"
Saint-Gaudens gave me a cast of his medallion of Bastien-Lepage, and
wrote to a friend of mine that "Bastien had '_le coeur au metier_.' So
has Miss Terry, and I will place that saying in the frame that is to
replace the present unsatisfactory one." He was very fastidious about
this frame, and took such a lot of trouble to get it right. It must have
been very irritating to Saint-Gaudens when he fell a victim to that
extraordinary official puritanism which sometimes exercises a petty
censorship over works of art in America. The medal that he made for the
World's Fair was rejected at Washington because it had on it a beautiful
little nude figure of a boy holding an olive branch, emblematical of
young America. I think a commonplace wreath and some lettering were
substituted.
Saint-Gaudens did the fine bas-relief of Robert Louis Stevenson which
was chosen for the monument in St. Gile's Cathedral, Edinburgh. He gave
my daughter a medallion cast from this, because he knew that she was a
great lover of Stevenson. The bas-relief was dedicated to his friend Joe
Evans. I knew Saint-Gaudens first through Joe Evans, an artist who,
while he lived, was to me and to my daughter the dearest of all in
America. His character was so fine and noble--his nature so perfect.
Pages:
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361