Augustus Saint-Gaudens' New Hampshire Studio

I wrote about the Cornish, New Hampshire art colony home of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) in the previous post. His grounds are now held by the National Park Service. It's a little out of the way, but doable if you are also visiting the Dartmouth College area.

I'm not a sculptor, so can offer little commentary on the photos below that I took in September. Click on images to enlarge.

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Here is his studio, a large building a short distance from the house. The left-hand two thirds of the building is a large studio now displaying small examples of his work. On the side opposite, facing towards the northeast are large windows, mounted high.

This part of the building seems to have been used for preliminary studies.

Panning slightly to the left of the previous image. The objects displayed might not have been typical of what was actually going on while Saint-Gaudens was working here, though I can't rule out curators having photographic evidence.

Saint-Gaudens' office nook.

Study of figure for the Sherman statue ensemble at the Plaza corner of New York City's Central Park.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens' New Hampshire Home

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) was, in my opinion, one of America's greatest sculptors. I last wrote about him here.

In his later years, he lived in the Cornish art colony area of western New Hampshire. His house and grounds have been preserved, and now are operated by the U.S. National Park Service.

I visited the site in September and, of course, took some photos. Featured here are views of his house and its interior. Family members lived in the house until around 1919 when it was set up as a memorial, so what you see is probably fairly close to the way it was in Saint-Gaudens' time there. Interior decoration is not my field, so I leave it to you to interpret the various objects shown. There are also paintings and other works of art that appealed to him.

Click on images to enlarge.

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View of the house taken from the direction of his studio (the subject of a forthcoming post).

Living room.

Panning to the left.

Room across the hall.

Dining room.

A Small, Very Nice Saint-Gaudens Sculpture

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) was one of America's best sculptors -- regardless of era. His Wikipedia entry is here.

The Seattle Art Museum is woefully lacking in art of any kind from the 1800s and early 1900s. But it does have one small work by Saint-Gaudens. Its title is "Amor Caritas" (Love, Charity) -- bronze, lost wax cast.  It form can be classed as "high relief" where the subject is significantly rounded, yet still attached to its background.

For your viewing pleasure are a few photos I took of it recently.

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Exterior Wall Sculptures in Split

This is another post in an occasional series dealing with Art Nouveau architecture found in a number of smaller cities in Europe. I found the current subject in Split, Croatia -- a city with few examples of that style. What struck me was not the Vienna Secession version of Art Nouveau architecture, but the large metal sculptures populating the exterior: most sculpting associated with this kind of architecture is carved stonework or ceramic.

This 1903 building is called Sumporne Toplice ("Sulphur Spa"), located on the site of such a spring. The architect was Kamilo Tončić, but I have not been able to identify the sculptor.

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Establishment image: September 2011 Google view of Marnontova Ulica (Ulica, pronounced something like oo-litz-uh, is Croatian for "street").

Now for my photos.  The building is on the corner of Neretvankska Ulica, about a block from the outdoor Fish Market.  It needs some work -- note the small plants growing along the cornice.

The ground floor is nondescript, so this photo shows the sculptural action.  I'll focus on the lower tier of figures, so note here the higher works featuring faces, something more in line with Vienna Secession style.

Corner sculpting features men.

Whereas the main wall sculpting depicts women crying out.

Matching item seen from a slightly different angle.
There seem to be about four basic items that were cast several times each to create the ensembles.

Jacques de Lalaing: Sculptor Who Painted

Jacques de Lalaing (1858-1917), son of Belgian diplomat Count Maximilien de Lalaing and Bengal-born aristocrat Julie Ann Vibert, was born in London. He moved to Belgium in 1875 to pursue training and a career as a painter and sculptor. Being a sculptor, he probably had a better feel for anatomy than many painters. I deal with his paintings in this post.

Lalaing's English wikipedia entry is here, and his French entry is here.

However, the best source of information on him is this fine web site containing biographical information and many examples of his work.

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Les prisonniers de guerre - 1883
Painted when Lalaing was about age 25. I don't find it very impressive.

Justine de Monie - 1903 (pastel)
Lalaing made a number of highly detailed pastel portraits that, viewed digitally, are hard to distinguish from oil paintings. This was made the same year as the oil painting below, so it's possible that it is a study. On the other hand, the third link above has an example of a pastel that looks like the study of a head in an oil painting, but is dated a year later than the painting (the subject is Ghislaine de Caraman).

Justine de Monie - 1903 (oil on canvas)

Christine du Tour van Bellinchave - c.1893 (pastel)
Sister-in-law of the artist. It seems that this was damaged by a German shell (obus, in the web page text). More likely it was done by a shell fragment, probably in 1914 when the German army overran most of Belgium.

Christine du Tour van Bellinchave
This photo was probably used by Lalaing as reference for the clothing and the pose. Christine's face differs in liveliness and attractiveness -- photographic portraits were often stiff affairs in the 19th century.

Christine du Tour van Bellinchave - 1906
A later portrait, very nicely done.

Berthe Baeyens-Puissant - 1904 (pastel)

Général Donny - 1913
Lalaing also portrayed men.

Hélène de Burlet - 1894 (pastel)

Julie Ann Vibart, the artist's mother

Cécile Gilson de Rouvreux - 1913 (pastel)
A work made shortly before the war and ill health curtailed Lalaing's career.

