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Article: Sculpture
- Article from:
- American Eras
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Gale Research Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Sculpture
Sources
The Ideal Form.
“
Not a nude figure, I hope,
”
com-ments a character in Nathaniel Hawthorne
’
s
The Marble Faun
(1860). Hawthorne
’
s novel, set in Rome, tracks a band of American artists abroad. As Hawthorne
’
s sculp-tor, Kenyon, prepares to unveil a
“
figure,
”
his friend Miriam observes,
“
Every young sculptor seems to think that he must give the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and call it
È
ve, Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apologize for a lack of decent clothing.
”
Miriam
’
s teasing remarks shed light on the state of nineteenth-century American sculpture. At midcentury a marble ...