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Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Amor Caritas, modeled 1880-1898; cast by 1905
After modeling the first version of Amor Caritas, an 1870 commission for the tomb of New York Governor Edwin Morgan, Augustus Saint-Gaudens reworked the funerary figure numerous times before casting it in bronze. He considered various titles based on themes of virtue before settling on Amor Caritas, which translates from Latin as "Love Charity." Modeled after the artist's mistress, Davida Johnson Clark, the angel represents the ideal female, a recurring image in art of the American Renaissance period.
The Morgan tomb was one of Saint-Gaudens' several commissions for public monuments in New York, Boston, and Chicago that were cast widely on a smaller scale to meet public demand. Through such works, the artist was instrumental in promoting the idea of a distinctly American school of sculpture, one that would eschew the timeworn neoclassical style for a more lively and naturalistic one. |