The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis (9 page)

She first encountered Edmonia that day. Seeing a young colored woman full of possibility, she took her aside and questioned her gently and at length.
[71]
She liked her humility, her earnest manner, and her pride in her heritage. She had favored adventuresome females in fact and fiction since her youth. She admired Penobscot Indians she met as a young woman on the shores of the Kennebec River, particularly their physically strong females. In Edmonia, she observed “that quickness and brusqueness of voice and motion, which indicate want of drill in the conventional rules of society.” She went on to praise “a degree of natural modesty and frankness far more agreeable to me than the uniform smoothness of fashionable manners, always lifeless and generally hypocritical.”

These were qualities she had come to appreciate in Harriet Hosmer, a young neighbor she adopted as a surrogate (one of several) for the daughter she never had.
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Harriet had gone to Rome a dozen years earlier to study art. Now she was a sensational personality among the first notable group of female sculptors.

Edmonia must have recalled the wit of Mrs. Child’s open letters published during the days of rage over John Brown and his followers after their raid failed. He had hoped to arm a slave rebellion. Child had attacked slavery in print, praised John Brown, and offered to nurse him in his cell. The wife of Virginia Senator James Murray Mason parried, mulishly defending slavery. According to her, slave-owners were good people. The proof? Their wives helped slave mothers in childbirth. Having drawn her out, Child stabbed home: “after we have helped the mothers,
we do not sell the babies.”
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The anti-slavery press reprinted their showdown. Thousands of copies circulated. Her mortal thrust was repeated at Oberlin as it was in every anti-slavery enclave.

If Edmonia offered a romance of sudden inspiration, as reported by others: of coming to study music, of eating crackers on the steps of City Hall, of suddenly wanting to make a statue, Mrs. Child failed to report it. She noticed instead that Edmonia had a lighter complexion and did not speak like an untutored slave. She asked about her ancestors and then deliberately probed.

Edmonia presented herself as biracial with an air of pride, “‘No, I have not a drop of what they call white blood in my veins. My father was a full blooded Negro and my mother was a full blooded Chippewa.’”
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“And from which do you inherit most?”

“I don’t know,” was the reply. “My mother used to say to my father, ‘Your people submitted to be slaves, mine never did.’” She added, “I like my mother’s people for that.”

She raved about life in the wilderness: “There is nothing like the beautiful free forest. In your rich hotels, you never know how delicious food may be. When a tramp in the open air has made you hungry, then to draw a fish from the river, make a fire of boughs on the spot, roast it, and eat it, is the greatest of all luxuries. I would not stay a week in pent-up cities if it were not for my passion for art.”

Asked why she was so driven to be a sculptor, she replied, “I cannot tell how it happened. But I always wanted to make the forms of things. My mother was famous for inventing new patterns for embroidery; and perhaps the same thing is coming out in me in a more civilized fashion.”

Of Brackett, once interviewed by Child, she said, “I thought the man who made a bust of John Brown must be a friend to my people. He has been very kind to me.”

She urged Mrs. Child to visit her studio
,
saying, “I don’t want you to praise me, for I know praise is not good for me. Some praise me because I am a colored girl, but I don’t want that kind of praise. I had rather you would point out my defects, for that will teach me something.”

Edmonia said her brother, having made money in the California gold rush, had sent her to Oberlin then to Boston where he provided her with a studio.

Child’s report said nothing about “black robes,” day school in Albany, New York Central College, or how Oberlin had cruelly driven her out.

A few days later, Mrs. Child followed Edmonia to her studio: “When she opened the door, the bust of Voltaire was before me. She had copied her model well, and in one respect improved on it. The mouth had a slightly humorous expression, as if he were smiling at something he considered superstitious.” Praising it, Child said, “You have not copied the sneer that characterizes all busts of Voltaire.”

“I did not like that expression,” Edmonia responded, “and I don’t suppose he always sneered.” She also paid tribute to Anne Whitney, admiring her
Africa Awakening,
and expressing appreciation for her help.

