THOEVALDSEN
TIECK
THORYALDSEN, Bertel, Danish
sculptor. B. Nov. 19, 1770. Thorvaldsen
was the son of an Iceland wood-carver,
and as a boy he worked at the same trade.
At the age of eleven he began to study at
the Copenhagen Art Academy. He won
many prizes, and in 1796 the Government
awarded him a travelling pension for study
at Rome. He developed a passion for
classic art, and at the same time exchanged
Christian for classic ideas. In 1798 he
sent his first work, " Bacchus and Ariadne,"
to the Copenhagen Academy ; hut Sir T.
Hope, who recognized his genius, persuaded
him to remain at Rome. He became a
member of the Copenhagen Academy, and
honorary member of the Bologna Academy
in 1805 ; and fourteen years later, when he
visited Denmark, lie was appointed Coun
cillor of State. Thorvaldsen was now
recognized as one of the greatest artists
of the time, and his work was almost
entirely classical. After 1820, when he
returned to Rome, he executed a number
of ecclesiastical commissions, including the
statue of Paul VII in the Clementine
Chapel, and he did a good deal of religious
work after his final return to Denmark.
But Thorvaldsen himself explained that
this work was done in a purely artistic
spirit. " Neither do I believe in the gods
of the Greeks," he said, " yet for all that
I can represent them." His Christian
biographer, J. M. Thiele, says, apropos of
these religious pieces : " Even his greatest
admirers failed to find in him that kindred
spirit to Christianity which is deemed
essential to the happy delineation of holy
and sacred subjects " (Life of Thorvaldsen,
Eng. trans., 1865). At his death the great
sculptor left his works of art and 75,000
thalers to the city of Copenhagen, which
constructed therewith the Thorvaldsen
Museum. D. Mar. 24, 1844.
THRESH, William Henry, teacher and lecturer. B. May 3, 1868. Ed. York Academy, Wakefield, and private tutor. Mr. Thresh engaged in the popularization of science, and he estimates that in the 797
last twenty-five years he has delivered two
thousand lectures with that aim, and has
contributed frequently to scholastic jour
nals. Convinced that " Christianity is
opposed to progress," he opened a school
(Ruskin House) at Southend-on-Sea in
1903 for the education of children on
Rationalist lines. Of this he was Principal
until, in 1916, the abnormal conditions set
up by the War compelled him to close
it. His school was often commended to
Rationalists in the Literary Guide and
Freethinker.
THULIE, Jean Baptiste Henri, M.D.,
French physician and anthropologist. B. 1832. Ed. Paris. Thulie practised at Paris, where he also took an active part in public affairs. In 1856 he founded a periodical which lie called Bealisme, and he wrote various medico-social works. In 1885 his La femme attracted much atten tion. He was a Materialist, and contributed to the Rationalist journal, La Pensee Noti- velle. He was the first President of the new Paris Municipal Council in 1874, and in 1878 he delivered a remarkable oration
on Voltaire at the centenary celebration.
I
TIECK, Johann Ludwig, German poet and philologist. B. May 31, 1773. Ed. Friedrichswerden Gymnasium (Berlin) and Halle, Gottingen, and Erlangen Univer sities. He devoted himself to letters, and published a number of successful novels. Tieck, though a personal friend of Goethe and Schiller, and a Rationalist, joined the Romantic movement, in opposition to the Aufklarung. He was a medievalist in his artistic nature, but a thinker on the lines of heterodoxy in the eighteenth century. His poems, stories, and tragedies gave him a position in the front rank of German writers of the time, and he was one of the early German enthusiasts for Shakespeare. He edited Schlegel s translation of Shake speare (9 vols., 1825-33), translated some of the plays himself, and began a great work on the English poet. He published also a German translation of Don Quixote 798
