Appeal to the Great Spirit | |
---|---|
Artist | Cyrus Edwin Dallin |
Year | 1908 |
Type | Bronze |
Dimensions | 290 cm× 250 cm× 300 cm(114 in× 100 in× 120 in) |
Location | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
42°20′19″N71°05′37″W / 42.33873°N 71.09367°W | |
Owner | Boston Museum of Fine Arts |
Appeal to the Great Spirit is a 1908 [1] equestrian statue by Cyrus Dallin, located in front of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It portrays a Native American on horseback facing skyward, his arms spread wide in a spiritual request to the Great Spirit. It was the last of Dallin's four prominent sculptures of Indigenous people known as The Epic of the Indian, which also include A Signal of Peace (1890), The Medicine Man (1899), and Protest of the Sioux (1904).
A statuette of Appeal to the Great Spirit is in the permanent collection of the White House and was exhibited in President Bill Clinton's Oval Office. British Prime Minister Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George also had a statuette, which he received in association with a meeting with Sioux Chief Two Eagle during an October 1923 tour of the US and Canada [2]
Having grown up in Utah, the young Dallin frequently interacted with Native American children, who gave him insights that he called upon while creating this and other works. For Appeal to the Great Spirit , the model was Antonio Corsi, who posed for several great painters and sculptors of the era. [3]
Appeal to the Great Spirit was cast in Paris, and won a gold medal for its exhibition in the Paris Salon. On January 23, 1912, it was installed outside the main entrance to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). [4] The installation was originally intended to be temporary, but the statue was never removed, and eventually came to be considered as an iconic symbol of the MFA. [5]
A restoration of the original Boston version was reversed at Dallin's request,[ when? ] because he preferred the light green tones that had developed on the equestrian sculpture over time rather than the typical "statuary brown" patina the conservator applied without consulting him. [6]
On March 3, 2019, the MFA convened a public discussion of the artwork among five art historians and museum curators; two of the panelists were also members of Native American tribes. [7] [8] In October 2019, as part of its first community celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day, the MFA surrounded its iconic statue with placards displaying questions and comments submitted by the community, including Native Americans. [9] In 2020, the MFA website posted two brief essays written by Native Americans commenting on the sculpture and its cultural meanings. [10] [5]
In 1929 a full-sized bronze version, personally overseen and approved by Dallin, was installed in Muncie, Indiana, in the intersection of Walnut and Granville streets in the Wysor Heights Historic District; it is considered by many residents to be a symbol of the city. [11] The statue was erected "In Loving Memory of Edmund Burke Ball" by "His Wife and Children".
An edition of nine 40-inch (1,000 mm) bronzes of Appeal to the Great Spirit was produced around 1922. One was the centerpiece of the Tower Room of Dartmouth College's Baker Tower, the college's main library and most iconic building, but has since been removed. [12]
A plaster example in this one-third scale is at the Cyrus Dallin Museum in Arlington, Massachusetts, and another is in the Rockwell Museum in Corning, New York. [13] Central High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, possessed another plaster example, which was used in 1985 as the model for a bronze version. The casting was done by American Artbronze Fine Arts Foundry under the direction of Howard R. Kirsch. The bronze is now installed in Woodward Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the intersection of 21st Street and Peoria. [14]
Examples of the 21-inch (530 mm) bronze statuette are at the White House, the US Department of State, and many American museums. [15]
An 8+1⁄2-inch (220 mm) miniature edition was produced by the Gorham Manufacturing Company in 1913; in 2009, No. 263 sold for $9,375. [16]
An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin eques, meaning 'knight', deriving from equus, meaning 'horse'. A statue of a riderless horse is strictly an equine statue. A full-sized equestrian statue is a difficult and expensive object for any culture to produce, and figures have typically been portraits of rulers or, in the Renaissance and more recently, military commanders.
The Museum of Fine Arts is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas. With more than 1.2 million visitors a year, it is the 79th-most-visited art museum in the world as of 2022.
The Springville Museum of Art in Springville, Utah, United States is the oldest museum for the visual fine arts in Utah. In 1986, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As of 2022, the museum's director is Emily Larsen.
Cyrus Edwin Dallin was an American sculptor best known for his depictions of Native Americans. He created more than 260 works, including the Equestrian Statue of Paul Revere in Boston; the Angel Moroni atop Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City; and Appeal to the Great Spirit (1908), at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He was also an accomplished painter and an Olympic archer.
