The Marble Faun Volume 1 - Page 74/130

"My new statue!" said Kenyon, who had positively forgotten it in the

thought of Hilda; "here it is, under this veil." "Not a nude figure,

I hope," observed Miriam. "Every young sculptor seems to think that he

must give the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and call it

Eve, Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apologize for a lack of

decent clothing. I am weary, even more than I am ashamed, of seeing such

things. Nowadays people are as good as born in their clothes, and

there is practically not a nude human being in existence. An artist,

therefore, as you must candidly confess, cannot sculpture nudity with a

pure heart, if only because he is compelled to steal guilty glimpses

at hired models. The marble inevitably loses its chastity under such

circumstances. An old Greek sculptor, no doubt, found his models in the

open sunshine, and among pure and princely maidens, and thus the nude

statues of antiquity are as modest as violets, and sufficiently draped

in their own beauty. But as for Mr. Gibson's colored Venuses (stained, I

believe, with tobacco juice), and all other nudities of to-day, I really

do not understand what they have to say to this generation, and would be

glad to see as many heaps of quicklime in their stead."

"You are severe upon the professors of my art," said Kenyon, half

smiling, half seriously; "not that you are wholly wrong, either. We are

bound to accept drapery of some kind, and make the best of it. But

what are we to do? Must we adopt the costume of to-day, and carve, for

example, a Venus in a hoop-petticoat?"

"That would be a boulder, indeed!" rejoined Miriam, laughing. "But

the difficulty goes to confirm me in my belief that, except for

portrait-busts, sculpture has no longer a right to claim any place among

living arts. It has wrought itself out, and come fairly to an end. There

is never a new group nowadays; never even so much as a new attitude.

Greenough (I take my examples among men of merit) imagined nothing new;

nor Crawford either, except in the tailoring line. There are not, as you

will own, more than half a dozen positively original statues or groups

in the world, and these few are of immemorial antiquity. A person

familiar with the Vatican, the Uffizzi Gallery, the Naples Gallery,

and the Louvre, will at once refer any modern production to its antique

prototype; which, moreover, had begun to get out of fashion, even in old

Roman days."

"Pray stop, Miriam," cried Kenyon, "or I shall fling away the chisel

forever!"

"Fairly own to me, then, my friend," rejoined Miriam, whose disturbed

mind found a certain relief in this declamation, "that you sculptors

are, of necessity, the greatest plagiarists in the world."