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Augustus Saint-Gaudens And The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial (1883/4-1897)
  
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Smart About Art
By CHERYL VANBUSKIRK & EMILY RICE, For The Bulletin
The Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment is one of forty works of art highlighted in the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Picturing America Program. The monumental bronze relief is located at the edge of the Boston Common at Beacon and Park Streets. The memorial was commissioned by a group of Bostonians to honor Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, local son eulogized as the “blue-eyed child of fortune,” who had given his life fighting for the Union army. Colonel Shaw commanded the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which was the first regiment of African Americans recruited in the North to fight in the Civil War.
The Fighting 54th was celebrated in the 1989 film Glory, but the actual soldiers were an even more impressive group than is represented in that movie. Once a clause in the Emancipation Proclamation opened the door to their military service, African American men came to enlist from every region of the north, and some from as far away as the Caribbean. Most were educated free men, not illiterate newly-freed slaves, and many of the volunteers who served under Shaw had enlisted at the urging of the black orator, Frederick Douglass. In fact, Douglas’s own son was among them. Douglas preached and believed that former slaves and others of African descent would earn the full privileges of citizenship if they fought for those rights alongside white Americans. In spite of the fact that blacks had fought for this country in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, many white Americans doubted the courage and ability of black soldiers, and arming black soldiers in defense of the Republic provoked controversy at the time. It also required exceptional courage, as the Confederacy had promised that any black Union soldiers captured alive would be sold into slavery. That they did not immediately achieve Douglas’ anticipated result is a profound disappointment.
In the summer of 1863, Shaw and his 54th Regiment volunteered to lead the Union assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, the fortress that guarded the Charleston harbor. After a two-day march through driving rain, Shaw’s troops were exhausted and outnumbered; the attack was doomed before it began. Nevertheless, Colonel Shaw rode into battle flourishing his sword, shouting “Forward, Fifty-fourth!” In the end, 281 soldiers and officers from the unit were lost, killed or never accounted for at Fort Wagner, and countless others were injured. Sergeant William H. Carney, who was badly injured in the fight, saved the regiment’s flag from being captured by the enemy. For his valor, Carney was the first African American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Colonel Shaw was shot through the chest and died early in the action; his body was later stripped and thrown into a mass grave with the bodies of his troops. This news was reported on in Northern newspapers. Shaw’s parents, strong Unitarians and avowed abolitionists of Boston, wrote that they could think of “no holier place” for their son’s body to rest than “surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers.”
Despite the dramatic defeat, the Massachusetts 54th had successfully established its reputation as a fighting regiment, and captured the imagination and admiration of America. After their attack on Fort Wagner, the Fighting 54th went on to fight several other engagements before returning to Boston in September 1865. Of the original 1,007 men who set out with Colonel Shaw, only 598 remained to take part in the final ceremonies on the Boston Common. Reports of their extraordinary courage rallied African Americans across the country, and President Abraham Lincoln was later to credit the approximately 180,000 black soldiers who fought for the North with turning the tide for Union victory.
Born in 1848 in Dublin to the Irish wife of a French shoemaker, Augustus Saint-Gaudens was raised primarily in New York City where his parents immigrated when he was six months old. He was apprenticed to a cameo-cutter at the age of thirteen so he learned how to make jewelry with shells, gems and stones carved with portraits or scenes. Working at the cameo lathe for six years, Saint-Gaudens learned how to create the impression of three-dimensionality in a two-dimensional medium. He also enrolled in classes at the Cooper Union and at the National Academy of Design. After completing his apprenticeship at the age of nineteen, he took one hundred dollars of savings from his apprentice’s wages and sailed for Paris. Over the next eight years he studied art there and in Rome, where he developed his interest in Renaissance medals and bronze casting, as well as an admiration for Classical art and architecture. His career as a sculptor began when wealthy Americans living in Rome hired him to sculpt portraits and busts for them.
Saint-Gaudens’ career was guided by his mastery of realistic sculpture and bas-relief, which enabled him to produce over 200 works in marble and bronze, earning him an international reputation. He is well known for two types of art: small-scale portrait reliefs and monumental public sculpture, especially Civil War monuments. After the Robert Shaw Memorial, his best known public piece is the statue of Diana of the Tower which was commissioned to sit atop New York City’s original Madison Square Garden Building. Originally the highest point in the city, this statue was removed when the building was demolished in 1925, and now resides in the Great Stair Hall Balcony of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The unusually complex Robert Shaw Memorial measures 11 feet by 14 feet and took Saint-Gaudens nearly fourteen years to complete. Originally conceived as a conventional equestrian statue, that plan was rejected by the Shaw family as too pretentious. The execution of the finished memorial became more detailed and complex as Saint-Gaudens developed his vision of what was to be memorialized. Begun as a low relief, a bas-relief, the final monument increased in depth from its original background so much that it became a combination of two and three dimensions.
