The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis (7 page)

One day, Brackett might have spoken about it: What’s the lesson here? After you have observed your subject, after you have memorized and accurately drawn him, you must absorb everything about him, about his life, his ideas and his whole being, to capture his spirit. That’s what I tried to do with Brown – to capture the spirit of the man’s life, not the moment of resignation I saw in the jailhouse.

Another day, he could have shown her an engraving of a huge statue of George Washington done by Horatio Greenough in 1840. Designed to sit in a chariot that the art commissioners then chose to eliminate, the statue appeared with the reins missing, replaced by a sword in an awkward pose. Worse, the American hero wore the toga of ancient Greece.

Few thought George Washington looked like that. People said it looked like he was reaching for his pants. Brackett probably laughed, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. It’s a joke on us poor Americans! We paid for it!

So to be a sculptor you have to study history?

You have a lot to learn, young lady. Old Greenough argued against freeing the slaves. He said they were happy.
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That’s not true.

Yes, but it shows artists make mistakes – and not just in their art.

He asked what she knew of American sculpture.

Nothing, she confessed after a pause.

Taking a cast of a woman’s hand, Brackett suggested she copy it. The hand, with its delicate wrinkles, was more difficult than the chubby foot. Back in her room, she struggled to replicate it, its natural grace and life-like appeal. She could not afford anatomy lessons – even if they had been available to a colored woman. She could only examine her own hand, holding it exactly so. She drew it. Perhaps she drew the cast on the same page. Hers was different, not so delicate or graceful. She squeezed, feeling her bones and muscles, feeling the movement of tendons and joints. The repeated examinations helped her understand the bone structure, the muscles, the skin, the nails, and where she must begin.

She must have also sought out fine examples of statuary. She found them at the Athenæum, the State House, the Boston Museum, private galleries, and perhaps even venturing into churches. She wondered about the artists. Some were known, others anonymous. As she crossed City Hall Square to examine
Franklin
anew, she must have wondered about its cost.

Glowing with fresh air, she went back to her studio and plunged into her work. Finally, satisfied it was the best she could do, she carried her clay hand and the cast back to Brackett.

One happy day Edmonia’s brother turned up, a dream come true. He was older, wiser, and probably heavier than she remembered him. Just returned from a grand tour of Europe and the West Indies, he would have been dressed for travel, with fine boots and a gent’s hat. His smile must have radiated the warmth of the summer sun. She had not seen him since he went off to California, eleven years earlier. From hints in our sources,
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we might envision their reunion for a moment.

He was probably the only person she could trust with her year of torment. His appearance must have released tears and words long suppressed, twin geysers of catharsis. False allegations. The vicious assault. The endless hearing. How local colored people thought she should just plead guilty and take her lumps. Could she say the hideous words: “Spanish fly?” It was a curse too evil. Missed classes. Vile gossip. Lies. Insinuations. Mrs. Dascomb! How she put her trust in old Mrs. Dascomb and older Father Keep.

She had been good. She had followed the rules, as she promised. The scorn of Mrs. Dascomb, the Lady Principal, was unexpected.

Her boarding house landlords, Father Keep and his wife, broke her heart when they said she could not stay.

It was not her fault … or was it? She was so ashamed of the possibility that somehow she caused it all.

It must have troubled her that scandal tarnished her commitment to her brother. There were no other schools for a colored girl. She could never get her degree.

Only Mr. Langston, as her attorney, and a few friends stood up for her. In the end, he and Mr. Douglass wisely counseled her to just leave. Yes, she had met the celebrated Frederick Douglass and he had understood her problem better than she did.

It is likely this was the first and the only time she unleashed the yearlong nightmare in tedious detail. The telling was for his ears only, long overdue and a great relief to her spirit.

He must have listened closely. Oberlin College should have been safe, a protective cocoon, and a good place for her. He must have felt awful for her, even guilty that she bore such desperate troubles alone. He had been touring abroad, taking his time as a man of leisure. Graduation was a goal they shared.

When she repeated Mrs. Dascomb’s final denial, he must have shaken his head. No, he said, you were not at fault. You did nothing wrong. You see, it’s not enough to follow the rules when you are the wrong color – even at a place like Oberlin. We cannot rely on fairness. We must always work harder, be better, and be more careful.

She must have heard that speech before. Now it touched personal elements that etched into her spirit.

He could do nothing about the past. He could help her now. He asked how she was doing in Boston.

She would have told him about Rev. Garnet, Mr. Garrison, Mrs. Chapman, Mr. Brackett, and her beloved
Franklin.
She told of making the baby’s foot and the graceful hand. From under her bed, she fished out drawings she made of Brackett’s
John Brown.

What she considered imperfect he must have called wonderful.

She took him to see the incredible statue, expressing her call to make something on that order.

He must have felt pride in her courage. The question, he silently turned over in his mind, was what could he do to help?

She had her own question and likely begged him to tell his story. She had only snippets from his letters. He was in so many ways a mystery to her.

His life had been unusual for a young colored man. The West overflowed with men and a few women – cowboys, prospectors, carpenters, sailors, merchants, and so on. From all over the world, they were intent on the gold to be discovered on the frontier. They lived in rooming houses, tents, stables, and sheds or just outside, sleeping on the ground. They all needed his services.

He was a barber. He likely repeated the common irony of his profession: No white man thinks twice about a colored man with a razor taking him by the nose – if he’s a good barber.

He had heard that large nuggets were just lying about in Sierra County, California – near the Nevada border. He promptly moved there. Within days, he was listening to more tales of seeing the ‘color’ – gold! He got paid in the precious metal and could make investments. He sent funds for Edmonia’s upkeep in Albany, at New York Central and Oberlin Colleges, and then in Boston.

