Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 | Page 4

to respect, may make
injudicious and unfair use of censure and invective. It is unwise, when
the necessity arises to set aside a worthless or an imperfect image, to
turn Iconoclast and demolish those surrounding it which are worthy of
a place in the temple. True criticism, for its own sake, if prompted by
no higher motive, deals justly.
The friends of Mr. Powers have, in their estimate of his ability, given
him credit for that which he does not possess, and claimed recognition
for merit unsupported by the value of his works. His enemies have
labored assiduously, not only to deprive the estimate of its unwarranted
quantity, but to overthrow the whole, and leave him merely a mechanic,
a dexterous mechanic, with small views, but large ambition, trying to
pass himself off as an artist. His busts are asserted to be but more
elaborate examples of his skill in the
"perforated-file-and-patent-punch" line.
But as the struggles to elevate this artist's reputation above its proper
level have proved signal failures, so the effort to depreciate it must
ultimately be defeated. Only one kind of injustice ever proves
irreparable wrong: that which a man exercises towards himself. Mr.
Powers had a specialty.
So constituted that the most difficult executive operations are to him
but play and pleasure, he has also, to govern and inform this rare
organization, a broad, manly, and most genial human nature. This
combination decided the question of his proper mission, and in virtue

of it he has been enabled to model a series of most remarkable busts,
the true excellence of which must be recognized in spite of friends and
foes, and the epithets "miraculous" and "mechanical."
It is possible that the highest type of portrait-sculpture is beyond the
limit of this specialty; indeed, it is almost impossible that with the
elements constituting it there should be associated the still rarer power
to achieve the most exalted ideal Art; and such Art we believe the
highest portraiture to be.
A consummate representation of a man in his divinest development, the
last refined ideal of him _then_, would be indeed somewhat
miraculous!
The world asks less. It claims to know of a man what the face of him
became under the influences of human, temporal relations. It wants
preserved of the statesman the statesman's face, of the merchant the
merchant's face; and this demand, when governed by a cultivated taste,
is a legitimate one,--as legitimate as is the demand for any history. The
public requires the image of the man whom the public knew, and they
regard as valuable that which can be received as a definite and
trustworthy statement of a great man, or of one whom it esteemed great.
It requires this, has a right to such information; and the generation
which fails to demand of its artists a true record of its prominent men
fails utterly in its duty. The bust of a man goes down to posterity, not
only the history which it is in itself, but as an interpreter of the history
of its age. Were it not for Art, an age would recede into the unknown,
to be recorded as dark, or into the shadowy world of myth. Portraiture,
more than aught else, serves to elucidate the tradition or story of a
people. How impossible to explain to the twentieth century the bad
mystery of our present, without the aid of Powers's head of Calhoun,
the less adequate bust of Stephen A. Douglas, and the one which should
be modelled of Mr. Buchanan! A faithful delineation of the features of
some men is needful. We should be thankful for that black frown of
Nero, for the bald pate of Scipio, for those queer eyes of Marius, and
for the long neck of Cicero, as seen in the newly discovered bust. These
are the signs of the men, and explain them.
Mr. Powers has succeeded in reporting more accurately than any other
recent artist the physical facts of the individual face. From one of his
marbles we derive definite ideas of the human character of its subject,

what its ambition is, and what its weakness; what have been its loves
and its antipathies, its struggles and its victories, its joys and its sorrows,
may be revealed to him who has learned what the human face becomes
under the influence of these incessant forces. No mere talent can
accomplish such results. Behind all that kind of strength lies the fact of
peculiar sympathies, relating the artist to this phase of
Art-representation; and within certain limits, which should have been
undebatable, his rule was absolute.
The great mistake with Mr. Powers has been his oversight regarding
these limits. There has been debate, hesitation, and a continual
wandering away from the duties of his errand. Years have been