Francis Morrone, Architectural Historian and Author

In Rome, Paris, and Vienna, public sculpture--monuments and memorials, fountains, reliefs on buildings, bridges--infuses the environment with an unbridled sensuality. In America, public sculpture tends to be a great deal more restrained. Why? In this examination of the history of public sculpture in the northeastern United States, we will see that the Puritan inheritance, among other factors, led our artists in very different directions from their European counterparts, even as our artists received European training and assimilated European techniques. We will survey the early history of public sculpture in New York and New England, and work up to a consideration of the "Age of the Masters," and the works of French, Saint-Gaudens, Ward, and others, and examine the American subject matter, and the American spirit, in such examples as Daniel Chester French's "Minute Man" in Concord, Mass., Augustus Saint-Gaudens's Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston, John Quincy Adams Ward's "Indian Hunter" in New York, among many others, and also seek for exceptions to the premise (as for instance in some of the works of Frederick MacMonnies).

Photos Left to Right: Robert Gould Shaw Memorial; Rhododendrites [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]
Sherman Monument by Saint-Gaudens photo Francis Morrone

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