HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Horatio Greenough (September 6, 1805 – December 18, 1852) was an American sculptor best known for his United States government commissions '' The Rescue'' (1837–50), ''
George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
'' (1840), and ''
The Discovery of America ''The Discovery of America'' is a trilogy written by the German author and educator Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746–1818). It was originally published in 1781/82 as ''Die Entdekkung von Amerika – ein angenehmes und nützliches Lesebuch für Kind ...
'' (1840–43).


Biography

The son of Elizabeth (''née'' Bender) and David Greenough, he was born in Boston on September 6, 1805, into a home with ethics for honesty and emphasis on good education. Horatio showed an early interest in artistic and mechanical hobbies. Particularly attracted to
chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...
, around the age of 12 he made a chalk statue of
William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...
, known as his earliest work of record. Horatio also experimented with
clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay parti ...
, which medium he learned from
Solomon Willard Solomon Willard (June 26, 1783 – February 27, 1861) was a carver and builder in Massachusetts who is remembered primarily for designing and overseeing the Bunker Hill Monument, the first monumental obelisk erected in the United States. Backg ...
. He also learned how to carve with
marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...
under instruction from Alpheus Cary. Horatio seemed to have a natural talent for art, yet his father wasn't fond of the idea of this as a career for Horatio. ] In 1814 Horatio Greenough enrolled at
Phillips Academy, Andover ("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness , address = 180 Main Street , city = Andover , state = M ...
, and in 1821 he entered
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. There he found a passion in works of antiquity and devoted much of his time to reading literature and works of art. With a plan to study abroad, he learned Italian and French, but also still studied
anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...
and kept modeling sculptures. While attending Harvard he came across his first crucial influence.
Washington Allston Washington Allston (November 5, 1779 – July 9, 1843) was an American painter and poet, born in Waccamaw Parish, South Carolina. Allston pioneered America's Romantic movement of landscape painting. He was well known during his lifetime for ...
was more than a mentor, but a close friend who enlightened and inspired Horatio. He even molded a bust of Washington. Before graduating from Harvard, he sailed to Rome to study art where he met the painter Robert W. Weir, while living on Via Gregoriana. These two became close friends and studied together the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
and works of antiquity. Favorites of theirs were the '' Laocoon'' group of the Vatican structure galleries and the ''
Apollo Belvedere The ''Apollo Belvedere'' (also called the ''Belvedere Apollo, Apollo of the Belvedere'', or ''Pythian Apollo'') is a celebrated marble sculpture from Classical Antiquity. The ''Apollo'' is now thought to be an original Roman creation of Hadrianic ...
''. During Horatio's time spent in Rome, he created many busts, such as a full-size statue of the Dead Abel, a Dead John Cranch, and a portrait of himself. He returned to Boston in May 1827 with Weir, after recovering an attack of malaria. He modeled busts such as Josiah Quincy, president of Harvard, Samuel Appleton and
John Jacob Astor John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by smuggling opium into China, and ...
. In an attempt to establish a greater reputation he sought out to make a portrait of President
John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, and diarist who served as the sixth president of the United States, from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States S ...
. His plan worked as he displayed a style of naturalism in this piece as he did in many other works. In 1828 he established a studio in
Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico a ...
. Although Greenough was generally healthy, in December 1852 he contracted a severe fever. On December 18, after two weeks of this high fever he died at the age of 47 in Somerville, near Boston. He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 1843. His sketchbook is held in the
Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...
. In 1828 he was elected into the
National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote th ...
as an Honorary Academician. His younger brother was the sculptor Richard Saltonstall Greenough. Horatio's son, biologist Horatio S. Greenough, proposed a
stereo microscope The stereo, stereoscopic or dissecting microscope is an optical microscope variant designed for low magnification observation of a sample, typically using light reflected from the surface of an object rather than transmitted through it. The instr ...
design to
Ernst Abbe Ernst Karl Abbe HonFRMS (23 January 1840 – 14 January 1905) was a German physicist, optical scientist, entrepreneur, and social reformer. Together with Otto Schott and Carl Zeiss, he developed numerous optical instruments. He was also a co- ...
of
Carl Zeiss AG Carl Zeiss AG (), branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe (joined 1866) and Otto Schott (joined 1884) he laid the fo ...
circa 1896 in Paris that led to the first commercial stereomicroscope. The younger Greenough's design, originally intended for
dissection Dissection (from Latin ' "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization) is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause o ...
, is still widely used in the optics industry.


