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An Intellectual Life Horatio Greenough and His Florentine Circle

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An Intellectual Life Horatio Greenough and His Florentine Circle Open Inquiry Archive ISSN 2167-8812 http://openinquiryarchive.net Volume 3, No. 1 (2014) An Intellectual Life Horatio Greenough and His Florentine Circle Elise Madeleine Ciregna As America’s so-called “First Sculptor,” Horatio Greenough’s life and work in Italy between the years 1825 and his death in 1852 have been the focus of scholarship on the artist, including Greenough’s influential published writings on art. While most biographical information concentrates on Greenough’s commissions and correspondence with American patrons and friends, especially Washington Allston and James Fenimore Cooper, little attention has been paid to Greenough’s larger social circle of friends during his years in Florence, and the influence of the city in which he lived and worked for most of his adult life. This essay seeks to begin to trace out the extensive web of Greenough’s acquaintance during the years he spent working professionally in Florence between 1828 and 1851. While Greenough always maintained that he worked to advance the cause of American art, particularly sculpture, he did not isolate himself from Italian intellectual life or Italians themselves, but instead formed friendships with significant Italian figures, commented on Italian politics, and worked on commissions from Italian patrons. In fact, Greenough was at the center of a large and varied social circle of Anglo, American and Italian admirers, friends and patrons, while his social life and work coexisted harmoniously and seamlessly. Working from Greenough’s extensive correspondence published in two different collections, which include nearly all known _____________________ © 2014 Elise Madeleine Ciregna Open Inquiry Archive Vol. 3, No. 1 (2014) 16 surviving letters from him, as well as several biographies and Greenough’s own published writings, this essay examines Greenough’s relationships with the Marquis Gino Capponi and other Florentines, as well as the network of Anglo-Americans who formed part of Greenough’s social circle, including the writer James Fenimore Cooper and the artist Washington Allston. Horatio Greenough was born in 1805 into a comfortable and well-connected Boston family, the second of eleven children born to David and Elizabeth Greenough (two of whom died in infancy). David Greenough had made a fortune in real estate development in Boston during the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth centuries. Horatio’s sister-in-law Frances Boott Greenough stated “at one time [David Greenough] owned the greater part of Brattle Street, the Province House estate, and parts of Chestnut, Summer, and other streets.” She also noted that of several houses built by David Greenough in Colonnade Row, one “was his home for some time, afterward inhabited by Amos Lawrence for many years” (F.B. Greenough 14), firmly establishing the Greenough family’s social and economic status in Boston and Cambridge society. Following the War of 1812 several unfortunate investments drove David Greenough into bankruptcy, a situation he eventually recovered from, although the family’s fortunes would thereafter fluctuate significantly through the years. Neither parent seems to have displayed much interest in art, but David Greenough’s involvement with the construction of several architecturally significant buildings in early nineteenth century Boston may have given him at least a passing interest in architecture. In any case, of the nine surviving Greenough children, seven were either artistic or literary, displaying talents in painting, architecture and architectural theory, writing, and sculpture (Wright, Greenough 19-21). As a young boy Horatio Greenough was fascinated by a marble sculpture in his father’s garden, a copy of the antique Greek statue of Phocion, and amused himself by carving figures in chalk and other media, including wood and beeswax (Craven 101). He also molded a head from a Roman coin in plaster. The young boy’s passion and obvious dedication to his work eventually caught the eye of Thomas Handasyd Perkins, Boston’s “Merchant Prince,” when Greenough was about twelve. History does not record how this meeting came about, but the oft- repeated tradition has it that Perkins was so impressed with Greenough’s chalk copy of a bust of John Adams by the French sculptor J. B. Binon that Perkins arranged for young Greenough to be introduced to William S. Shaw, the librarian of the Boston Athenæum, one of the first private libraries in the country, and one of the earliest institutions to collect and display paintings and sculpture. Even as a youth, Greenough was articulate, charming and intellectually curious well beyond his years. Greenough was given access to the library’s collection of plaster casts of antique sculpture to study, a unique privilege for anyone but especially unusual for such a young person. As an adolescent Greenough also received lessons in carving from Solomon Willard and Alpheus Cary, two prominent Boston artisans, and