at Colmar has been mentioned as an earnest of M. Bartholdi's ability in that line, but his designs for the palace of Longchamps at Mar

seilles are much more serious. The problem before him was the uniting of a Musée des Beaux-Arts, a museum of natural history, and a Château d'Eau, into one building. This he accomplished in a design full of grace and nobility. The work was not undertaken for a number of years and when begun was intrusted to an architect of Marseilles who was forced to use the main points of M. Bartholdi's plans. Where he has departed from them, his building also departs from good taste.

When M. Bartholdi arrived in the United States to study the question of site and statue for a Liberty, he had even more difficulties to overcome than in the case of the palace of Longchamps. The statue was to be gigantic in order to represent somewhat in size the greatness of the young nation and the unusual magnitude of scale on which the land is molded. A great and growing nation, an enormous half-continent, cut by the largest and deepest rivers in the world and diversified by long mountain ranges, required to be symbolized on a gigantic scale. But if the statue was to be gigantic, it could not be solid, or composed of heavy materials. And since North America has been famous on the sea and New York is a commercial center, the most appropriate statue might be one which combined with the idea of

liberty a hint of the ocean and an allusion to trade. Hence we may suppose M. Bartholdi making up his mind that his Liberty should not merely embody the fixed resolve to secure independence that brought the Colonies through the Revolution, but should be a beacon to ships and should stand in the center of New York Harbor, the first thing to greet the eyes of immigrants when land heaved in sight. To show that the sculptor was not unprepared to deal plastically with the various ideas suggested by the circumstances, let us revert again to his earlier life.

When he began his artistic career the

of the sculptor, appears by no means to be recent. Many years ago he traveled in the East, and found in Egypt the prototypes of gigantic art. Travelers of artistically sensitive minds have always wondered what might be the secret of grandeur in Egyptian colossal statues. M. Bartholdi traveled and gazed, was impressed and pondered on his impressions, until he thought he had penetrated some of the reasons for our admiration of primeval art. And on his return to France his reflections did not remain without a chance to test their worth. The defense of Belfort, a little town occupying a strategical point of great importance high up in

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parents of the young sculptor objected strongly to a departure from the traditions of the Bartholdi family. If he would not be a clergyman, he might go into trade and perhaps some day become the burgomeister of Colmar. But the youth thought otherwise, and, having got an entrance into the studio of Ary Scheffer, he was encouraged by the latter to stick to art and cast trade to the winds. Had it not been for Ary Scheffer, perhaps M. Bartholdi would now be a burgomeister, oppressed by Prussian bayonets, instead of an artist, with a widely different work in hand. And in the career which he chose, the turn for the gigantic, which may seem a whim

the Vosges mountains, gave rise to excessive admiration in poor France, only too glad to derive some comfort from her humiliating campaign against Germany,-only too ready to applaud heroism in a handful of men, when so many thousands appeared to have degenerated. It was the one town that held out against great odds, that would not be even starved into surrender. The defense of Belfort, then, was to be commemorated by a statue of a lion, and M. Bartholdi was the sculptor. Against the face of the plateau on which stands the citadel, originally fortified by Vauban, he has fashioned, partly by cutting into the reddish rock, partly by building up

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