Works

His sculptures reflected truth and reality, but also ancient classical aesthetic ideals learned from
Washington Allston Washington Allston (November 5, 1779 – July 9, 1843) was an American painter and poet, born in Waccamaw Parish, South Carolina. Allston pioneered America's Romantic movement of landscape painting. He was well known during his lifetime for ...
. Many of Greenough's works were done in
Florence, Italy Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
where he spent most of his professional life. His sculpture '' The Rescue'' (1837–1850) and his over-life-size ''
George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
'' (1840) both derived from United States government commissions. Some of his other most famous and important sculptures include ''
James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought ...
'' (1831), ''
Castor and Pollux Castor; grc, Κάστωρ, Kástōr, beaver. and Pollux. (or Polydeukes). are twin half-brothers in Greek and Roman mythology, known together as the Dioscuri.; grc, Διόσκουροι, Dióskouroi, sons of Zeus, links=no, from ''Dîos'' ('Z ...
'' (1847), and ''
Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revolutio ...
'' (1831–32). A prolific draftsman, a selection of his drawings were displayed in 1999 in the exhibition ''Horatio Greenough: An American Sculptor's Drawings'', at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. His works are in the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mil ...
,
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, Museum of Fine Arts, and the
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...
.


Architectural theory

Probably Greenough's most enduring achievements are his essays on art. Here Greenough repeatedly criticized contemporary American architecture for its imitation of European historical building styles, wrote enthusiastically about the beauty of animal bodies, of machine constructions, and of ship design, and argued that as to architecture, formal solutions were inherent in the functions of the building; in this he anticipated the later functionalist thinking (see Functionalism). The origin of the phrase
form follows function Form follows function is a principle of design associated with late 19th and early 20th century architecture and industrial design in general, which states that the shape of a building or object should primarily relate to its intended function ...
is often, but wrongly, ascribed to Greenough, although the theory of inherent forms, of which the phrase is a fitting summary, informs all of Greenough's writing on art, design, and architecture. The phrase itself was coined by the architect
Louis Sullivan Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloy ...
, Greenough's much younger compatriot, in 1896, some fifty years after Greenough's death. Greenough, just as Sullivan himself, was influenced by the transcendentalist thinking and the unitarian religion of
Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
who wrote, e.g. in his essay on "Nature" (1836), that "Nature who made the mason, made the house." He was, however, a Protestant.Moses Jacob Ezekiel, Sir Moses Ezekiel, Joseph Gutmann. 1975. ''Memoirs from the Baths of Diocletian''. Wayne State University Press. p. 23 Greenough's writings were for a long time largely forgotten, and were rediscovered only in the 1930s; in 1947 a selection of his essays was published under the title ''Form and Function: Remarks on Art by Horatio Greenough''.


Gallery

File:George Washington Greenough statue.jpg, ''
George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
'' (1840) File:GreenoughRescue.jpg, '' The Rescue'' (1837–50) at its former site on the east facade of the U.S. Capitol


References


Sources

*Henry T Tuckerman
''A memorial of Horatio Greenough''
New York: G. P, Putnam & Co., 1853. *Frances Boott Greenough
''Letters of Horatio Greenough to His Brother, Henry Greenough''
Ticknor, 1887; BiblioBazaar, 2010, *Sylvia E. Crane, ''White silence; Greenough, Powers, and Crawford, American sculptors in nineteenth-century Italy''. University of Miami Press, 1972, *Horatio Greenough, ''Form and Function: Remarks on Art'', Harold A. Small (ed), Berkeley: University of California Press, 1947 *Nathalia Wright, ''Horatio Greenough: the first American sculptor'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963, *


External links



''Middlebury College Museum of Art''
"Greenough, Horatio, 1805-1852, sculptor"
''SIRIS''

''New York History'', Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2 (April 1957), pp. 177–197.

''Museum of Missing History'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Greenough, Horatio 19th-century American sculptors 19th-century American male artists American male sculptors American landscape architects 1805 births 1852 deaths Artists from Boston 19th-century American people Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Phillips Academy alumni American Protestants Harvard University alumni Neoclassical sculptors American expatriates in Italy Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery Sculptors from Massachusetts Artists of the Boston Public Library