[Location:Literature/ Topic: The Artist and Alienation /Sub-Topic: “Drowne’s Wooden Image”/Introductory Page
An excerpt in which the narrator describes Drowne's early interest in and
work as a sculptor.
He was the first American who is known to have attempted, –in a very
humble line, it is true, –that art in which we can now reckon so many
names already distinguished, or rising to distinction. From his earliest boyhood,
he had exhibited a knack–for it would be too proud a word to call it
genius –a knack, therefore, for the imitation of the human figure, in
whatever material came most readily to hand. The snows of a New England winter
had often supplied him with a species of marble as dazzling white, at least,
as the Parian or the Carrara, and if less durable, yet sufficiently so to
correspond with any claims to permanent existence possessed by the boy's frozen
statues. Yet they won admiration from maturer judges than his schoolfellows,
and were, indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth
that might have made the snow melt beneath his hand. As he advanced in life,
the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible materials for the display of
his skill, which now began to bring him a return of solid silver, as well
as the empty praise that had been an apt reward enough for his productions
of evanescent snow. He became noted for carving ornamental pump-heads, and
wooden urns for gate-posts, and decorations, more grotesque than fanciful,
for mantel-pieces.
An excerpt from Drowne's Wooden Image that identifies the limitations of Drowne's
art, especially the "wooden" or stiff quality of his figures.
These specimens of native sculpture had crossed the sea in all directions,
and been not ignobly noticed among the crowded shipping of the Thames, and
wherever else the hardy mariners of New England had pushed their adventures.
It must be confessed, that a family likeness pervaded these respectable progeny
of Drowne's skill –that the benign countenance of the king resembled
those of his subjects, and that Miss Peggy Hobart, the merchant's daughter,
bore a remarkable similitude to Britannia, Victory, and other ladies of the
allegoric sisterhood; and, finally, that they had all had a kind of wooden
aspect, which proved an intimate relationship with the unshaped blocks of
timber in the carver's workshop. But, at least, there was no inconsiderable
skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any attribute to render them really works
of art, except that deep quality, be it of soul or intellect, which bestows
life upon the lifeless, and warmth upon the cold, and which, had it been present,
would have made Drowne's wooden image instinct with spirit.
