PAUL WAYLAND BARTLETT

PRIMITIVE MAN.by Paul Wayland Bartlett

Famous American Sculptors

Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course

Everyone knows the saying, “Genius is the capacity for taking infinite pains.” If this adage is true, then Paul Wayland Bartlett is a great genius; for in everything this sculptor does he pays the closest attention to details. He attends personally to every part of his work. And this “capacity for taking pains” accounts largely for his success.

Paul Wayland Bartlett was born amid scholarly surroundings at New Haven, Connecticut, in 1865. He was the son of Truman H. Bartlett of Boston, an art critic and sculptor. Many years ago Bartlett and his mother went to live in Paris. Here the young man found his vocation. When he was only fifteen years old he entered the École des Beaux Arts. He quickly became an excellent modeler. He worked hard, and in addition took up a course on animal sculpture. As he could thus help other sculptors as an animal specialist, he was able to earn money to carry on his studies.

Bartlett tells about the time when he and a friend, M. Gardet, used to go around “doing animals” wherever they got the opportunity. Among the modernized decorations of the Porte St. Denis is a lion, “fierce and terrible,” which is the work of his hands. An “Orpheus” in the Luxembourg has attached to it a three-headed dog that he modeled. And he created on one occasion for the Exposition of Amsterdam an elephant of gigantic proportions.

Bartlett lived during this time in a quaint little street off the Rue de Vaugirard, where he had a little vine-covered studio. It was there that he began “The Bear Tamer,” which is now in bronze in the Metropolitan Museum of New York City. He spent a year upon it, and then became dissatisfied with it and spent another year in changing the composition.

Many works followed this successful effort. First appeared the “Ghost Dancer,” a vicious looking savage. Then came the equestrian statue of Lafayette, presented to the French republic by the school children of America; the powerful and virile Columbus, and the Michelangelo, both of which are in the Congressional Library at Washington; the lifelike “Dying Lion,” and many others.

Besides these works Bartlett has modeled beetles, fishes, reptiles, and crustaceans. Here his skill with patinas (the coloring of bronzes) is shown. A wealth of color is seen in his small figures of beetles and snakes.

Bartlett’s work is not finished. More and greater is still to come. No man is better equipped for his work than he.

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