II. (19); III. (23); IV. (30); V. (53); VI. (62); VII. (64); VIII. (66); IX. (68); X. (70). A very large number of preludes, études, impromptus, mazurkas, poems, etc., including the great “Vers la Flamme” poem and the much-discussed last work, the Five Preludes (op. 74). Piano and Orchestra : Concerto (op. 20). No songs or chamber music are included in Scriabin’s output. (P. A. S.)
SCULPTURE (see 24.488). The state of coma which, so far
as public interest is concerned, had afflicted European, and
particularly British, sculpture up to the neighbourhood of 1910,
yielded at about that date to a long-sustained treatment of
shocks administered by the exhibitors of what has been regarded
as “freak” sculpture. These shocks, sporadic but startling
and lingering in their effect, had persisted throughout the preceding
decade, and the so-called “rebels,” authors of these
frequently unintelligible sculptural efforts, found their ranks
considerably swelled by converts to a system that seemed both
easy of adoption and financially profitable. Hitherto, indeed,
British sculpture had been well-nigh moribund, and only on
occasion had the public evinced an interest in the case by crowding
the bedside of the invalid to witness in some London gallery
the delirium of the dying art as represented by the works of some
new “rebel.”
The attention of the public was caught and their mind entertained to an unusual degree in the closing years of the last century when Rodin, the great French master, startled the world by his originality of thought and won admiration by the freshness and vigour of his work. The interest thus awakened was, however, ill sustained in England, until the breach with academicism which Rodin inaugurated by his originality and independence was reflected and rendered wider in the work of the artistic " rebels " in Great Britain. The wave of revulsion from academicism and realism reached perhaps its high-water mark in 1910, and in 1921 had shown no sign of ebbing.
It would be difficult to classify these revolutionaries or to apply to their work any generic term, yet this movement has something in common with the post-impressionism of the paint- ers. It had reached England from the Continent, where it was far more widely spread and had rooted more deeply. In France it received smaller encouragement than in Germany and Aus- tria, where its influence is revealed in much of the recent monu- mental sculpture. The gospel of the movement forbids in chief any show of anatomical detail, and allows but little of true con- struction or of natural forms.
There can be little doubt that to this movement, in part at least, was due the awakening of public interest in sculpture about the year 1910. It was during the following year that con- siderable efforts were made to collect for public exhibition the works of that foremost of British sculptors, Alfred Stevens. That these efforts were successful was plain from the space de- voted to the exhibition in the Tate Gallery during Nov. and Dec. 1911 and Jan. following. This exhibition constituted in the case of the majority of visitors a first introduction to the finest sculptor Great Britain had produced. The interest it provoked encouraged a scheme for a further and more perma- nent collection and preservation of the scattered works of this great master. Public interest in Stevens was promoted to a very large extent by the labours of the Stevens Memorial Committee, and by the enthusiasm and solicitude of Prof. Legros, and it was on behalf of this Committee that in 191 1 the late Sir William Richmond presented to the trustees of the gallery an interesting bust of Stevens by Edouard Lanteri. Since then the collection at the Tate Gallery has been enriched by a cast of Stevens's remarkably fine chimney piece at Dorchester House.
Foremost of European sculptural works raised in 1911 were, in Rome, the large memorial to King Victor Emmanuel, and, in London, the great memorial to Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace. The Victor Emmanuel monument reveals no individual- ism or inspiration in its design or modelling. The Victoria Mem- orial, largest of sculptural monuments in London, is imposing in its effect and is magnificently situated at the head of the Mall and before the Palace. In 1912 the great bronze quadriga by Adrian Jones was placed upon Decimus Burton's arch at the top of Constitution Hill, London.
The revival of sculpture which marked this period was not evident alone in parochial and civic patronage; it was found not for the first time a suitable and convenient, and certainly an effective, channel) through which might be expressed interna- tional courtesies adaptable to various occasions. Three such works, which might be regarded as political, were erected in London during the year 1920-1, to which reference will be made later. During 1912 two such monuments were unveiled in France, both of which were in the form of courtesies between that coun- try and Great Britain. On April 12 M. Poincare unveiled at Nice the Queen Victoria Memorial, and on April 13 a memorial to King Edward was presented to the public at Cannes.
In the meantime one of the most important events of 1912 in England was the completion of Alfred Stevens's monument to the Duke of Wellington in St. Paul's Cathedral by the addition of the bronze equestrian statue of the duke which was designed to surmount the monument. Alfred Stevens, the designer of this splendid work, had died leaving the memorial incomplete, and it must for ever remain a matter for regret that many im- portant architectural features in Stevens's original design were modified with results destructive to the purity of the style and the elasticity of the structure. It was not until 45 years after Stevens's untimely death that the screens were removed and the completed monument revealed to the public gaze. Fortunately the great sculptor had left behind him a small model which he had designed for the equestrian group, and John Tweed, who was finally commissioned to carry out this portion of the work, followed and developed with no mean intelligence the ideas con- veyed in the small original model. The result is not, however, as happy as could have been desired. The horse is in the Renais- sance style as intended by Stevens, and is in keeping with the rest of the design; the light is quite inadequate to illuminate the upper parts of the monument, which is far too high for its position, the bronze group barely clearing the overhead structure of the building and consequently suffering some obscurity.
The Tate Gallery, in London, latterly more fittingly known as the National Gallery of British Art, was enriched by the addition of Havard Thomas's bronze statue " Lycidas," the gift of Mr. and Mrs. E. Sadler, while perhaps the most interesting work in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1912 was the same sculptor's statue " Thyrsis," which was acquired by the Felton Bequest Committee for the National Gallery of Melbourne.
The outbreak of the World War had no immediately noticeable effect on British sculpture. The work shown at the Royal Academy exhibition just then concluded had been of an unusually high standard, Sir Thomas Brock's statue of Capt. Cook had been set up in the Mall, London, and a very large number of works of some importance were well on the way to completion in the autumn of 1914. These did much to cover any paucity which might have been apparent in the exhibition of the following year. Nevertheless, upon the outbreak of hostilities a vast number of contracts for important architectural sculpture were at once cancelled or their execution postponed. This, it is hardly necessary to say, resulted in a period of distress and stagnation which terminated only with the demand for war memorials after the signing of the Armistice.
While general attention was focussed upon the war, British sculpture suffered a severe blow by the death of Prof. Edouard Lanteri, of the Royal College of Art. As a sculptor his output amounted to little, but, as he himself would have had it, the fruits of his teaching will long survive him, and those sound con- structive principles of sculpture which he taught will remain an influence in that distinctively British school of sculpture which he endeavoured to promote.
Two works of outstanding beauty and remarkable workmanship in the Academy exhibition of 1914 should be mentioned: Havard Thomas's bronze cast of his " Thyrsis," which had appeared in wax two years previously, and Derwent Wood's bronze bust of Mr. Henry James.
No sculpture of importance was made public during 1915 beyond Rodin's " Burghers of Calais," Lady Scott's statue of Capt. Scott, and such works as were exhibited at the Royal