Bashka Paeff, was an American sculptor active near Boston, Massachusetts.
The Medicine Man is an 1899 bronze equestrian statue by Cyrus Edwin Dallin located on Dauphin Street, west of 33rd Street, in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. The statue portrays an indigenous American medicine man.
A Signal of Peace is an 1890 bronze equestrian sculpture by Cyrus Edwin Dallin located in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Dallin created the work while studying in Paris and based the figure on a member of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, which he attended often. He exhibited the original plaster version of the sculpture at the Paris Salon of 1890, where it won honorable mention.
The Cyrus Dallin Art Museum (CDAM) in Arlington, Massachusetts, United States is dedicated to displaying the artworks and documentation of American sculptor, educator, and Indigenous rights activist Cyrus Dallin, who lived and worked in the town for over 40 years. He is well known for his sculptural works around the US including The Scout in Kansas City, Missouri, TheSoldiers' and Sailors' Monumentin Syracuse, New York and The Signal of Peace in Chicago. Locally, he is best known for his iconic Appeal to the Great Spirit and Paul Revere Monument statues, both located in Boston.
Great Spirit may refer to:
Wysor Heights Historic District is a national historic district located at Muncie, Delaware County, Indiana. It encompasses 61 contributing buildings, 1 contributing site, and 1 contributing object in a predominantly residential section of Muncie. The district developed between about 1890 and 1930, and includes notable examples of Queen Anne, American Foursquare, and Bungalow / American Craftsman style architecture. Notable contributing resources include the equestrian sculpture and landscape ensemble "Appeal to the Great Spirit" by Cyrus Edwin Dallin (1929), Roy Thomas House (1922-1923), Burt Whiteley House (1892), and the first Delaware County Children's Home building.
Protest of the Sioux, also known as The Protest, is a 1904 equestrian statue by Cyrus Dallin. It was the third of four important statues of indigenous people on horseback commonly known as The Epic of the Indian, which also includes A Signal of Peace (1890), The Medicine Man (1899), and Appeal to the Great Spirit (1908).
A statue of Anne Hutchinson by Cyrus Edwin Dallin is installed outside the Massachusetts State House, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
An equestrian statue of Paul Revere by Cyrus Edwin Dallin is installed at Paul Revere Mall near the Old North Church in Boston, Massachusetts.
Massasoit is a statue by the American sculptor Cyrus Edwin Dallin in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was completed in 1921 to mark the three hundredth anniversary of the Pilgrims' landing. The sculpture is meant to represent the Pokanoket leader Massasoit welcoming the Pilgrims on the occasion of the first Thanksgiving.
The Menotomy Hunter (1911) is a sculpture by Cyrus E. Dallin in Arlington, Massachusetts, showing a Native American hunter pausing at a brook for a drink of water located in the Arlington Center Historic District. The sculpture resides at the center of the garden between the Robbins Memorial Town Hall and the Robbins Memorial Library, on a crest above a long, shallow reflecting pool. The man is equipped for a hunt, holding a bow. His catch for the day, a goose, rests by his foot.
The Robbins Memorial Flagstaff (1913) is a structure supporting and topping a flagpole in Arlington, Massachusetts created by Cyrus Dallin. The supporting sculpture includes a variety of sculptural elements including bronze figures, stone eagles, and snapping turtles with a finial representing American Agriculture. The sculpture resides to the west of Town Hall at 730 Massachusetts Avenue.
Boy and His Dog Sculpture or Storrow Memorial is a 1923 statue by Cyrus Dallin, located in a prominent location in Lincoln Cemetery. It portrays a young man bending down to pick a flower with a dog gazing up into his visage. It was created at the request of Helen Osborne Storrow as a memorial to her husband James Jackson Storrow. The Storrows are interred 30 feet north of the monument across a small road in a grave overlooking a picturesque pond.
Elizabeth James-Perry is a Native American artist and restoration ecologist. A citizen of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, she carried on the Indigenous tradition of scrimshawing after learning about Northeastern Woodlands scrimshawing from her mother and Wampanoag clothing during a trip to Europe. She creates wampum beads and Wampanoag textiles and is a 2023 National Heritage Fellow.
Passing of the Buffalo (1929) is a 9-foot (2.7 m) bronze sculpture of an indigenous man by Cyrus E. Dallin, which rests on a 5-foot-tall gray boulder located in Muncie, Indiana, United States. It is also known as The Last Arrow.
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