Three Dimensional Lyricism - III

Christoph Weiditz
Hercules plucking a thorn from his foot
(derived from the antique Spinario)
ca. 1540-50
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Ingebrigt Vik
The Youth
1913
bronze
National Gallery of Norway, Oslo

Royal Copenhagen Manufactory
Lord Byron
1835
porcelain
(after a marble of 1831 by Bertel Thorvaldsen)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Petronio Tadolini
The Samaritan Woman
1767
painted terracotta
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Giovanni Francesco Susini
Young St John the Baptist
ca. 1610
marble
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Giacomo Serpotta
Winged Heads of Three Putti
ca. 1690
painted terracotta
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Head of Mourning Figure
(study for memorial to Clover Adams)
modeled in plaster, 1892-93
cast in bronze, 1912
Art Institute of Chicago

Auguste Rodin
Head of Sorrow
1889
bronze
Yale University Art Gallery

Roman Empire
Mars Cobannus
AD 125-175
bronze
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Roman Empire
Torso
1st-2nd century AD
marble
National Gallery of Norway, Oslo

Ivan Meštrović
Torso of Strahinja Banović
(mythical Serbian hero)
1908
marble
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Tilman Riemenschneider
Pair of Kneeling Angels
ca. 1505
limewood
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

William Henry Rinehart
Woman in Mourning
ca. 1860-70
marble
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

George Rennie
Cupid kindling the Torch of Hymen
ca. 1831
marble
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Auguste Préault
Venus and the Sphinx
1868
plaster modello
(for garden sculpture at Château de Fontainebleau)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Auguste Préault
Jupiter and the Sphinx
1868
plaster modello
(for garden sculpture at Château de Fontainebleau)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Our Best Poets, by Theodore Maynard. Henry Holt & Co.

Certain books move one to wonder, not why they were written – for anyone may jog a typewriter – but why they ever secured a publisher.  Mr. Maynard's competence, whether as poet or critic, is not yet so authoritatively recognized in his own country as to encourage us colonials to lend him our ears.  The value of his utterances may be gauged by his list of the "twelve leading poets," arranged "in their order of merit" as follows:

     1st   G.K. Chesterton

     2nd  Alice Meynell

     3rd  Charles Williams

     4th  Walter de la Mare

     5th  Ralph Hodgson

     6th  W.B. Yeats

     7th  Hilaire Belloc

     8th  J.C. Squire

     9th  W.H. Davies

   10th  Lascelles Abercrombie

   11th  Laurence Binyon

   12th  John Masefield

Mr. Yeats will doubtless be gratified at his inclusion; and Mr. Masefield, arriving by the skin of his teeth at the end of the procession, will hasten to send a letter of thanks.  

–  from a review by Harriet Monroe printed in Poetry, May 1923

Three Dimensional Lyricism - II

Pablo Picasso
Seated Satyr
1964
glass
Albright-Knox Art Gallery Buffalo, New York

attributed to Orléans Manufactory
Abduction of Proserpine
ca. 1760-70
soft-paste porcelain
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

attributed to Giuseppe Mazzuoli
A Nereid
ca. 1705-1715
marble
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Giuseppe Mazza
Bust of Diana
ca. 1692-93
marble
Art Institute of Chicago

Wilhelm Matthiä
Crouching Venus
(derived from antique models)
1853-57
marble
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

Joseph-Charles Marin
Bacchante
ca. 1800
terracotta
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
Kansas City, Missouri

Lomonosov Porcelain Factory, Saint Petersburg
 Prima Ballerina Galina Ulanova
ca. 1950
porcelain
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

attributed to Giovanni Battista Locatelli
The Dancer Baccelli,
mistress of the 3rd Duke of Dorset
1778
plaster
National Trust, Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent

attributed to Giovanni Battista Locatelli
The Dancer Baccelli,
mistress of the 3rd Duke of Dorset (detail)
1778
plaster
National Trust, Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent

