slightly from works which are the best of their kind
recently produced in this country.
In Mr. Lee's work in bas-relief, we find a seeking after the suggestion and mystery which belong more properly to the atmospheric envelope of the painter. His marble relief, No. 1519, might be styled impressionism in sculjitm-e, and is as futile as if reversely the painter souglit force by modelling on paint in likeness to the round. We sympathise with the vague and subtle in art, but believe that the strength of sculpture demanding the grasp of the master hand lies in definite form and clear pure idea. Shorn of all vagueness and indecision, there can be no higher test of a thought than sculptured form. Mr. Lees' Dmon of Womanliood has a certain fancifid response to its very complex title, such as might be found in a wordless song of Mendelssohn's. It is a reclining figure of a young girl near to womanhood. The eyes are closed, but the ecstatic expression of her upturned face is not of sleep — ratlier of consciousness; the left arm lying by her side, inertly, and the right, raised to the head, seemed to betoken the moment of awakening — from the dreams of girlhood into the dawn of womanhood. A Slave Girl, by Mr. J. Havard Thomas, is a life-size figure of a woman in marble; the work is of the character of a materialistic study, laboriously careful. It is a portrait of the particular, without the value of a photograph as a scientific fact. It is naked, without a vestige of that beauty which is the vita] necessity of the nude in art. We cannot define beauty, but it is a pleasure to behold, and this is not. It is a pity that this artist's evident desire after truth and simplicity should be so per- verted in its expression, and so oblivious of the fact that what men most expect from the artist is some permanent expression of the swift and changeful life and thouglit that play around them. DOUYPHOUUS.
NOTES ON SCULPTURE.
The Proposed Wallace and Bkuce Monument in Edin- burgh. — A sub-committee of the Edinburgh Town Council had under consideration yesterday a remit with reference to the erection of a monument to Sir William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, the cost of which is to be defrayed by a legacy of ^2500 bequeathed for that purpose by Mr. Hugh Reid, a citizen of Edinburgh. The legacy has been accumulating, as the testator desired, for twenty-five years, and the proposed memorial has been more than once under discussion in the Council, The committee resolved to recommend the Council that it should be gone on with, and that the matter should be recommitted to them, to report upon the site, design, and cost. In this connec- tion it may be mentioned that on page 56 we publish an account of what has been done about the Chambers iMemorial Statue. We have also much pleasure in reprinting, from The British Architect of 20th July, part of an excellent article on the Gambetta Monument, from which it will be seen that 'they manage these things better in France.' At Aberdeen, on the i6th ult., there was unveiled a bronze statue of General Gordon, executed by the late Thomas Stuart Burnett, A.R.S.A. It was his last work of importance, and is distinguished by its expression of frank and manly character. In the same city the statue of Sir William Wallace, by Mr. W. G. Stevenson, A.R.S.A., was unveiled on the 29th ult. The statue is of bronze, 16 feet high, on a granite pedestal 17 feet high. The figure weighs about six tons, and there are upwards of two hundred tons of granite in the pedestal. The work has occupied about four years, and the artist has received;^30oo. If not a successful realisation of the character of the heroic patriot, the statue has yet a certain decorative effect, for which the sculptor deserves credit. He has also overcome no inconsiderable amount of technical difficulty in carrying out a work of such proportions. The tower of the new city hall, Philadelphia, which is to be five hundred and thirty-five feet high, will be surmounted by a bronze statue of William Penn thirty-six feet high, and surrounded by four other figures twenty-five feet high. Than this last, it would be difficult to imagine anything more ridiculous. A bronze statue of William Penn thirty-six feet high, in seventeenth century costume, with its head among the clouds at an altitude qf nearly six hundred feet, can only be a monster oddity, useless as a por- trait, and without decorative beauty of form. The tower, archi- tecturally the main feature of the design, we may suppose, will have its expression of height destroyed by the figure of a man, the natural unit of proportion to the eye, being placed on its top on such an exaggerated scale. 'Making them Look like New.' — The fine bronze group of a lioness and cubs in the Glasgow West End Park, the most artistic if not the only work of the kind in Scotland, has been spoiled of its effect for years to come. Only a few days ago we admired on it the beautiful silvery-grey and green patina which only time can give, and which is so much desired in all bronzes, and now the thing is shining in black paint and varnish like a new grate. It is really sad to think that the vaunted second city, with an International Exhibition of art in its midst, is yet in a position to have its best public monuments defaced by their keepers and almost ruined in a night. To black-paint or varnish a noble bronze like M. Cain's Lioness and Cubs is a vandalism which we would have hardly thought possible in the back settle- ments of America. But here it has been perpetrated in our midst, black and bright enough to mirror the visages of the vandals who did it. Doubtless we may expect suddenly to find the statues in George Square following in black suit, and the new municipal buildings to be painted before the coming of Her Majesty. But if they spare the hoary grey of time on the walls of the ancient cathedral we won't mind.
Sculpture in America.— Sculpture is rapidly gaining ground in America. The erection of statues to Farragut, Lincoln, and a dozen other northern heroes in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, with those of Lee, Jackson, and other Confederate leaders in Richmond and Charlestown, has been attended with all the sentiment and enthusiasm that need be desired; and just now six monuments of special prominence are projected or under way. One of the mother of Washington at Fredericksburg; a monument to President Harrison; one to Francis Scott Key at Fredrick; one for Valley Forge; and one for the battle of Point Pleasant in West Virginia. It is also proposed to give Brooklyn a revolutionary monument that will cost about;^25,000.
