![]() Once invited inside, Volk said he gave Mrs. I exclaimed: 'I am the first man from Chicago, I believe, who has the honor of congratulating you on your nomination for President.' Then those two great hands took both of mine with a grasp never to be forgotten." Volk told Lincoln he would be the next president and he wanted to make a statue of him. He saw me from his door or window coming down the street, and as I entered the gate, he was on the platform in front of the door, and quite alone. Lincoln's unpretentious little two-story house. Volk arrived in Lincoln's home town of Springfield, Illinois, on May 18, 1860, the day Lincoln was nominated for president. it is the most reliable document of the Lincoln face, and far more valuable than photographs, for it is the actual form." Volk left a priceless legacy for future sculptors, as attested by Avard Fairbanks, who said, "Virtually every sculptor and artist uses the Volk mask for Lincoln. He said: 'I am bored nearly every time I sit down to a public dining-table by some one pitching into me, on politics.'" Volk said that during the sittings, "he would talk almost unceasingly, telling some of the funniest and most laughable of stories, but he talked little of politics or religion during those sittings. He bent his head low and took hold of the mold, and gradually worked it off without breaking or injury it hurt a little, as a few hairs of the tender temples pulled out with the plaster and made his eyes water." Lincoln said he found the process "anything but agreeable." Of the plaster casting process, Volk said, "It was about an hour before the mold was ready to be removed, and being all in one piece, with both ears perfectly taken, it clung pretty hard, as the cheek-bones were higher than the jaws at the lobe of the ear. Volk said, "My studio was in the fifth story, and there were no elevators in those days, and I soon learned to distinguish his steps on the stairs, and am sure he frequently came up two, if not three, steps at a stride." Volk took measurements of his head and shoulders and made a plaster cast of his face to reduce the number of sittings. By this time it was the spring of 1860, shortly before Lincoln received the Republican nomination for president. Lincoln agreed, but it took Volk's insistence two years later before Lincoln came to his studio. Senate, and invited him to sit for a bust. He met Lincoln in 1858 during Lincoln's campaign for the U.S. In 1881, sculptor Leonard Volk explained how he made the first Lincoln mask. Yet the peace is not the dreadful peace of death it is the peace that passeth The lines are set, as if the living face, like the copy, had been in bronze the nose is thin, and lengthened by the emaciation of the cheeks the mouth is fixed like that of an archaic statue a look as of one on whom sorrow and care had done their worst without victory is on all the features the whole expression is of unspeakable sadness and all-sufficing strength. The other is so sad and peaceful in its infinite repose that the famous sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens insisted, when he first saw it, that it was a death-mask. The face has a clean, firm outline it is free from fat, but the muscles are hard and full the large mobile mouth is ready to speak, to shout, or laugh the bold, curved nose is broad and substantial, with spreading nostrils it is a face full of life, of energy, of vivid aspiration. The first is a man of fifty-one, and young for his years. Hay had seen both Lincoln life masks and remarked, "This change is shown with startling distinctness by two life-masks. He said, "Under this frightful ordeal his demeanor and disposition changed - so gradually that it would be impossible to say when the change began but he was in mind, body, and nerves a very different man at the second inauguration from the one who had taken the oath in 1861." John Hay, who served as one of Lincoln's White House secretaries, noticed that Lincoln "aged with great rapidity" during the Civil War. This direct casting pays homage to the president’s eloquent articulation of the nation’s ideals. The mask cast by Clark Mills was done two months before Lincoln’s death in 1865. Since ancient times, it’s been traditional to make life and death castings of the faces of famous figures. Last names starting with: "A" Return to Top of page Please contact us for production and shipping time. They are made only when an order is placed. ![]() ![]() Items on this page are not kept in stock. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |