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tion are, in the first place, necessary to the characteristic impression sought; and, furthermore, they have been treated with such discretion that not one of them endangers the balance of the design. On the contrary, these are two of the best things Saint-Gaudens ever did, realistic in essence, but in each case with the figure so well placed, and modelled with so much delicacy and beauty of style, that the result is thoroughly sculpturesque. Certainly, no more beautiful memorial to Stevenson could have been devised than the one which Edinburgh owes to this American artist.

Talking one day in Paris with the late Paul Leroi, I spoke of the meretricious elements which have crept into the art of certain men, notably one celebrated sculptor at present more or less devoted to the goddess of réclame. I brought up, for contrast, the work of Saint-Gaudens, and my companion fastened upon the name. "Ah, there is a man!” he exclaimed. "Do you remember his medallion of Bastien-Lepage?" Every one remembers it who has given any thought at all to the sculpture of the last thirty years; every one has praised it; but I found a special interest in what recollection of the portrait led my French friend to say. The opinions of a foreigner have a value of their own, and in this case they gathered weight from the fact that the speaker had been studying

European art for half a century. What chiefly struck him about Saint-Gaudens's work was its beautiful integrity. “It is work well done," he said. "It is true; it is sincere; it has never been degraded by the tricks of thoughtless cleverness; he has never made any sacrifices to réclame." There you have one of the reasons why Saint-Gaudens stands in the front rank of the creative artists of his period. There is a genuineness about all that he did which made him a tower of strength to American art.

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In discussing his medallions and works in low relief, I have ignored, in a measure, the chronology of his career. But even if dates were not a matter of small moment in the art of a man who would keep a statue in his studio for years if he were not content with its first state, I would wish to turn now to a question bearing his whole record. This is the question of what subject, aside from portraiture, meant to him. The only nude figure in the list of his works is the Diana surmounting the tower of the Madison Square Garden in New York. As first modelled and placed in position this was eighteen feet high; but Saint-Gaudens and Stanford White took it down at their own expense and replaced it by the present version, which is five feet shorter. The incident emphasizes the point that this was not projected

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Stevenson was staying for a short time at a New York hotel on his way to the Adirondacks in 1887. He gave SaintGaudens five sittings of two hours each for the head and shoulders of this medallion. In modelling the hands the sculptor used drawings and casts made at Manasquan just prior to the romancer's departure for Samoa.

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