Weeks later, the enthralled Child introduced Edmonia to the world via the
Liberator.
Hedging that only time would prove whether she harbored creative genius, she added, “She seems to possess a native talent, which is capable of being developed fairly by industry and perseverance.”
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Encouraged by this attention and the first taste of fame, Edmonia posted an ad that ran until April:

MEDALLION OF JOHN BROWN. The subscriber invites the attention of her friends and the public to a number of medallions of J. B., just completed by her, and which may be seen at room No. 89, Studio Building, Tremont Street, M. Edmonia Lewis, Boston January 29, 1864.
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Boston’s elite shunned Mrs. Child. Her endorsement of racial mixing, her insistence that colored people were entitled to equal treatment, and her stinging attacks on local abuses of colored people became too much for them. Athenæum directors denied her library privileges. Her publisher, George Ticknor, no longer invited her to his literary suppers. Moreover, many of her neighbors in Wayland hated the anti-slavery movement and the War.

Isolated and under siege, she defended her principles with head held high.

Her long relationship with Harriet Hosmer also must have had a bearing on her sense of authority. She had given advice to Harriet on the subject of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. Soon she would promote Harriet’s
Zenobia
show in Boston.
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In 1861, Child published a short biography
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recounting how Harriet’s father, a physician, encouraged his daughter’s independent streak.

“Hatty” to her friends, Harriet was allowed as a child to live outdoors, play ball with boys, swim, run races, hike, shoot, even ride horseback (forbidden at Oberlin as a gateway to sin). Overindulged, she was uncontrollable. She even published a bogus death notice of a sour neighbor. It was a practical joke.

Mrs. Sedgwick’s School for Girls in Lenox, Massachusetts, was the only place that could contain her. There she met and befriended for life Cornelia Crow, daughter of St. Louis merchant Wayman Crow. When Hatty’s schooling ended, she declared she would be a sculptor. Painting was acceptable as a female hobby. Chipping and buffing rocks was as unthinkable for a lady as picking up a rifle and joining the army.

The doting father cared little for convention. He made a shed into a studio and hired a tutor. He also let Hatty spend a good deal of time with the Crow family in Missouri. With the help of Wayman Crow, she pioneered as the first woman to attend anatomy classes at what became Washington University School of Medicine.

Ever daring, Hatty carved a bare-breasted bust she called
Hesper.
Mrs. Child wrote a glowing but unsigned review for the
New-York Tribune.
After Hatty and her father went to Italy in 1852, she maintained contact with Mrs. Child. Hatty studied for some years with John Gibson, a famous English artist, sharing his Roman studio and working under his attentive eye.

Her vision of a powerful woman subdued,
Zenobia in Chains
(1859),
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excited art circles when shown at the 1862 international exhibition in London. It was the product of years of independent research. Appearing after the start of the Civil War, it made a cunning swipe at both slavery and the low status of strong women. Part of its celebrity had to do with Hatty succeeding in a men’s profession – and the uproar that followed accusations it was actually the work of men.
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Going to Italy was a well-traveled path for aspiring artists, especially sculptors. Europe offered the finest instructors and assistants, the finest white marble, the richest art museums in which to study, connections to other artists and masters, and access to models who would pose nude or otherwise for little money.

Art was also spun into the fiber of European culture, where kings, aristocrats, and most of all the Roman Catholic Church had supported the arts for centuries. Europeans accepted the culture that surrounded the arts, whether they fully appreciated it or not. More important, they embraced art and artists as necessary to civilization. A painting or statue made in Rome was worth ten times the same artifact made in the New World.

