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| The lay observer, walking around the monument for the first time, might wonder how 20 years of incessant labor could be spent on a handful of prancing horses, four lions, and less than a dozen men. New York has built all her subways and bored all her river tunnels in less time than that. Yet Augustus St. Gaudens required 13 years to complete the Shaw Memorial group in Boston (considerably smaller than the Grant Memorial), Michelangelo toiled a dozen years over the tomb of Medici, Chiberti labored for the better part of half a century upon the famous bronze doors of the Baptistry in Florence, and Thomas Gray spent a decade smoothing out the thirty-two verses of his immortal elegy. Such a taskmaster is art. Let us go back to Mr. Shrady’s studio in Westchester County in the year 1902, and find out what he did with his time. From the official historical collection in Washington the sculptor borrowed the death mask of General Grant. This gave him the facial proportions, the width of the cheek bones, and other authentic characterizations. Many months were spent on the head and bust, the droop of the shoulders, the tilt of the old slouch Army hat. The figure does not wear a sword. Grant rarely wore one while directing an engagement. Months of research and character study were necessary to give Mr. Shrady the background he needed. It is not exaggerating to say that the sculptor immersed himself wholly in the atmosphere of the Civil War as he bent to his task in the Westchester studio. Uniforms, harness, saddles, artillery trappings, cannon – all these had to be reproduced in minute detail with historical accuracy. Nothing could be guessed at; nothing approximated. For four years he served in the National Guard, both in the Infantry and the Artillery, in order to familiarize himself with thigns military, to know how things are done, with the result that his groups are not only accurate and convincing but seem like a page from history. When the time came to work out the detail of his horses Mr. Shrady was on more familiar ground. He brought his saddle horse out in the yard, and turned the hose on him, to see the ripple of his muscles under the wet hide. He dissected a number of horses, and mounted the skeletons so that no detail of the anatomical structure might escape him. He watched Cavalry and Artillery units in movement at every opportunity. He watched horses on the street; he studied every prancing step and every bulging muscle. |
