Daniel Chester French, and His Lincoln

Mark D. Ruffner, from U. S. postage

Several years ago, I visited Chesterwood, the Massachusetts summer home and studio of Daniel Chester French (1850-1931). French is remembered primarily for two great statues he created, the seated Abraham Lincoln that resides within the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concord Minuteman, shown below.

examiner.com

mass.historicbuildingsct.com

French's house is a handsome structure, approximately two miles west of Stockbridge, and overlooking the Berkshire Hills. Coincidentally, it was designed in 1898 by Henry Bacon, the architect of the Lincoln Memorial.

Chesterwood

Chesterwood

By far, the real attraction at Chesterwood is French's studio, where the famous Lincoln statue was carved. Above, you can see at least three models for it (there's a small model at the foot of the largest one).

The room is essentially an enormous cube, with one side comprised almost entirely doors and skylights.

loc.gov

loc.gov

Now I'd like to turn your attention to the floor directly in front of those huge doors. Because French sculpted so many statues that were placed outside, he needed to see how they would look in natural light. He therefore designed that part of the floor to be a large, wheeled cart that could be rolled out into the sunlight on railroad tracks.

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This is a photo by Douglas Yeo that shows the same view from the other side. You can read Douglas Yeo's own impression of Chesterwood and see more at Mr. Yeo's site, here.

An interesting problem arose as the Lincoln Memorial was finalized. It had been designed to have skylights, which would have cast shadows downward, as they appeared in French's studio. But the skylights were scrapped, thus allowing light to enter the memorial only horizontally. On top of that, light was also reflected upward from the floor, and so poor Abraham Lincoln looked strangely startled!

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You can imagine that both the sculptor and architect were as surprised as Lincoln appeared to be, and hugely disappointed. Much time and effort was spent correcting the shadows through artificial lighting, so that today President Lincoln appears as that iconic face we all know.

en.wikipedia.org

The Ingenious Sculptures of Paul Eppling

Paul Eppling is a St. Petersburg sculptor, well known in Florida for his metallic animals, usually made from auto parts. I've started this posting with one of his most dramatic pieces, the giant "Security Lizard" that sits atop St. Petersburg's police car garage.

To give you a sense of scale, that yellow rectangle is an auto license plate. One clever aspect of this sculpture is that the fly at the end of the lizard's tongue is actually a security light that illuminates the outside of the garage at night.

Photo by Sandy Klim, for AAA Going Places magazine

Paul Eppling was working in a metal shop in the 1970s when he first had the idea to fabricate an animal from metal parts and scraps. Since then he's welded hundreds of animals, big and small.

My friend Marg Radens was kind enough to host me on a tour of St. Petersburg's Boyd Hill Nature Preserve, where there are a number of Eppling creatures. Car bumpers are the perfect armor for this giant armadillo.

Here's a view of Marg to show you the scale. The armadillo's skin is comprised of thousands of sheet metal cut-outs. The armadillo's face looks rather fierce, but the live armadillo will curl into a ball when approached — I've watched it happen.

Elsewhere in the preserve is a smaller armadillo, accompanied by a sign not to climb him (I guess it's pretty tempting). Notice those wonderful ears! Some of Eppling's favorite scraps are from older farm implements because their parts have such graceful curves.

What do you suppose this fellow is? Perhaps a sloth, perhaps pure fiction. Again, the skin is made of many overlapping sheet metal cut-outs.

Two views of a tree creature, side and front

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A cormorant sits atop a shiny heron.

I'll end the Eppling tour by taking you to the beach community of Pass-a-Grille, where these two giant flies hang out on the side of an old building. Paul Eppling has incorporated blown glass into his more recent work, and this is a fine example.

Here I've rotated the photo to give you a view of the fly's body. The store owner named the alley in Paul Eppling's honor:

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