[Photo Credit: CynthiaDosSantos, CC BY-SA 4.0
An Artist’s Regrettable Technique
Julia was unimpressed by Frederick Macmonnies’ personality when she met him in his Paris studio in October 1897. She admired his sculptures, however, writing: “He has some fine work there – just now two big war reliefs – He makes the horses gallop in the yard & strings them up in the trees to get the prancing movements – All the figures are modeled first in the nude, and afterwards uniformed – which to an uninitiate seems lost labor.”
Julia referred to the two Andalusian draft horses that Macmonnies stabled behind his studio. To accurately depict their rearing posture, he had his assistants perform a cruel trick. Encircling the horses’ midsection with ropes, they raised them onto their hind legs, using pulleys.
The resulting bronze sculptures included two freestanding works titled The Horse Tamers (displayed at the entrance to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park), and the two reliefs Julia mentioned, titled The Spirit of the Army and The Spirit of the Navy (displayed in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, on the front of the Civil War memorial arch titled The Soldiers and Sailors Monument).
The Army relief—shown on the left—was later described as “an explosion of action.” It features a central figure (who resembles Macmonnies) leading a rearing horse by its bridle. Behind them stands a crowd of soldiers bearing weapons and drums. Just above, Victory blows her horn in triumph, while another rearing horse crowns the scheme. Macmonnies exhibited both Army’s plaster maquette and finished bronze relief at the 1900 Paris Exposition, where his bronze won the Grand Prize. Julia may therefore have seen it twice, since she and her brother Avery frequently visited the fair.
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