NEW STATUES.
WE strayed into Westminster Abbey the other day, to look at CHANTREY'S statue of WATT ; and having paid the admission-shilling to the ecclesiastical raree-show kept by the poor Dean and Chapter, we speedily separated from the tail that "dragged its slow length along" behind the circumambulatory cicerone, and went in search of the object of our visit. The colossal figure of WATT, though he is seated, soon arrested our eye, towering in its whiteness above the screen of the little chapel, which it almost fills. It is a noble statue ; its massiveness and simplicity produce an effect of grandeur indepen- dently of its size. Indeed it is too large for the place ; but being a marble counterpart of the original bronze, this undue largeness is ac- counted for. The head has that breadth and force of character for which CHANTREY'S busts are unrivalled. But that bold painting with the chisel, by means of which the sculptor conveys a striking individual likeness to the distant spectator, can hardly be appreciated here: the statue requires to be seen in the open air : the effect may be judged of, however, by looking at the statue of PITT in Hanover Square. The statue of Sir STAMFORD RAFFLES, also seated, and that of CAN- NING, both by CHANTREY, have been placed in the abbey recently.
CANNING looks like an actor, —more so, indeed, than the figure of ,
KEMBLE, as Cato, by FLAX5IAN,—which is as ineffective as that of CANNING is imposing. KEMBLE is only of the life size, that appears less than life in a large area, and is as much too small as WATT is too large for the situation. The heroic size (that of CANNING) is the happy medium. CHANTREY'S statues are admirable for dignity and ease of figure and attitude; the limbs are well-modelled, the dm- only is arranged in masses, and the ensemble agreeable and striking.
r --• Ihey silt resemble one another in style, however ; so much so, that each
appears to be the same model in postures slightly varied. All his standing and all his sitting figures resemble each other, though no two are in precisely the same attitude. But this mannerism, being inoffen- sive and even graceful, is far better than the forced and uneasy positions tvbich sculptors are apt to put their statues into, in their efforts to be original. CHANTREY is the LAWRENCE of statuaries—the CANOVA of bust sculptors. CHANTREY'S kneeling statue of Bishop HEBER is placed at the end of the south aisle of the choir in St. Paul's ; and Lovell's of Bishop MineLerosi, in the act of giving the benediction, is in the correspond- ing aisle of the nave : and they are only visible from a distance, except by special favour. This regulation, it is said, is necessary to protect them from the defacing fingers of vulgar idlers, who find an album to record their impertinence in every block of marble : but surely a tem- porary fence at a reasonable distance would suffice. A word about costume. The absurdity of representing an English- man of the nineteenth century naked, or with only a sheet thrown round him, as if he were a model (1)r. JousisoN in St. Paul's looks like an intellectual Hercules) is passed by ; but our sculptors shirk the difficulties of our meagre and angular costume, instead of boldly meeting them. The Duke of YORK, to be sure, stands on his column in jack- boots and a cuirass ; and the warlike heroes in St. Paul's are mostly in regimentals, as is proper; but " civilians," as the soldiers term peace- able citizens, are rarely seen in a nearer approach to the actual dress they wore than a morning-gown and slippers; which is the costume CHANTREY usually adopts in his statues of private individuals. The epicene costume in which he has invested PITT and CANNING IS anything but characteristic. PITT'S robe is not that of a Chancellor of the Exche- quer, as it ought to have been ; and CANNING wears a sort of toga. Wesmacorr has swathed his statue of CANNING (in Palace Yard) in a wadded silk drapery ; and he has disguised CHARLES Fox as a Roman senator, seated in the forum of Bloomsbury Square. Fox, to be sure, was as portly as PITT was gaunt in figure, and cloaks were not worn by gentlemen in those days ; but would not a foreigner prefer a statue of Prrr in top-boots, and of Fox with the prominence that his figure gave to his waistcoat—in short, as each appeared in the House of Commons—to seeing them in the classic masquerade of the sculptor's studio? The French are not afraid of a greatcoat and a cocked hat. How much more striking and characteristic is the resem- blance of BONAPARTE in his working dress as a soldier, than It would have been in a commonplace suit of imperial robes ! What English- man would think less of the statue of LAFAYETTE because be is dressed in a greatcoat and trowsers? The Spanish cloaks lately in vogue are a great aid to the sculptor, to whom a full flowing drapery is still more valuable than to the painter: but if the ugly pea-jackets just sow fashionable were to become a characteristic dress of any remark- able person, we hold that he should be so represented, even at the risk of his being mistaken for a rampant bear. The Greeks would have made even a round hat and umbrella look picturesque and elegant. Character is superior to artificial elegance ; and truth would redeem many a commonplace statue from insipidity. The quaint effigies that are stretched stark and stiff on the tombs of the fifteenth and sixteenth
imperfect skill of the sculptor is often laid to the account of the costume.
While speaking of new statues, we must needs say a word of Caftew's statue of KEAN, in the hall of Drury Lane Theatre. It is tame, and not characteristic either in look or air. KEAN'S figure, when in his prime, was not only compact and well. knit, but light and ele- gant; and his attitudes were firm and graceful. The character of Hamlet, especially the moralizing vein of the grave scene, was not the best suited to convey an idea of the peculiar quality of KEAN'S genius as an actor. Richard, or Sliglock, would have been better. Was this scene of Hamlet selected for the sake of the cloak as an aid to the sculptor, or to thrust a caput mortuum, and a warning that comes too late, before the poor painted wretches that infest the saloon ? Be this as it may, the statue is feeble, both in face and figure. See how GARRICK'S animated face gleams out as if with living eyes, from his winding-sheet of drapery, in the statue opposite ! If the figure looks like a corpse, the soul seems looking out at the eyes. Yet this is the work of a sculptor of no great fame : but he shows he could convey expression, character, and animation in the face, by means of form alone—and this is the test of a sculptor's powers.
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