Not a large, rugged man, he never considered digging or panning for gold himself. He found partners instead. Eventually, his shrewdness paid off. His miners struck it rich! The gold yielded by their claim was considerable. The money rolled in. He went right on cutting hair, shaving, and heating bath water in exchange for gold dust and nuggets.

Gold fever and life on the sometimes brutal frontier eventually impaired his health. By then he did not need to work or worry. He sold his business and his mining shares. He deposited $5,000 in gold with two San Francisco banks. More he stashed elsewhere.

He headed for Europe for a relaxed time of wandering. Nowhere in two years, he told Edmonia, did he encounter the racial barriers that marked the United States. Now he was going west again to open a new barber shop. Where gold was on everyone else’s mind, a barber could prosper.

Seeing her art convinced him of her gifts. Her problems were room and board. He took care of that. He also rented a modest studio for her, advancing rent for a year. Many artists, musicians, and teachers occupied the Studio Building, located on the corner of Tremont and Bromfield streets not far from the new City Hall and the
Franklin.
He ordered a small tin sign. Before he left, he tacked it on the door of studio 89:
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EDMONIA LEWIS, ARTIST

It certified she was an artist among artists. He hoped that it would give her the boost she needed.

She was surprised and grateful. She loved him so much.

Soon he left, promising to keep in touch. Years later, he wrote she graduated from Oberlin College.
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One day, a broken cast in Mr. Brackett’s trash caught her eye. Brackett said it was
Voltaire.
You could fix it and then copy it.
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The rest is up to you.

Who is Voltaire? She lacked any idea. Popular among Boston’s Unitarians and a spark of the American and French revolutions, Voltaire notably criticized the aristocracy and the Catholic Church. As a master of irreverent wit and humor, he seemed to break all the rules. She never dreamed of such a person. Rescuing the cast, she patched its broken parts. Then she tried to duplicate it. It marked her first effort to make a life-size bust.

Another surprise. There was a colored painter in the Studio Building. She promptly found herself facing the bearded Edward M. Bannister.
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He must have been astonished to learn the tiny woman was trying to become a sculptor just a few doors away. He showed her a few of his portraits, religious paintings, and landscapes. A well-read student of English literature and an admirer of the naturalistic Barbizon style of landscape painting, he was amiable and thoughtful. He must have encouraged her to keep working.

Meeting him must have lifted her spirits. His paintings would have impressed her. A colored person
could
become a successful artist. This man proved it. Afterwards, kneading clay, she must have mused over his path. He worked as a hairdresser in order to acquire the fine art of painting in spare moments.

Mr. Brackett offered to let her make and sell medallions based on his busts. An old neighbor of his, Miss Margaret F. Foley, was a former mill worker who had gone to Rome after success in Boston as a cameo artist. Medallion portraits typically show a profile in relief on a circle or oval setting in sizes ranging from 30 inches to very small. They do not require large amounts of clay, rigid frameworks, or the other challenges of three-dimensional study.

The idea appealed to her. She could sell her handiwork just as she had sold beaded moccasins as a child. She worked intensely on John Brown in relief.

Figure 3.
Portrait of a Gentleman,
1871

Made by Edmonia Lewis years after she left Boston, this medallion demonstrates her advancing skills. None of the medallions she made in the 1860s have been found. Private collection. Photo: Frank Stewart.

The work shown above is signed but not identified. According to the late collector Lee B. Anderson, it portrayed Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Transcendentalist and a supporter of John Brown. Most contemporary images of Emerson show his hair parted on the left. The medallion shows hair parted on the right. But then, the photo prints and engravings of the time could be reversed, a foible that can be explained by the crude graphics technology of the time.

Other possibilities include Wendell Phillips, who also wore the mutton-chops look. Edmonia had made a medallion of Phillips, who posed for her in 1864 (described as “horribly vulgarized” by Maria Child in a mean-spirited letter to Sarah Shaw, Apr. 8, 1866) and then a bust while living in Boston. Laura Bullard, in her 1871
Revolution
article saw a Phillips medallion portrait in Edmonia’s studio that she called “fine.” For reasons discussed in later chapters, it is likely that Phillips avoided Edmonia after she went to Rome.

Boston was an old, bustling port city nested in a ring of suburbs. Oberlin was a new country village built around a church and a college, miles from the next town. They shared a Puritan seed of discontent that demanded reform against the evils of the world. Serious and devoted, their founders left no room for giddy diversion or sloth. They differed on points of holy doctrine. Theology at Oberlin filtered through the Yale Divinity School, alma mater of Revs. Finney and Keep. Bostonians more likely cited the school at Harvard or none at all. They were equally certain of their authority.

The ways of their women cut a sharper contrast. Despite Oberlin’s pioneering in coeducation, equality in the classroom did not rise to the pulpit. Its women were usually mute at public meetings. When invited to speak in public, they used notes, markers of meekness, whether they needed them or not. The College confined their public speech to bland subjects and safe opinions – nature, poetry, and domesticity. They could not vote and were not supposed to express views on politics, patriotism, and war – favorite topics among Boston’s female leaders (who also could not vote).

Educated women helped make greater Boston the nation’s intellectual center. They were from homes where literacy mattered and able to read from well-stocked family libraries. Some were skilled editors and eloquent authors who debated politics, race, religion, and women’s work, even military strategy. Some were Universalists and Quakers, whose principles did not accept slavery. Others, simply secular, tuned to the Golden Rule.