We could name a great number of French sculptors belonging to this period whose works are seen in many public places which they adorn, but whose genius was not sufficient to place them in the first ranks of the world's artists, or make the accounts of them anything more than a list of works which has little meaning, except when one stands before them. Perhaps no one man had so wide an influence upon this art as had PIERRE JEAN DAVID (1793-1856), who is called David of Angers, which was his birthplace, in order to distinguish him from Jacques Louis David, the great painter, who was like a father to this sculptor, though in no way connected with him by ties of kindred, as far as we know. But when the sculptor went to Paris, a very poor boy, David the painter, whose attention was called to him in some way, was his friend, and gave him lessons in drawing and aided him in other ways. In 1811 David of Angers obtained the prize which enabled him to go to Rome, and after his return to Paris he was constantly employed. The amount of his work was enormous; many of his statues were colossal, and he executed a great number of busts and more than ninety medallions.
He made the statue of Mme. de Staël; one of Talma for the Théâtre Français; the colossal statue of King René at Aix; monument to Fénelon at Cambray; the statue of the great Condé at Versailles; the Gutenberg memorial at Strasburg, which is one of his most successful works, and a large number of other sculptures.
His chief characteristic is realism, and he carried this so far that it frequently became coarseness. David designed the relief for the pediment of the Pantheon. The inscription on the building declares that it is dedicated by a grateful country to its great men, and the sculptor seems to have had this in mind, for he represented in his group a figure of France surrounded by those who had been great in its times of war and days of peace. It is too realistic to be pleasing, and is far less creditable to the sculptor than are many of his less prominent works.
If little can be said of the modern French sculpture prior to our immediate time, there is still less to be told of that of England. There are many public monuments there, but they do not show forth any high artistic genius or rise above the commonplace except in very rare instances. There is but one English sculptor of whom I shall speak. JOHN GIBSON (1791-1866) was born near Conway, in Wales. When he was nine years old his parents went to Liverpool with the intention of sailing for America; but they gave up the idea, and the boy was sent to school in Liverpool. Before this he had been in the habit of drawing and of making sketches of anything that he saw and was pleased with; he now studied the prints in the shop windows, and made pictures, which he sold to his fellow-pupils. He attracted the attention of a print-seller, who was so interested in him that he allowed him to draw from studies and casts from the antique which he had. When fourteen years old the boy was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, but after a year he persuaded his employer to allow him to leave his shop, and was then apprenticed to a wood-carver. He did not stop at this, however, for when he became acquainted with the Messrs. Francis, who had a marble-yard, he persuaded his second master to release him, and was apprenticed for the third time, and in this case to the occupation which he had determined should be that of his life.