Henry Bellows Interviews Hiram Powers

Henry Bellows Interviews Hiram Powers EDI I 1: I) BY KI:I.I. Y E RIC;H-[' n the first day of May, 1868, nationally known Unitariall minister and author Henry W. Bellows met with artist Hiram Powers for the first of seven interviews with America's most famous sculptor.'By the time of the interviews Powers had spent the 1, 11]k of his 111.ittire c. ireci lii ing and working in Italy,and formed part of an established circle of Ainerican authors and artists who lived abroad while working in a distinctly Ainericati idiom for American patrons. He was a key figure iii the neoclassical movement that rejected the elaborate ornamentation ot the Baroque and Rococo stvles, and turned instead to the fidelity of form . ind academic classicism of Hellenistic Greece, the Roman imperial taste,and Renaissance art. Powers had chosen to live in Italy for its surplus of trained assistants, and he worked mostly with portrait busts and idealized representations. He had initially attracted attention from the European academy with E. ve, a highly idealized sculpture and Powers' first major ful]scale Standing figure. She had taken two years to carve from a single block of perfect marble, and was so successful that she garnered praise throughout Europe for the artist specifically and for American artistic ability in general. But it was in exhibiting The Greek Slave, Powers' tribute to Christian piety and the female form,at the Crystal Palace in 1851 that he made his international reputation. Sculpted in 1843, Tbe Greek Slave began a tenyear tour of the United States in 1847,drawing huge crowds, widespread press coverage,and commissions for replicas . She was the first domestically made nude sculpture the American public ever saw. Contemporaries marveled at the statue's effect on spectators,some admitting that it held their gaze literally for hours, mesmerizing them. Entire families stood in line to see The Greek Slave which suggests that Victorian Americans somehow managed to subliniate their belief in the idea that propriety thrived only if buried under several layers of clothing. The phenomenon continues to intrigue both historians and art historians even today. One argues that Powers " engineered the public's positive reneEnglish artist (.' barles Francis Fuller scitlpted this bust of Hiram Powers bettueen 1 855 and 185 9, ditri,! g his stay in Florence. Cincinnati Museum Centei FALL 2004 49 HENRY BELL»OWS INTERVIEWS HIRAM POWERS tion through a " pl,) t"devised to excuse the figure's state of undress.2 The artist had explained in a brochure designed to accompany the statue that the slave was a Greek (: hristian held hostage and displayed in the slave market by Turks. The maniclis, chains, and crucifix in the statue were Powers' supporting evidence. The slave's nakedness therefore cannot be considered voluntary, 19%% 16*, 11 1 , 11 ,11 T HI]S EVE NIN (; re,/ j:{ WiLL MIEXII{ BITED.A' r THE 1* 0* OR ' WESTERN S M. Ye.© 1. CfNNATI ...: 51[ 0** FE BOTTO W, CORSES OF VUY 8, COLE. UBI., 1 ST' S 00*. 0. nou* . lor NG ... 4 * : Ff*§} 9 02 :* 3 2, 4,:. 9, 9... m':'' li'* M' i'k' 14" i 1*" Utlk/ Wi. 73»1j@ -4-' Me: J= M= r 110: SM, 14 0/ al /// * f then mo g 1,11 ' 11 ' 0* Tist,» 14 1/ 4 1) *¢ lm* li 1* 1* bli be bst th..#. lib., s saj}bre, 3 4 ' rnut, 4 bef. 8rD* .#** ilvery. e© . , At = = ent wi,&• rE. ,>* 1* s,, ails,) 41 tke'8418 01 lips,1/, I/'"' 1' lieat¢ /// Ir {111,1 / Ining ' 0@ ell-, unt, 1 the light ret' rn, Il)* 4 ,= ill le ie AM& 11* n / Dund. ( sy•' rbc ! 0¤, wieti,/ eitid utitan : be vistim Eg„* 01 plitihg * helf jaid, 1* 11$tb' 2£, lin@ orth)* R* Oil will' I,th' p, m* shment 0 American popular culture. The artist may have downplayed selected parts of his history,but his celebrity is the reason why an American magazine with as wide a circulation in the period as Appleton' s Journal would run seven interviews on such a motley variety of topics with an expatriate sculpton The Greek Slave,Eve Tempted.Eve Disconsolate and the...