Leutze Ranks High In
Germany, As A Young Man Of Promise, Devoting Himself With Great Energy And
Earnestness To His Art.
At Florence we found Greenough just returned from a year's residence at
Graefenberg, whence he had brought back his wife, a patient of Priessnitz
and the water cure, in florid health.
He is now applying himself to the
completion of the group which he has engaged to execute for the capitol at
Washington. It represents an American settler, an athletic man, in a
hunting shirt and cap, a graceful garb, by the way, rescuing a female and
her infant from a savage who has just raised his tomahawk to murder them.
Part of the group, the hunter and the Indian, is already in marble, and
certainly the effect is wonderfully fine and noble. The hunter has
approached his enemy unexpectedly from behind, and grasped both his arms,
holding them back, in such a manner that he has no command of their
muscles, even for the purpose of freeing himself. Besides the particular
incident represented by the group, it may pass for an image of the
aboriginal race of America overpowered and rendered helpless by the
civilized race. Greenough's statue of Washington is not as popular as it
deserves to be; but the work on which he is now engaged I am very sure
will meet with a different reception.
In a letter from London, I spoke of the beautiful figure of the Greek
slave, by Powers. At Florence I saw in his studio, the original model,
from which his workmen were cutting two copies in marble.
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