The Gilded Age in American Art

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) was the most famous sculptor of the era and best known for his monumental public sculptures and naturalistic relief portraits.

This bronze relief depicts the Scottish writer and poet Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94.) The relief is dedicated to Stevenson and inscribed with three stanzas from his 1887 poem "Underwoods."

Visual Discussion Starters

• What is the center of interest? How does your eye move through this relief?
• What shapes are repeated?
• How has Saint-Gaudens balanced the composition?
• Is this a low or high relief?

This low, or bas [pronounced bah] relief was first modeled in clay, then cast in bronze.

Kenyon Cox, an artist, critic, and friend of Saint-Gaudens, described the technique of low relief as not dealing with "actual form, but with the appearance of form . . . standing between sculpture and drawing." Discuss how this statement applies to this work.

How does Saint-Gaudens' training as a cameo cutter evident in his work?

When Stevenson first saw the finished relief he wrote that he believed "it to be a speaking likeness." What do you think he meant by this? How did Saint-Gaudens capture the individuality of the writer?

How did Saint-Gaudens create a strong image of Stevenson, even though Stevenson posed for Saint-Gaudens while he was recovering from an illness?

Several versions of this portrait exist. Saint-Gaudens first modeled this relief as a long rectangle with the entire bed depicted. How does this circular version create a more intimate mood?

Cultural/Historical Discussion Starters

Consider how this work relates to the Gilded Age era.

Key points

• Increased interest in and travel to exotic cultures.
• Finely decorated homes and country estates housed art collections.
• European art and culture a strong influence.

Stevenson was a leading literary figure of the time and well known to the public. Saint-Gaudens became interested in Stevenson's work after reading New Arabian Nights (1882) and expressed a desire to make his portrait. Stevenson came to New York in 1887 to be treated for tuberculosis. The two met through their mutual friend Will H. Low (to whom "Underwoods" is dedicated.) Why would Stevenson's writings appeal to the Gilded Age public?

This relief was a very popular work. Tiffany and Company produced replicas of the relief that sold for several hundred dollars. Why would Gilded Age Americans be interested in purchasing replicas of this relief?

Saint-Gaudens' style derived from his admiration for Renaissance medals and bronze casting. He was especially influenced by two 15th-century Florentine sculptors: Donatello and Lorenzo Ghiberti. Describe how this portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson is similar to Donatello's Chellini Madonna

Augustus Saint-Gaudens Biography

• 1848 - Born in Dublin, Ireland, on March 1. His father, Bernard Saint-Gaudens, was a shoemaker from France; his Irish mother, Mary McGuiness, worked in a shoe factory.
• 1848–1861 - Family immigrates to America to escape potato famine. Father establishes the family in a French-American community in New York City, where he builds a shoemaking business catering to wealthy clients.
• 1861–1867 - Augustus takes an apprenticeship in the studio of a French cameo cutter. From age thirteen to nineteen he works preparing stones, cutting and polishing background, and occasionally carving cameos. This experience gives Saint-Gaudens a source of expression that sustained him throughout his career.
• 1867–1870 - Travels to Paris for a formal art education at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Takes courses in anatomy, life drawing, sculpture modeling, and ornamental design, and makes casts of ancient sculpture.
• 1870–1875 - Forced to Rome during the France-Prussian War, where he establishes a studio and meets other artists. Acquires a few wealthy patrons for whom he made neoclassically styled portrait heads. Meets future wife, Augusta Homer, a distant cousin of the American painter Winslow Homer.
• 1875–1880 - Returns to New York City and collaborates with architects Stanford White, Charles Follen McKim, and Henry Hobson Richardson, as well as the painter John LaFarge on several decorative projects. Begins to make the bronze reliefs that would become the mainstay of his work and steadily attract clients for the rest of his life.
• 1880 - Receives first public commission, for the monument to Civil War naval hero Admiral David Glasgow Farragut. The Farragut Monument wins him praise in Paris and New York and secures him further commissions.
• 1880–1885 - Works on decorative projects for the Vanderbilt and Villard mansions in New York.
• 1884–1896 - Creates The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial. The large bronze relief of the first African-American regiment organized in the North during the Civil War combines relief sculpture with a nearly freestanding equestrian figure. Between 1881 and 1907 Saint-Gaudesn created six monumental bronze sculptures in honor of Civil War events: Farragut Monument, 1881, Madison Square Park, New York; Standing Abraham Lincoln, 1887, Chicago; Shaw Memorial, 1897, Boston; General Logan, 1897, Chicago; Sherman Monument, 1903, New York; Seated Abraham Lincoln, 1907, Chicago.
• 1885 - Works on the Standing Lincoln memorial to Abraham Lincoln. He was inspired by the memory of his parents crying over news of the Lincoln's assassination.
• 1886 - Hired by writer Henry Adams to create a memorial sculpture for Adams' wife, Marian, who committed suicide. The Adams Memorial was completed in 1891, and is located in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
• 1888–1897 - Faculty member at the Art Students League in New York City. He emphasizes drawing in charcoal and understanding anatomy.
• 1897–1907 - Works steadily for the next decade at his home and studio in Cornish, New Hampshire, with the help of his brother Louis and artist Frederick MacMonnies.
• 1907 - Dies in Cornish on August 7.