Facing the colossal monument, the viewer sees a large frieze of relief sculpture of three rows of armed soldiers with their legs in various stages of a march. The figures, their rifles, canteens and packs fill the foreground and middleground with energy, movement and rhythm. The motion is forward for the figures, to the viewer’s right. Colonel Shaw is featured in the center, riding in front of his company of foot soldiers. The Colonel sits strictly at attention in his saddle as he proudly leads his loyal men. Although the scene is said to depict the Regiment marching down Beacon Street as they departed Boston on May 28, 1963, the rag-tag appearance of the troops is meant to represent their arduous trek to Fort Wagner.
Saint-Gaudens works in a convincing realistic style, sometimes called American Renaissance style. In the stoic procession each soldier is portrayed as an individual rather than any generic type of African American, which was typical at the time. Determined to depict the individuality of each person and to still convey the overall spirit of the regiment, Saint-Gaudens made many clay studies of the heads of black men willing to pose for him. He also tethered a horse in his studio to ensure accurate representation of animal anatomy. The only exception to this realism is an allegorical angel figure which hovers above the soldiers carrying poppies, symbols of death and remembrance, and an olive branch to symbolize peace.
When the Robert Shaw Memorial was unveiled in 1897, the philosopher William James observed that it was the first American soldiers’ monument dedicated to a group of citizens united in the interest of their country rather than in the honor of a single military hero. “There they march,” he said, “warm-blooded champions of a better day for man.” While the original sponsors of the project became frustrated with its complexity and long timeline, it is apparent that Saint-Gaudens recognized the full import of his accomplishment. He later wrote about the work, “developing in this way infinitely beyond what could be paid for, [the monument] became a labor of love.” In 1982, the names of 62 African American soldiers who gave their lives at Fort Wagner were inscribed on the base of the Robert Shaw Memorial. Both Colonel Shaw and Saint-Gaudens would no doubt be very pleased.
This article includes information from American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America published by Knopf, the Boston African American National Historic Site of the National Park Service, the National Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Picturing America Teachers’ Resource Guide. Picturing America is a program from the National Endowment for the Humanities helping to teach American history and culture by bringing some of the country's great art directly to classrooms and libraries. More resources and information regarding eligibility for programs is available at picturingamerica.neh.gov.
The Fighting 54th was celebrated in the 1989 film Glory, but the actual soldiers were an even more impressive group than is represented in that movie. Once a clause in the Emancipation Proclamation opened the door to their military service, African American men came to enlist from every region of the north, and some from as far away as the Caribbean. Most were educated free men, not illiterate newly-freed slaves, and many of the volunteers who served under Shaw had enlisted at the urging of the black orator, Frederick Douglass. In fact, Douglas’s own son was among them. Douglas preached and believed that former slaves and others of African descent would earn the full privileges of citizenship if they fought for those rights alongside white Americans. In spite of the fact that blacks had fought for this country in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, many white Americans doubted the courage and ability of black soldiers, and arming black soldiers in defense of the Republic provoked controversy at the time. It also required exceptional courage, as the Confederacy had promised that any black Union soldiers captured alive would be sold into slavery. That they did not immediately achieve Douglas’ anticipated result is a profound disappointment.
In the summer of 1863, Shaw and his 54th Regiment volunteered to lead the Union assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, the fortress that guarded the Charleston harbor. After a two-day march through driving rain, Shaw’s troops were exhausted and outnumbered; the attack was doomed before it began. Nevertheless, Colonel Shaw rode into battle flourishing his sword, shouting “Forward, Fifty-fourth!” In the end, 281 soldiers and officers from the unit were lost, killed or never accounted for at Fort Wagner, and countless others were injured. Sergeant William H. Carney, who was badly injured in the fight, saved the regiment’s flag from being captured by the enemy. For his valor, Carney was the first African American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Colonel Shaw was shot through the chest and died early in the action; his body was later stripped and thrown into a mass grave with the bodies of his troops. This news was reported on in Northern newspapers. Shaw’s parents, strong Unitarians and avowed abolitionists of Boston, wrote that they could think of “no holier place” for their son’s body to rest than “surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers.”
Despite the dramatic defeat, the Massachusetts 54th had successfully established its reputation as a fighting regiment, and captured the imagination and admiration of America. After their attack on Fort Wagner, the Fighting 54th went on to fight several other engagements before returning to Boston in September 1865. Of the original 1,007 men who set out with Colonel Shaw, only 598 remained to take part in the final ceremonies on the Boston Common. Reports of their extraordinary courage rallied African Americans across the country, and President Abraham Lincoln was later to credit the approximately 180,000 black soldiers who fought for the North with turning the tide for Union victory.
Born in 1848 in Dublin to the Irish wife of a French shoemaker, Augustus Saint-Gaudens was raised primarily in New York City where his parents immigrated when he was six months old. He was apprenticed to a cameo-cutter at the age of thirteen so he learned how to make jewelry with shells, gems and stones carved with portraits or scenes. Working at the cameo lathe for six years, Saint-Gaudens learned how to create the impression of three-dimensionality in a two-dimensional medium. He also enrolled in classes at the Cooper Union and at the National Academy of Design. After completing his apprenticeship at the age of nineteen, he took one hundred dollars of savings from his apprentice’s wages and sailed for Paris. Over the next eight years he studied art there and in Rome, where he developed his interest in Renaissance medals and bronze casting, as well as an admiration for Classical art and architecture. His career as a sculptor began when wealthy Americans living in Rome hired him to sculpt portraits and busts for them.
Saint-Gaudens’ career was guided by his mastery of realistic sculpture and bas-relief, which enabled him to produce over 200 works in marble and bronze, earning him an international reputation. He is well known for two types of art: small-scale portrait reliefs and monumental public sculpture, especially Civil War monuments. After the Robert Shaw Memorial, his best known public piece is the statue of Diana of the Tower which was commissioned to sit atop New York City’s original Madison Square Garden Building. Originally the highest point in the city, this statue was removed when the building was demolished in 1925, and now resides in the Great Stair Hall Balcony of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The unusually complex Robert Shaw Memorial measures 11 feet by 14 feet and took Saint-Gaudens nearly fourteen years to complete. Originally conceived as a conventional equestrian statue, that plan was rejected by the Shaw family as too pretentious. The execution of the finished memorial became more detailed and complex as Saint-Gaudens developed his vision of what was to be memorialized. Begun as a low relief, a bas-relief, the final monument increased in depth from its original background so much that it became a combination of two and three dimensions.
Facing the colossal monument, the viewer sees a large frieze of relief sculpture of three rows of armed soldiers with their legs in various stages of a march. The figures, their rifles, canteens and packs fill the foreground and middleground with energy, movement and rhythm. The motion is forward for the figures, to the viewer’s right. Colonel Shaw is featured in the center, riding in front of his company of foot soldiers. The Colonel sits strictly at attention in his saddle as he proudly leads his loyal men. Although the scene is said to depict the Regiment marching down Beacon Street as they departed Boston on May 28, 1963, the rag-tag appearance of the troops is meant to represent their arduous trek to Fort Wagner.
Saint-Gaudens works in a convincing realistic style, sometimes called American Renaissance style. In the stoic procession each soldier is portrayed as an individual rather than any generic type of African American, which was typical at the time. Determined to depict the individuality of each person and to still convey the overall spirit of the regiment, Saint-Gaudens made many clay studies of the heads of black men willing to pose for him. He also tethered a horse in his studio to ensure accurate representation of animal anatomy. The only exception to this realism is an allegorical angel figure which hovers above the soldiers carrying poppies, symbols of death and remembrance, and an olive branch to symbolize peace.
When the Robert Shaw Memorial was unveiled in 1897, the philosopher William James observed that it was the first American soldiers’ monument dedicated to a group of citizens united in the interest of their country rather than in the honor of a single military hero. “There they march,” he said, “warm-blooded champions of a better day for man.” While the original sponsors of the project became frustrated with its complexity and long timeline, it is apparent that Saint-Gaudens recognized the full import of his accomplishment. He later wrote about the work, “developing in this way infinitely beyond what could be paid for, [the monument] became a labor of love.” In 1982, the names of 62 African American soldiers who gave their lives at Fort Wagner were inscribed on the base of the Robert Shaw Memorial. Both Colonel Shaw and Saint-Gaudens would no doubt be very pleased.
This article includes information from American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America published by Knopf, the Boston African American National Historic Site of the National Park Service, the National Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Picturing America Teachers’ Resource Guide. Picturing America is a program from the National Endowment for the Humanities helping to teach American history and culture by bringing some of the country's great art directly to classrooms and libraries. More resources and information regarding eligibility for programs is available at picturingamerica.neh.gov.
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