The Puritan (Primary Title)
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, American, born Ireland, 1848 - 1907 (Artist)
Saint-Gaudens’s The Puritan—based on his full-scale monument to Samuel Chapin, founder of Springfield, Massachusetts—celebrates the austere fortitude of 17th- century New Englanders. Somber and solid beneath his undulating cloak, the religious leader plods forward, Bible in hand. Unrelenting naturalism defines the creases around his mouth, the straining fabric of his coat, and the knobs of his walking stick. One of the first American students at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Saint-Gaudens mastered a new mode of surface treatment that retains subtle evidence of the sculptor’s hand. Returning to the United States in 1875, he benefited from the growing demand for private portraits and public monuments honoring America’s political, civic, military, and industrial leaders. By century’s end, Saint-Gaudens was universally recognized as the nation’s foremost sculptor.
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