Jean-Louis Lemoyne
La Crainte des Traits de l'Amour
1739-40
marble
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Chauncey Bradley Ives
Pandora
1864
marble
Detroit Institute of Arts

Anonymous Italian Artist
Four Cherub Heads
(crèche fragment)
18th century
painted plaster
Albright-Knox Art Gallery Buffalo, New York

Anonymous Italian Artist
Winter
ca. 1700-1720
ivory
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous Italian Artist
Venus
ca. 1580-90
bronze
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous Italian Artist
Hercules Pomarius
ca. 1490-1510
bronze
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Malvina Hoffman
Bacchanal
ca. 1925
bronze
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Selected Lyrics, by Amelia Josephine Burr. George H. Doran Co.

These poems will be familiar to many who read the standard magazines and the women's periodicals in which they have been widely published.  A book so filled with sound sense and bright ideas should be easier to read than this one.  One difficulty is with the poet's untrained ear.

Prophet of a Nameless God, by Joseph Kinmont Hart. Harold Vinal (publisher)

As a theological or philosophical modern interpretation of the biblical story of Elijah, this book may have value – we do not pretend to say.  But we are fairly sure that as a poem it has none; it turns the grand old tale, so briefly told in the Books of the Kings, into 178 pages of futile wordiness.

–  from Brief Notices, anonymously printed in Poetry, May 1928

Three Dimensional Lyricism - I

Anonymous Spanish Artist
St Sebastian
ca. 1700-1750
painted and gilded boxwood
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Thomas Banks
Thetis dipping Achilles in the River Styx
1789
marble
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Benedetto da Rovezzano (Benedetto Grazzini)
Angel bearing Candle
(commissioned for the unexecuted tomb
of Cardinal Wolsey)
ca. 1524-29
copper
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Edward Berge
Muse finding the Head of Orpheus
1899
marble
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Constantin Brâncuși
Male Torso
1917
brass
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Antonio Canova
Winged Victory
ca. 1803-1806
bronze
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Alexandre Charpentier
Narcissus
ca. 1896-97
glazed stoneware
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Clodion
The See-Saw
ca. 1775
terracotta
Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

Laurent Delvaux
Ariadne
ca. 1723
marble
Yale Center for British Art

François Duquesnoy
Bust of Young Christ
ca. 1620-40
gilt bronze
Art Institute of Chicago

Mary Frank
Running Man
1980
stoneware
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Kingdom of Gandhara
Attendant Shrine Figures
4th-5th century AD
painted stucco
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Ubaldo Gandolfi
Emperor Henry IV in Penitence at Canossa
ca. 1770-75
terracotta
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Giambologna
Samson slaying a Philistine
ca, 1562
marble
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Philippe Grass
Icarus trying his Wings
ca. 1841
bronze
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Franz Ignaz Günther
Putto
ca. 1755-60
painted and gilded limewood
(altarpiece fragment)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Lyrics and Meditations, by Philip Becker Goetz. Privately printed.

This book presents the literary exercises of a gentleman and a scholar who turns to poetry for an outlet to feeling and thought without demanding or expecting the excitement of intense inspiration or wide and sympathetic appeal.  One wishes he would use a more modern diction, and ease off certain other formalities of style, thereby giving greater play to his sensitive imaginings.  This is Mr. Goetz' fifth book of verse, two of these being plays.

January Garden, by Melville Cane. Harcourt, Brace & Co.

Mr. Cane's verse, one feels, is hardly more than an extension of his conversation, or rather of that sort of mental soliloquy, endless and intelligible, to which many an over-civilized person succeeds in reducing his consciousness.  Certainly one feels only rarely the force of any such creative agency in intellect or emotion as might give lyric meaning or formal direction to the poems.  For the most part, the book is fragmentary and amateurish. 

–  from Brief Notices, anonymously printed in Poetry, August 1926