The fresh-faced society of America, rooted in rejections of monarchies, state religions, and idolatry, viewed art with suspicion. Boston’s illustrious sculptor, William Wetmore Story, who once dwelt on the disappointing facets of his hometown, wrote, “There is no hearty love of anything, for we are afraid of making a mistake. We love unhappiness.”
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Not surprisingly, such deep-seated Yankee gloom periodically ran amok to overwhelm Mrs. Child’s enthusiasm for her new protégée. After adoring Edmonia’s promise, Child could suddenly lurch into despair. Ideal standards guided her approach to life and set her apart from other mortals. Seeking unattainable goals could assure feelings of superiority. Paranoia and raging conflict could provide a sense of security. Rigidity could guarantee stability – needed even by the most radical gadfly!

Unlike Hatty, who was naturally wild but formally educated, Edmonia claimed to have been raised “wild” and taught by preachers. She knew little of literature beyond the
Holy Bible.
She never studied anatomy. She had no master, and she taught herself to manipulate clay. She sold her handicrafts just as she had peddled souvenirs to tourists in the Mohawk Valley.

When they met, Mrs. Child was past sixty years old and suffering chronic loneliness. She had no sons or daughters of her own, only those she had “adopted.”
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The age difference was one of many factors affecting the intense relationship that was to develop. She was a product of her generation, despite her opposition to many of its myths and attitudes.

In addition to defending her own radical thinking, now she found herself defending a protégée. One moment she invested herself with Edmonia’s success as a grandparent might do. The next day she became the grumpy doubter of credentials. As top hen, she pecked away with preachy criticism. She fretted over Edmonia’s low origin, high ambition, and lack of familiar order.

Before publishing the Tremont Temple interview, Mrs. Child wrote to Garrison asking where she could obtain a bust of Senator Sumner for Edmonia’s use in making a medallion. On the same day, she wrote to poet Eliza Scudder in Boston, asking for reassurance. “Do [Edmonia’s medallions] seem to you to promise anything more than ordinary, if she can have instruction?”
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Living miles away from Boston, she had nagging fears that prompted her to contact her publisher months after her interview appeared. Again, she sought reassurances, “I want to know what sort of person Edmonia Lewis, the sculptor, is. Is she a worthy, discreet sort of person? Is she economical? In a word, is she one whom it is worthwhile to try to assist? Your answer, if you wish, will be strictly between ourselves.”
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That Edmonia copied a Voltaire bust rather than create something original also sent her teetering. Missing the clichéd sneer, she saw only lack of culture. Then, she worried about creativity!

No one examined Edmonia more thoroughly. She turned over every possibility to ensure she had not missed some defect that could reflect badly on her endorsement.

More than mood swings, class bias damaged Mrs. Child’s hopes for latent talent in the colored races. Her letters reflect fine art as the private preserve of society’s elite. She questioned whether Edmonia could climb “a long and difficult hill … before she could reach the summit of her art.”
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Many of her circle believed that only someone with formal training in the
esoterica
of literature and history could create in the symbolic style of the time. Even a casual interest required a privileged education to appreciate subjects like Hesper and Zenobia. In Hawthorne’s words, “A sculptor, indeed, to meet the demands which our pre-conceptions make upon him, should be even more indispensably a poet than those who deal in measured verse and rhyme.”
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Moreover, sculpture required extraordinary labors in execution.

In short, Child soared on dreams of pre-eminence. It was the same outlook that let her righteously scold the nation as an abolitionist. There was a certain logic. Neoclassical sculpture, in vogue at the time, was one of the most difficult styles ever developed. It dwelled on ideals and aspirations, putting demands on the viewer’s knowledge for a genuine appreciation. It followed ancient Greek practices meant to elevate the profound and eternal, drawing on characters from classical literature and history. Expensive and associated with the social hierarchy of the day, it also satisfied a desire of the wealthiest and best educated to exclude all others.

That only the most sophisticated few could create fine art was a false assumption, of course, one that sank on the hopeless ballast of self-serving generalities and needy elitism. Distribution of native gifts and development of character, we now accept, are independent of social caste. Moreover, authentic, valuable innovation often thrives on youthful innocence, varied perspectives, and other fresh points of departure.