Page 57 - Studio International - July August 1972

Huddleston, who had presided over the tamer sophistication—it may not be a masterpiece but high-mindedness. In a sense Gilbert belonged
Whistler-Ruskin bout. The trial was significant it shows remarkable skill in its simplifications to the Arts and Crafts movement as did his able
in that the views of the younger men and and conveys admirably the four-square contemporaries George Frampton and
particularly their consciousness of being 'art no-nonsense attitude associated with the W. Reynolds-Stephens; Frampton was latterly
sculptors' as against mere sculptors was revealed. Protector. Throughout the later years of the to waste his ability on monumental work.
The change of the seventies, in painting as century there is a discreet if rather frock-coated Throughout the hundred years of sculptural
well as sculpture, was the turning to France for acknowledgment of Carpeaux, Dalou, and commemoration hardly any attention had been
inspiration and training. The vivacity, surface finally Rodin, who was exhibiting regularly in paid to siting—the layout of Trafalgar Square
life and compositional vitality of Carpeaux was London. The gaiety and the low French moral was at the end of Metropolitan Improvements
at last appreciated, Dalou came to London (and tone were rejected but the influence was there. rather than a portent of civic grandeur to come.
left a small monument behind the Royal The younger generation were at their best in The Great Man deceased, a public meeting, a
Exchange), and his friend Lanteri became the small works and in metal; the dead hand of public subscription, the acquisition of a plot in a
most influential teacher of sculpture in England. classicism descended on them when face to face square or garden, a sculptor commissioned, an
The effect was invigorating, and the sculptors of with blocks of marble. The only one who broke unveiling fully reported in the local paper—no
the eighties and nineties were immensely more through the straitjacket of the official architect was involved and no consideration
accomplished than those of twenty and thirty programme was Alfred Gilbert, the wonder and given to formal urban relationships. This could
years earlier; Hamo Thornycroft, Onslow Ford, hope of the time. If Gilbert is now generally work charmingly in long gardens like Victoria
Alfred Drury and Thomas Brock were an able recognized as our finest sculptor after Flaxman Embankment, but the usual result was that the
group but perhaps too respectable (or greedy) to this has taken time— the extraordinary statues looked absurdly small and comic in their
create an English school. They accepted the reputation of Alfred Stevens having obscured isolation. The one exception to this was Albert
convention of public sculpture seemingly him. This is not the occasion for an assessment Grant's gift to the nation, Leicester Square;
without complaint. Ford's Victoria is in of Gilbert's work and disorderly career, but he Grant, always generous at other people's
Manchester; Brock's Victorias can be found in did contribute superbly to public sculpture. expense, employed the architect of the
Birmingham, Worcester, Hove and elsewhere, His genius was for elaboration and fantasy; he Grosvenor Hotel, James Knowles, to design the
his grand Gladstone is in Liverpool; Drury's was vivid, gay and charming. Essentially he was tatty but useful layout. Only on one occasion was
Reynolds is at Burlington House. The subjects a superb miniaturist, a jeweller; his work should concerted civic action involving sculptor and
are the same, but how much more impressive be in gold and silver. But of his four public architect taken, and that appropriately to mark
are the monuments. Since it is so familiar one monuments Eros and Queen Victoria at the end of Queen Victoria's reign.
might instance Thornycroft's Cromwell outside Winchester (and now housed) beautifully lack The great monument facing Buckingham
Parliament as an indication of the new the pomp and circumstance of Victorian Palace, 250o tons of marble, 82 feet high, with

Oliver Cromwell, Parliament Square, London. Queen Victoria, Victoria Square, Birmingham

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