La Follette in Marble

The best Greek sculptors created ideal, wholly impersonal types of physical perfection. When this sculpture filtered into Rome, puissant Roman sculptors were dissatisfied with merely copying the Greeks. Realists, they chiselled the seamed, tense, virile faces of the men who built Rome, who strove for justice and power rather than beauty. In modern sculpture both these tendencies are visible. Modern sculptors of character, Roman in tradition, sometimes meet a subject with Roman attributes.

The impressive result of one such meeting was displayed, last week, in Manhattan--a five-ton marble statue of the late Senator Robert Marion La Follette by Sculptor Jo Davidson. The work was commissioned by the State of Wisconsin, and will shortly be placed in Statuary Hall at the Capitol, Washington, whither each State may send the images of its two most distinguished citizens after they have died.* Than the late, great La Follette, no noble Roman ever had a greater passion for justice or a greater vigor in its pur suit. His outward aspect, the material of sculpture, mirrored the temper of the man. He was compact, robust, wiry, alive with energy. His head was squarely, ruggedly shaped, with abundant hair swooping up in a reckless, leonine pompadour. He dressed with what Sculptor Davidson called "careless fastidiousness." Indicative of inward sensitiveness, his fingers were long and slender; his feet, always in glossy shoes, were unusually small.

The Davidson statue conveys all this. It represents the Senator anxiously leaning forward in his chair, gripping the arms, as though about to leap to his feet with a challenge.

Sculptor Davidson was born in Manhattan in 1883. His parents were Russians. They moved to the U. S. when the sculptor was a child, lived long in penury. But they sowed cultural seeds in their children. Jo Davidson can remember slaving at an ironing board and reading a book between strokes. He studied art in Paris at the Beaux Arts, and in the U. S. with Sculptor Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Painter George de Forest Brush.

He keeps abreast of the foibles of the art world, but turns from them to pulsating scenes about him. No one is bewildered by Davidson sculpture. He builds no weird convocations of planes, no fever ish conceits of form. Like the sculptors of the Roman tribunes, his primary con cern is the search for character. The roster of Davidson subjects includes Anatole France, Feodor Chaliapin, Charles Gates Dawes, John Joseph Pershing, Wellington Koo, Woodrow Wilson, Marshal Foch, Georges Clemenceau. He went to the Versailles Peace Conference to see faces. When he forgot his pass he acted as a messenger in order to enter the hall where the intricate, fascinating lineaments of statesmen were gathered in clusters. He rose in his seat to peer at Clemenceau. There were cries: "Sit down! Sit down!" Heads turned, international business ceased. Jo Davidson sat down.

He is now plump, dark-bearded, glinting-eyed, like a legendary Sultan. His studio home is in Paris and he owns a manor house at Sache in Touraine, a spot beloved by Balzac. Yvonne Davidson, his wife, is a handsome Frenchwoman who once taught school in Chicago. Recently she ran startling dressmaking shops in Paris where styles were developed for individuals regardless of the mode. The Davidsons have two smart, adolescent sons.

Five years ago Jo Davidson traveled in Russia for several weeks with Senator La Follette. On their return to Paris a bust and some sketches were made. The Senator departed. The sculptor never saw him again. When he set to work three years ago on the La Follette statue, the La Follette family sent him clothes, shoes and gloves that had been worn by the deceased Senator.

Sculptor Davidson put on the suits, struck attitudes in which he had seen the Senator, observed the folds of the fabric and recalled details. In the statue the modern clothing never obtrudes but serves to interpret the figure.

Sculptor Davidson produced three models before he was satisfied. The first was the reposeful family La Follette. The second was a composite of qualities. The final version was the militant figure of the Senate chamber. It was the intimacy of the Russian journey which allowed the sculptor to rely so much on memory. But once his memory failed. The Senator's alert, responsive hands were elusive. Sculptor Davidson was baffled. Then to the Paris studio came the Senator's brilliant younger son, Philip La Follette, lecturer on law at the University of Wisconsin (TIME, Oct. 22). It is in this son rather than in his older brother, "Young Bob," the present Senator, that the father is still visible. It was in a gesture of Son Philip's--quickly gripping the arms of his chair--that Sculptor Davidson found the final and finishing accent for the statue.

Sculptor Davidson came last week with the statue from Paris. The ship careened and quivered in stormy seas. Sculptor Davidson also quivered, fearful for the precious marble in the hold. In Manhattan he was invited to dinner by Fola La Follette, daughter of the Senator and wife of Playwright George Middleton. But Jo Davidson did not appear. From 7 o'clock in the evening until 4 o'clock in the morning he kept a cold vigil by the entrance of the Anderson Galleries while workmen gingerly engineered his ponderous statue through a portal which was almost too narrow.

*The Davidson La Follette will complete Wisconsin's quota. Already present is the image of Jacques, sometimes called Pere ("Father"), Marquette, saintly early navigator of the Mississippi.