Both are
consecrated by the admiration of centuries. To-day I am not sure that
this work of an American sculptor is not, in its own way, equal to
either of them.
There are those who are troubled by the introduction of the symbolical
figures in such works as the "Shaw Memorial" and the Sherman statue;
and, indeed, it was a bold enterprise to place them where they are,
mingling thus in the same work the real and the ideal, the actual and
the allegorical. But the boldness seems to me abundantly justified by
success. In either case the entire work is pitched to the key of these
figures; the treatment of the whole is so elevated by style and so
infused with imagination that there is no shock of unlikeness or
difficulty of transition. And these figures are not merely necessary to
the composition, an essential part of its beauty--they are even more
essential to the expression of the artist's thought. Without that
hovering Angel of Death, the negro troops upon the "Shaw Memorial" might
be going anywhere, to battle or to review. We should have a passing
regiment, nothing more. Without the striding Victory before him, the
impetuous movement of Sherman's horse would have no especial
significance. And these figures are no mere conventional allegories;
they are true creations.
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