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A Tale of Three Artists

© Rick Muenchow

You can tell a lot about a culture by looking at its art. What a people believe about mankind and about life, whether they tend to be romantic in their views or more realistic all are reflected in the icons they craft for themselves, and their styles can be very different. American art is not Flemish art, for example, which is not Egyptian art or the art of the High Renaissance. Every period or country has its own unique views.

In New England during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries three artists lived and worked within a couple of hundred miles of each other. Each was in his own way distinctly American, and each has a studio that can be visited today that provides a glimpse into the artistic side of American life.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) is not well-known today, but during his lifetime he was one of America's premier sculptors. His home, Augustus Saint-Gaudens NHS lies in Cornish, New Hampshire, just across the Connecticut River from central Vermont. Traversing these 150 acres we can appreciate the artistic contributions of this gifted but largely forgotten man.

Each of the studios we will be visiting has either originals or replicas of some of its artist's most famous works. At Saint-Gaudens NHS, the premier items are laid out in a woodsy setting, as is appropriate for outdoor sculpture. Among the works which can be seen here are copies of the Adams Memorial in Rock Creek Cemetery, which shows a figure mourning, and the memorial to Robert Gould Shaw, of Glory fame, who led the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts, the first regiment of African-American soldiers established in the North. The original can be found on Boston Common opposite the State House.

Saint-Gaudens was also a renowned coin worker and medalist, having designed ten- and twenty-dollar gold pieces, a medal for Theodore Roosevelt's second inaugural, and a centennial medal commemorating George Washington's inaugural. Some samples of these works are on display here as well.

Much better known in our time is Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), whose statue of the seated Abraham Lincoln graces the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He is also known for the Minute Man statue in Minute Man NHP in Concord, Massachusetts, but as great as these contributions are, they are not his only works. He also created busts of prominent Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century figures such as John Adams and Ralph Waldo Emerson and carved numerous statues for public buildings, such as the Four Continents series which is located outside the New York Customs House.

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