Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1882 — Oddities in a Sculptor’s Gallery. [ARTICLE]

Oddities in a Sculptor’s Gallery.

“I meet some very curious persons, - ’ said a sculptor to a Sun reporter. “F. -r instance, you see me now trying to make a broken nose. This is the bust of a Southern merchant who died about n year ago, and his widow insists that, as he had a broken nose, this portrait of him should faithfully show the infirmity. But that is nothing. Look, see here !” In the corner stood a model of a prepossessing young face, except that it was cross-eyed. “ I spent three days iu trying to convince the mother of that girl that the omission would be proper and artistic, but all to no purpose. She insisted that it could not be a portrait without that peculiarity. I pleaded that the Grecian and Roman sculptors did not even represent the eyeball in its natural state, but the only answer was: ‘ Them fellers could do as they pleased. I want my darter’s eyes jist as they wuz.’” “Not long ago a lady who came to criticise her husband’s bust, said that although he was advanced in years, he had a rosy complexion I “A friend of mine rushed in here one day and breathlessly recounted how he had seen in Cavalry Cemetery a profile with two eyes, one of which was almost over the ear. Did I doubt his word? No, sir. I sat him right down here and showed him a line of infirm busts. He went away happy. “ There you see a bust that has no lips, I was going to say. That was made in obedience to the desire of a Wallstreet broker. He insisted that his brother’s lips were so thin that the red didn’t show. I altered them a dozen times, and finally, to save my reputation, traced a light line to show where nature and myself know there must have been the contour of the lip. “No, my experience has not been that people desire their friends’ portraits idealized. The true artist can, and should, disguise what nature has overdone or not properly done without distroying the resemblance. But the majority of persons won’t have it. In this, if nothing else, they enjoy realism.*’ —New York Sun. . -