Browere's Life Masks of Great Americans 1

Browere's Life Masks of Great Americans 1

Browere's Life Masks of Great Americans

 

Author: Charles Henry Hart

 

Proem_

“Great oaks from little acorns grow.” How big results may flow from

small beginnings is typically illustrated by the possibilities of the

present volume. It began with the bare knowledge that there was, once

upon a time, a man by the name of Browere, who had some facility in

making masks from the living face. This was the seed that was destined

to expand into the present publication. To tell how this germ grew,

would be to anticipate the recital in the following pages; but the

lively interest shown by the wide public and by the narrow public, the

people and the artistic circle, in the articles upon Browere’s Life

Masks of Great Americans, contributed by the writer to “McClure’s

Magazine,” has called for a more expanded history of the artist and his

work, for which fortunately there is ample material.

 

To the grandchildren of Browere, who have reverently preserved the works

of their ingenious ancestor and generously placed them at my disposal

for reproduction, are due the heartiest thanks; and in view of the

possibility of the dispersal of the collection, it should be secured,

_en bloc_, by the Government of the United States, and the most

important of the life masks cast in imperishable bronze.

 

CHARLES HENRY HART.

 

Philadelphia, October 1, 1898.

 

 

 

 

Contents_

 

 

PAGE

 

Proem ix

 

I The Plastic Art 1

 

II The Plastic Art in America 4

 

III John Henri Isaac Browere 12

 

IV The Captors of André 28

 

V Discovery of the Life Mask of Jefferson 36

 

VI Three Generations of Adamses 50

 

VII Mr. and Mrs. Madison 56

 

VIII Charles Carroll of Carrollton 60

 

IX The Nation’s Guest, La Fayette 63

 

X De Witt Clinton 70

 

XI Henry Clay 73

 

XII America’s Master Painter, Gilbert Stuart 76

 

XIII David Porter, United States Navy 93

 

XIV Richard Rush 98

 

XV Edwin Forrest 102

 

XVI Martin Van Buren 104

 

XVII Death Mask of James Monroe 109

 

Addendum to Chapter VIII 115

 

 

 

 

_List of Plates_

 

 

Thomas Jefferson, Profile _Frontispiece_

 

FACING PAGE

 

John H. I. Browere 12

 

John Paulding 28

 

Isaac Van Wart 32

 

David Williams 34

 

Thomas Jefferson 40

 

John Adams 50

 

John Quincy Adams 52

 

Charles Francis Adams 54

 

James Madison 56

 

“Dolly” Madison 58

 

Charles Carroll 60

 

Marquis de La Fayette 66

 

De Witt Clinton 70

 

Henry Clay 74

 

Gilbert Stuart 78

 

David Porter 94

 

Richard Rush 98

 

Edwin Forrest 102

 

Martin Van Buren 104

 

James Monroe’s Death Mask 112

 

 

 

 

LIFE MASKS

 

 

 

 

I

 

_The Plastic Art_

 

 

The plastic art, which is the art of modelling in the round with a

pliable material, was with little doubt the earliest development of the

imitative arts. To an untrained mind it is a more obvious method, of

copying or delineating an object, than by lines on a flat surface. Its

origin is so early and so involved in myths and legends, that any

attempt to ascribe its invention, to a particular nation or to a

particular individual, is impossible. Its earliest form was doubtless

monumental. Frequent passages in the scriptures show this, and that the

Hebrews practised it, as did also their neighbors the Phœnicians;

while excavations have revealed the early plastic monuments of the

Assyrians. For more than two thousand years the Egyptians are known to

have associated the plastic arts with their religious worship, but,

being bound within priestly rules, made no perceptible progress from

its beginning; yet these crude monuments of ancient Egypt are now the

records of the world’s history of their time.

 

Associated with architecture from its earliest development, it has, in

its narrower form of sculpture, been called, not inaptly, “the daughter

of architecture.” Indeed, in the remains of ancient monuments, the two

arts are so intimately combined, that architecture is frequently

subordinated to sculpture, particularly in the buildings of the middle

ages, where they appear as very twin sisters, sculpture often supplying

structural parts of the erection.

 

Among the Greeks the plastic art existed from time immemorial, and among

them attained its highest proficiency and skill. That they exceeded all

others in this art goes without saying; their familiarity with the human

form enabling them to portray corporal beauty with a delicacy and

perfection, that no society, reared in any other situation or surrounded

by other influences, could ever attain. With them beauty was the chief

aim, it having in their eyes so great a value that everything was

subservient to it. As has been said, “It was above law, morality,

modesty, and justice.” Greek art, as we know it, began about 600 B.C.;

but it did not arrive at its perfection until the time of Pericles, a

century and a half later, in the person of Pheidias, who consummately

illustrates its most striking characteristics--the simplicity with which

great efforts are attained, and the perfect harmony which obtains

between the desire and the conception, the realization and the

execution. The frieze of the Parthenon, which easily holds the supreme

place among known works of sculpture, is ample proof of this.

 

It was a Greek of the time of Alexander the Great, in the century

following that of Pheidias, who invented the art of taking casts from

the human form. This honor, according to Pliny, belongs to Lysistratus,

a near relative of the famous sculptor Lysippus, who made life casts

with such infinite skill as to produce strikingly accurate resemblances.

The art of making life casts did not, however, come into general use

until the middle of the fifteenth century, when Andrea Verocchio, the

most noted pupil of Donatello, and the instructor of Perugini and of

Leonardo da Vinci, followed it with such success as to lead Vasari,

Bottari, and others to ascribe to him its invention. It was this art of

taking casts from the human form, so successfully followed in this

country, nearly four hundred years later, by John Henri Isaac Browere,

that has afforded the occasion for the present work.