Sprites by Iannelli and (probably) Wright

I seldom post here regarding sculpture. That's because I've never really sculpted, and therefore am reluctant to discuss something I'm not familiar with on a technical basis. But I am willing to comment about sculptures that I like or hate from the perspective of a casual observer.

Such is the case now with "sprites." The sprites I'm presenting below are some of the sprites designed as decorations for Chicago's Midway Gardens (1914-1929), a dining, drinking and amusement place on the city's south side near the University of Chicago campus. It was never really successful, at first due to being undercapitalized and later because of Prohibition (of alcoholic drinks in the USA 1920-33). Chicago's climate might have been another factor. There were several sprite designs, and some were preserved before Midway Gardens was demolished.

The architect for Midway Gardens was Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), who claimed responsibility for the sprite sculptures. But the working sculptor of those sprites was Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) whose later career included industrial design. So who actually designed those sprites, Wright or Iannelli? Nowadays, Iannelli is usually given the credit. But Wright paid a great amount of attention to the ornamentation of his buildings and surely had strong ideas as to what those decorative sprites should like. He must have set the theme and must have approved of the final designs even if the unlikely case that he never made a sketch of their form and decorative details was true. That is, he probably was fairly deeply involved with the sprites and does deserve as much or more credit than Iannelli.

Whatever actually happened in the architectural and sculpting studios took place more than 100 years ago, so we will never know the true story with certainty.

Stylistically, the Midway Gardens sprites are of the geometric branch of Art Nouveau, as opposed to what might be called "organic" Art Nouveau that featured tendrils and other plant-related decoration. It was the geometric Art Nouveau that transitioned into geometric Art Deco (which also had a curved branch ... consider those deer and borzoi dog decorations).

Earlier this year I was in the Phoenix, Arizona area, where sprites (or reproductions) are found. Below are some photos I took.

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Here are two sprites on the front lawn of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel (1929), a building where Wright served as a consultant to the architect of record.

A sprite found elsewhere on the grounds of the Biltmore.

Its pose is rigid, the face has a serious expression.

The sprites on the front lawn have tilted heads and they are smiling. Their decorations are different from those on the other sprite.

I spotted this sprite on the grounds of Taliesin West, Wright's winter stomping ground. It has the serious, rigid pose and for some reason is painted, the colors being American Southwest desert-related.

Sculptor Aristide Maillol's Flat Paintings

Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (1861-1944) is best known as a sculptor, but began his artistic career as a painter and continued to paint off and on for much of his life (biographical information here).

What interests me about many, not all, of his paintings is that (1) they are flat, and (2) the heads of his subjects are either in profile or facing the viewer head-on. Admittedly, most of the paintings shown below were made before Maillol took up sculpture seriously, but even as late as 1940 he continued these characteristics.

One would think that a sculptor would be thinking more three-dimensionally, but it seems he was following the modernist desideratum regarding flat surfaces. On the other hand, late in his career, Maillol did make a number of drawings of his model/muse Dina Vierny that depicted her well-rounded form. Below are some of his flat paintings.

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In the Western Pyrenées - 1885
Although he used linear perspective, Maillol's use of color gives this painting a flat appearance.

Woman in White - 1890-91

Les deux jeunes filles - 1891

Enfant couranne - 1892

Jeune femme pensive au feuillage - 1893
This also has been dated 1894 and the subject has been said to be the future Mme. Maillol.

Mme. Maillol - 1895

La femme à l'ombrelle - 1895
Another painting with the same title featuring a women in the same costume is dated 1891-92, so this might have been painted then as well.

Dina á la robe rouge - 1940

Bok's Singing Tower

It's a ways from the nearest freeway, but you can get there by mostly four-lane roads. So as far as I'm concerned, you have no excuse to miss it if you're anywhere near Orlando, Florida with its Disney World and other tourist attractions.

The "it" I refer to is the Bok Tower Gardens site just northeast of the town of Lake Wales. It interested me from the time I was in elementary school and saw it depicted in one of those cartoon maps featuring sights to see across the United States. But I never managed to visit it until recently.

The tower and its surrounding gardens were the creation of Edward W. Bok (October 9, 1863 – January 9, 1930) who died about a year after the site was dedicated. A short biographical item is here. Briefly, Bok was born in the Netherlands, but emigrated to the United States as a child. He married into the Curtis publishing family and was editor of the Ladies Home Journal magazine for decades. His grandson, Derek Bok, was president of Harvard University.

As this Wikipedia entry indicates, the tower and gardens project was begun in 1921 and dedicated February 1, 1929. Its site is atop one of the highest hills in nearly-flat peninsular Florida.

Landscaping was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. of the famous family perhaps best known for New York City's Central Park. The tower's architect was Milton B. Medary, who is little known today. Integral sculpting is by Lee Lawrie, a prolific sculptor active in the first half of the twentieth century whose best-known works include the Atlas in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Ironwork and the tower door were by Samuel Yellin.

I think the tower is an excellent example of a high point in American architectural form and detailing, where gothic-inspired skyscraper shaping was combined with a non-traditional ornamentation style that was called Moderne and now called Art Deco.

Below are some photos I took during my visit.

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Visitor Center courtyard
Note the exposed undersides of the roof tiles.

Display of construction photos

Looking up

General view

Top details by Lee Lawrie

Wrought iron gate by Samuel Yellin

Sundial
Note the inscription below. It mentions that President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the tower and gardens.

Lower level sculpting by Lee Lawrie

Arty views of the tower entrance
The white flowers and stone in front of the door mark Bok's grave.

Entry door by Samuel Yellin