from Binon himself, who spent several professionally disappointing years in Boston between 1818 and 1820. Open Inquiry Archive Vol. 3, No. 1 (2014) 17 Although the young Greenough knew early on that he wanted to pursue sculpture as his vocation, the uncertain future of an aspiring artist in America caused his father to insist that his son first receive a proper education. Witty and handsome, Greenough was a popular student at Harvard College (1821-1825), where he excelled in studies of classical literature and mythology. It was during his years at Harvard that Greenough made the acquaintance of the much older Washington Allston (1779-1843), the celebrated painter, a friendship that would have a profound influence on Greenough. Despite the disparity in their ages, Allston became a lifelong friend and admirer of Greenough; the two men would keep up a lively and extensive correspondence with each other throughout the rest of their lives. During his college years, Greenough submitted an entry into the intense and protracted bidding process for the Bunker Hill Monument, a prestigious and early commission for a Boston landmark. Instead of submitting a design for a column, which the committee had already agreed upon, Greenough drew on his extensive knowledge of ancient civilizations and art and submitted a design for an obelisk, along with a lengthy and detailed explanation of the superiority of the obelisk design. Greenough lost the competition—although ironically, the Bunker Hill Monument that was eventually built was in the form of an obelisk. Greenough soon embarked for Italy, leaving before formal graduation ceremonies at Harvard. The decision to go to Italy was momentous, and would influence the next two generations of American inspiring sculptors, many of whom would follow Greenough’s example. Washington Allston, Greenough’s friend and mentor, originally suggested Italy to Greenough in part because his own career in painting had benefited from his years of study there (Greenthal et al 5). For an aspiring sculptor in particular there were many good reasons to choose Italy. The superb art collections of ancient Greek, Roman and Renaissance sculpture provided unlimited opportunities for study. The great masters of Europe, the Italian Lorenzo Bartolini in Florence and the Danish Berthel Thorwaldsen in Rome, were settled permanently in Italy, accepting promising students into their workshops. Other practical reasons for choosing Italy abounded, including the availability of the fine white Carrara marble, and Italian workmen to carve the marble. Unlike the artisan stonecutters of America, Italian stonecutters were highly proficient technicians, known as boasters, who could be relied on to carve the final version of a statue. The sculptor was primarily encouraged to express his creative “genius” through his modeling of the malleable clay into its final form. Not necessarily trained to carve in stone or marble, a sculptor would then have his Italian boasters take over cutting and carving the final version. Working from the plaster or clay model, the boasters used the age-old system of pointing to mechanically transfer a design into marble. Horatio Greenough arrived in Italy as an energetic and ambitious young man brimming with confidence and excitement about his professional endeavor. Having spent the first two decades of his life in the quaint city of Boston, Horatio would later complain to his brother Henry of Boston’s—and by extension, America’s— provinciality, stating—“there is no atmosphere of art” (FB Greenough 29). Italy Open Inquiry Archive Vol. 3, No. 1 (2014) 18 represented an ideal locus of art, beauty, antiquity, architecture, history, and civilization, all of which overwhelmed Greenough, but also inspired him. In Rome, Greenough began to study in earnest. Thorwaldsen’s greatest rival, Antonio Canova, had died in 1822, leaving little competition for the celebrated artist. Thorwaldsen’s works tended towards larger and more rugged topics, while Canova’s style had established a fashion for sentimental and highly polished works (Wright, Greenough 39). Working under Thorwaldsen’s guidance Greenough modeled a number of works in clay and sculpted several ideal works, including statues of Abel and David. He planned to remain in Rome indefinitely. Greenough and another art student, the painter Robert Weir of New York, took rooms together in a house in which the celebrated seventeenth-century French painter Claude Lorrain had once lived; a fact that added to the romance of the setting. The house was known as “Tèmpiétto,” [sic] or “little temple,” in homage to its Doric portico. Greenough and Weir became close friends. The following year Weir and Greenough each found cheaper accommodations, but when Greenough became seriously ill— probably from a combination of overwork and “Roman fever,” or malaria—Weir moved in to care for Greenough. After a long and slow recovery, the young sculptor took the advice of his physician and set out on a trip to Naples. In Naples, he exhibited for the first time signs of the mental illness, or “mania,” that would shadow him the rest of his life.
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