The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis (2 page)
Read The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis Online
Authors: Harry Henderson
Tags: #BIOGRAPHY, #BIOGRAPHY, #BIOGRAPHY, #BIOGRAPHY, #BIOGRAPHY
For Harry Henderson, 1914-2003, and myself, Albert Henderson, Milford, CT., 2012
VENIAL SINS AND FAMILY SECRETS
7. THE BLACK SUBJECTS OF JOHN ROGERS AND ANNE WHITNEY
10. THE TREMONT TEMPLE INTERVIEW – 1864
8. HER FIRST EMANCIPATION STATUE
11. A SECOND EMANCIPATION GROUP – 1866 TO 1867
13. CUSHMAN AND THE OLD ARROW MAKER
17. ANNE WHITNEY’S DISDAIN – 1868
20. TIMES DARK, OUTLOOK LONESOME – 1868 TO 1869
BOOK TWO, Part Two – The Artist Becomes the Symbol
26. STANDING OVATIONS – 1871 TO 1872
32. PRODUCING
THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA
– 1872 TO 1875
34. THE DEPARTURE OF EDMONIA LEWIS – 1877 TO 1878
EPILOGUE – Post Scripts and Traces
5. THE GAMBLER, HIS HORSE, & THE FIREMAN
Figure 2.
Benjamin Franklin,
by Richard S. Greenough
Figure 3.
Portrait of a Gentleman,
1871
Figure 4.
Col. Robert Gould Shaw,
1864. Plaster
Figure 5. Robert Gould Shaw in uniform, May, 1863
Figure 6.
Maria Weston Chapman,
1865
Figure 7. Maria Weston Chapman
Figure 8. Edmonia’s passport application, 1865
Figure 9.
Hiawatha’s Marriage,
modeled 1866
Figure 10.
The Old Arrow Maker,
modeled 1866, carved 1872.
Figure 11. Abolitionist symbol
Figure 12.
Helen Ruthven Waterston,
1866
Figure 14.
The Libyan Sibyl,
by William Wetmore Story
Figure 15. William
Wetmore
Story, ca. 1870
Figure 16. Via Margutta art district, including the Spanish Steps
Figure 17. Via di San Nicola da Tolentino art district
Figure 18.
The Freedman,
by J. Q. A. Ward, 1863
Figure 19.
Dioclesian Lewis,
1868
Figure 20. “Edmonia Lewis, sculptor,” ca. 1867
Figure 24.
Indians in Battle,
1868
Figure 25.
The Rape of the Sabine Women,
by Giambologna, 1582
Figure 26.
Hagar,
this copy 1875
Figure 27.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
marble
Figure 30.
Vinnie Ream.
Oil, by G. P. A. Healy, 1870
Figure 31. Advertisement,
Chicago Tribune,
1870
Figure 32.
Edmonia Lewis,
by Henry Rocher, 1870
Figure 34.
Poor Cupid,
carved 1876
Figure 35.
Cleopatra,
by William Wetmore Story, 1860, this copy carved 1865
Figure 36.
Young Octavian,
ca. 1873
Figure 37.
James Peck Thomas,
1874
Figure 38. Portrait of a Woman with a rose in her hair, 1873
Figure 39.
Abraham Lincoln,
1871
Figure 40.
The Sleeping Faun,
by Harriet Hosmer, 1865
Figure 41.
Moses
(after Michelangelo), 1875
Figure 42.
The Death of Cleopatra,
1876
Figure 43. Advertisement,
Chicago Tribune,
1878
Figure 44.
John Brown.
Plaster, painted terra cotta, 1876
Figure 45.
Senator Charles Sumner.
Plaster, painted terra cotta, 1876
Figure 46.
Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett.
Plaster, painted terra cotta, 1876
Figure 47. Autograph souvenir of Edmonia Lewis, front and back
Figure 48. The “Veiled”
Bride of Spring,
1879
Figure 49. The “Veiled”
Bride of Spring,
detail
Figure 50. African-American clergyman, 1879
Figure 51. Official death record, London, 17th Sept., 1907.
Figure 52. Bust of a Woman with plaited hair, 1867
Figure 54.
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
ca. 1873
Figure 55. Harry Henderson (left) and Romare Bearden
“Never yet could I find that a black has uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.” – Thomas Jefferson,
Notes on the State of Virginia,
1787.
Think of Edmonia Lewis as an artist at war. As her heroes took to the gun, the pen, or the pulpit to attack the cruel social order of the 1800s, she weighed in with artistic gifts and tools meant for clay, plaster, and marble. In the grand struggle for respect, she was a regiment of one.
With every image she created, every appearance she made, and every interview she gave the press, she undermined the lies of white advantage in a cool counterpoint to the rage of Civil War and Reconstruction. Physically tiny and personally charming, she taunted the demons of bigotry as she carved her heritage and appeared with her work alongside the best artists of the day. The news media spread her message far beyond those who actually saw her or her work.
To her enemies, she confirmed the rise of “inferiors” and a threat to white manliness. She was a woman and colored
[5]
– of mixed blood, in fact, as her mother was an American Indian and her father was of African descent. Clearly, there was more at issue than race. As a world-renowned sculptor with a studio in Rome comparable to the best, she raided a male profession – only recently disturbed by well-to-do white women. Behind their backs, a cowardly opposition called female artists amateurs, plagiarists, and potentially immoral. And then there were other issues such as class, which separated her from artists who had no need to earn a living, and the religion that placed her again with minorities in England and America.
News of her rise sent white supremacists and their foes spinning in opposite directions. It also upset all who tied well-established Greek-revival sculpture to hallowed ideals, to enduring public monuments, and to the heroes of the literary canon. Esteemed sculptors were supposed to be divinely gifted, ivy-educated white men – the learned poets of stone and princes of the literati. An appreciation of their work demonstrated breeding, refinement, and elegance.
Born outside the precincts of polite society, Lewis was none of the above. She found international fame (and notoriety) with the help of a few wealthy Englishmen, radical idealists energized by the Civil War, and a press invigorated by live steam power and newly laid rails of steel. Believers in natural rights thanked God for her timely entrance as young men gave up their lives to defend one side against the other. Political movements seeking a variety of equalities added to her support.
Whether or not she envisioned her potential place in history, she surely chose task after strategic task to take her there. She established a studio in Rome, Italy, then returned to America year after year.
[6]
Each time she returned, she was sure to suffer the sting of intolerance. She knew what harm could come to her. She had endured insults and a near-mortal beating. Inspired by martyrs, she fearlessly risked all to blaze a path in the arts as the nation grappled with the sudden liberation of four million slaves. Her yearly tour was especially demanding because she brought heavy statues and fragile plaster casts. She always arrived in the heat of summer and traveled for months, dealing with public accommodations mined with mean surprises. Then she returned to Rome on the rough seas of winter.
Why did she choose such a grueling calendar while other artists summered in the Alps or the British Isles? Her public reply was sardonic: “The summers in Italy are too much for me.”
[7]
A more candid truth emerged as she vented anger in 1876: “To do something for the race – something that will excite the admiration of the other races of the earth.”
[8]
To this end, her two greatest passions – her art and her craving for equality – merged and set her course.
Racial equality was the holy grail of Reconstruction. It extended the anti-slavery thrust that sparked and defined the American Civil War. Many Members of Congress crusaded to secure rights for freed slaves. As long as they could, they assaulted remnants of slavery with reforms
[9]
enforced by federal troops. They met a growing resistance among northern voters unwilling to give up their ideas of racial advantage. In the South, they faced profound denials and the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan.