Photos of Peter Cooper and 455 Lafayette

Lately I've been retaking sculpture photos in TIFF format, which brought me back to Saint Gaudens's Peter Cooper at Cooper Union (Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan Essay 10). At left is a view I never could have gotten with my old 3x optical zoom.

Many historians are vehemently opposed to change, but what studying history taught me is that change is natural, inevitable, and often a vast improvement. I like 455 Lafayette, the new building on the south side of Astor Place, which has been panned by the New York Times architecture critic. Not all buildings have to be composed of right angles. Not all of them have to neatly match whatever's already in the neighborhood. Not all curved surfaces need to be formed of custom-made curved glass rather than narrow, flat glass panes.

For a tidy summary on the hullabaloo over 455 Lafayette, see
http://nymag.com/realestate/vu/2006/17319/

Sherman Monument: OMOM Essay 31

I'm fond of Saint Gaudens not only for the sculptures he produced, but for the way he approached art. "About the Sculpture" describes Saint Gaudens proposing to improve his assistants' skills by a hook-and-spring arrangement … You'll have to read it. Several critics have commented disparagingly that the striding woman and the equestrian figure don't seem to belong together, so I was careful to point out the elements that weld them into a visual unit.

For "About the Subject" in Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan the obvious choice was Sherman's March through Georgia (see the Forgotten Delights essay on that topic), but at some point I stumbled across a reference to Sherman's 1863 court-martial of a journalist. This led to a fascinating investigation of 19th-c. communication technology, media and politics. The Sidebar gives an excerpt on the media from Sherman's Memoirs (which ought to rank as great American literature).

I sometimes fantasize about taking a high-powered water pistol with me when I photograph Sherman. It's so extraordinarily difficult to find a good angle that doesn't include multiple pigeons. I only want to make them fly away for a few minutes … Then again, they're destroying the gilding on the statue, so I'd prefer they perch elsewhere.

The Forgotten Delights calendar has a close-up of Victory's head and Sherman's famous comment on war.

Farragut Monument: OMOM Essay 19

"About the Sculpture" discusses why Farragut was a turning point in American sculpture: which details of pose, costume and pedestal made it drastically different from earlier works such as Brown's Lincoln (Essay 15). I vividly remember my delight at noticing how the lines of the pedestal and the uniform lead the viewer's gaze inexorably from the broad base to Farragut's head. (The photo shows the left side of the base, with the allegorical figure of Loyalty.) In a Saint Gaudens work, nothing is accidental.

In "About the Sculpture" I focused on the 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay, partly because it's where soon-to-be-Admiral Farragut bellowed "Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes!", and partly because the battle involved the use of ironclads by both Union and Confederacy. Surprisingly, Farragut preferred wooden ships to ironclads. After researching Ericsson (Essay 2 of Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan), I'd assumed that the advantages of ironclads were overwhelming and indisputable.

The Forgotten Delights calendar has a close-up of Farragut's head and torso plus several intransigent quotes.

Peter Cooper: OMOM Essay 10

Cooper's dignified seated figure recalls many earlier works, including Michelangelo's Moses and medieval portraits of kings. In "About the Sculpture" I discuss the effect of "quoting" earlier sculptures. In "About the Subject," I focus on Cooper's career as a businessman (especially his involvement in railroads) and his founding of the Cooper Union. It was delightful to learn that Saint Gaudens, one of America's best sculptors and the creator of Cooper, was an early graduate of the Cooper Union.

This is the third of ten sculptures from Forgotten Delights: The Producers that appears in Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan. Again I abridged the version in OMOM for the sake of space. (The book had to be under a certain number of pages in order to be priced at under $20. Paperback books priced over $20 are more difficult to sell.)

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