MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
N writing the other day about the unfortunate Claude-Nicolas I Ledoux, I expressed my sympathy with architects who are so scIdom permitted to create what they conceive. The poet, I remarked, is hampered by no such restrictions, is discouraged by no denial of opportunity: the limitations which afflict him are those of hi-, own talent only ; if he possesses the genius to do so, he can con- dense the whole world of suffering and beauty upon half a sheet of notepaper. It is true, of course, that of all creative artists the poet is the most exposed to the grim realisation of personal inadequacy : it is not possible for him, as it is to those artists who are dependent upon the co-operation of others, to claim that, but for the stupidity or thrift of their employers, they could have created a monument to outlast all time. Sooner or later he will be faced with the contrast between his imagination and his powers of expression ; he will find himself echoing Carducci's tragic cry:— " Ahi, fu una nota del poema etemo Quel ch'io sentiva e picciol verso or In England at least there is another class of artists for whom my sympathy is as warm as that which I feel for architects. Pity the poor sculptor. Not for him in this island can there be the occasions for free expression which were vouchsafed to Rodin or even Watts. Few indeed are those cultivated patrons who can commission statues wherewith to adorn their peristyles and courts. The sculptor is bound to depend for his employment upon the taste of public authorities, end they in their turn are sensitive to the whims of their electors. It must be a galling thing for any sculptor to realise that the British public, although indifferent to art, are fussy about statues. It is not that they wish their statues to be beautiful ; in fact I agree with Sir Max Beerbohm who, although not wishing to disparage grotesques, once advocated that our London statues should be veiled. It is that the British public like their statues to be like.
I can well recall the controversy which arose over Mr. Alfred Hardiman's statue of Lord Haig. It may well be, as Mr. MacColl stated at the time, that this will be the last equestrian monument to be erected in the streets of any town. But it had behind it a long m.dition of which the British public were wholly unaware. I am not suggesting that they should have recalled and compared Donatello's Gattamelata at Padua, or the statue of Marcus Aurelius in the Campidoglio, or even Verrocchio's superb Colleoni. But they might at least have compared Mr. Hardiman's courageous design with Hubert Le Sueur's statue of Charles I, situated only at one bus- stop's distance. They did none of these things. It was not the figure of Lord Haig to which they objected, although I seem to recollect an angry letter from a firm of military tailors. It was the horse which aroused their passions. No English horse, we were assured, had ever looked like that ; Lord Haig, they contended, had himself been an ardent cavalryman ; never would he have allowed himself to mount a circus horse of such ostentatious vigour. What they desired to see was, not a work of art, which must always be somewhat stylised, but an exact reproduction of Lord Haig on horseback ; they would have preferred it if the statue had been designed by a film of silversmiths, accustomed to provide our cavalry nyesses with those statuettes, the accoutrements of which are correct in every buckle. And today, as the buses pass up and down White- hall, not a citizen glances, either in approval or disapproval, at the Haig statue. It is among the best of our contemporary monuments. The citizens of London are unaware of its existence. The tornado passed.
I can recall also the outburst which arose over the Royal Artillery Memorial, which Messrs. Adams, Holden and Pearson designed in collaboration with Mr. Charles Jagger. Obviously this memorial is ill-placed, but almost all our statues are ill-placed. It might be said even that it is too dramatic and vociferous for something which must remain for many years. But it is a vigorous and imaginative work of art, and I am not surprised that the young man who nudely commemorates the Machine Gun Corps should turn his back upon it in very shame. The public do not like the Artillery memorial ; they prefer the horrible little statuette which Sir George Frampton erected to the memory of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and which the Benchers of the Temple were so uncultivated as to repro- duce in their solemn gardens. The public do not realise even that the same Sir George's monument to Edith Cavell is the most ungainly edifice ever erected north of Dahomey: they do not consider the interesting although unsuccessful Guards Memorial which Mr. H. C. Bradshaw designed on the Horse Guards Parade ; they accept it because the uniforms are so correct. I am not expecting the British public to display a high aesthetic intelligence in regard to their own statues ; a people who can accept without a murmur the destruction of Berkeley and St. James's Squares, the ruin of Park Lane, are not likely to bring any very enlightened criticism to bear upon the monuments which disfigure what remains of their streets and squares. The Americans are better than we are in such matters, since they possess a developed architectural sense. Rudolph Evans's great statue of Jefferson, Daniel French's even more famous statue of Lincoln, are as fine as any contemporary statuary can be. The French are even worse than we are. The ghastly Lalique memorial to Clemenceau is sad indeed.
These reflections will have sufficed to indicate that I have every sympathy with Sir William Reid Dick in the irritation, and indeed dismay, which must have been caused him by the criticisms levelled at his sketch model of the Roosevelt statue. This design is not yet completed and few of its critics have seen more than photographs, which can give but a misleading impression. Moreover I cannot believe that Mr. Gallannaugh's design for the base and surround of this monument is more than tentative ; in the reproduction that I have seen it would bring discredit to a boy in his first year at a technical college. Yet Sir William must at least have this consolation, that the criticisms made have been made by serious people and have been directed, not at the details, but at the whole conception of his design. I have some sympathy with those who contend that President Roosevelt never stood unaided and that to represent him as leaning on a walking-stick only is to ignore the splendour of his contempt for physical disability. I have no sympathy for those who contend that subsequent generations will forget that the Presi- dent was a lame man and that therefore the pose is immaterial. Mr. Roosevelt will always be remembered in legend as a man who suffered from grave physical weakness and who yet became three times Presi- dent of the United States. This legend is bound to persist and if the memorial ignores it, then the memorial will lose much popular significance. Moreover, in so far as formal design is concerned, 't is equally possible to produce a fine statue of a man seated in a chair ; we have the great Lincoln statue already referred to ; we have Houdon's Voltaire. I come down therefore on the side of those who ask that the final design shall represent the President as seated. And I pray to heaven that the surround, when eventually decided on, will prove less timidly conceived.
I do not expect that in our congested cities we shall be able to build monuments as grandiose as those at Washington, or as powerful as that which Mestrovic created at Belgrade. But I do hope that after this war we shall not erect the many futile jumbles which were pro- duced after 1918. The War Memorials Advisory Council, under the chairmanship of Lord Chatfield, has been created to give counsel to those who wish to benefit by their experience. They will be only too glad to answer enquiries sent to them at the Royal Society of Arts. And I do hope that this Roosevelt memorial, which will be visited by so many Americans, will be worthy of the calm dignity of th man whom it commemorates. We surely cannot wish to expose ourselves, in this matter, to ridicule or contempt.
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