Powers made me observe how the surface of the statue was wrought to a
sort of roughness instead of being smoothed, as is the practice of other
artists. He said that this had cost him great pains, and certainly it
has an excellent effect. The statue is to go to Boston, and I hope will
be placed in the open air, for it is too mighty to be kept under any roof
that now exists in America. . . . .
After seeing this, the director showed us some very curious and exquisite
specimens of castings, such as baskets of flowers, in which the most
delicate and fragile blossoms, the curl of a petal, the finest veins in a
leaf, the lightest flower-spray that ever quivered in a breeze, were
perfectly preserved; and the basket contained an abundant heap of such
sprays. There were likewise a pair of hands, taken actually from life,
clasped together as they were, and they looked like parts of a man who
had been changed suddenly from flesh to brass. They were worn and rough
and unhandsome hands, and so very real, with all their veins and the
pores of the skin, that it was shocking to look at them.
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