The Puritan is a bronze statue by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Springfield, Massachusetts, which became so popular that it was reproduced for over 20 other cities, museums, universities, and private collectors around the world, and later became an official symbol of the city, emblazoned on its municipal flag. [1] Originally designed to be part of Stearns Square, since 1899 the statue has stood at the corner of Chestnut and State Street next to The Quadrangle.
In 1881, Chester W. Chapin, a railroad tycoon and congressman from Springfield, Massachusetts, commissioned [2] the renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to create a bronze likeness of his ancestor, Deacon Samuel Chapin (1595–1675), one of the early settlers of the City of Springfield. [3] By 1881, Springfield had become one of America's most innovative industrial and manufacturing centers, and was one of the wealthiest cities in the United States.
The sculpture, which was cast at Bureau Brothers Foundry in Philadelphia, [4] was unveiled on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1887 in Stearns Square, between Bridge and Worthington streets, was a collaboration between Stanford White of the leading architecture firm McKim, Mead, and White, and the sculptor Saint-Gaudens.
The statue featured numerous landscape details to enhance the sculpture. In 1899, the statue was moved to Merrick Park, on the corner of Chestnut and State Streets next to the old city library, which would later become part of Springfield's Quadrangle cultural center, where it has remained. [2] The move was contrary to creators' preference, but one writer for The Republican opined in 1886 that "a position on the city library grounds, on the contrary would exhibit the artist's intent to the best advantage." [5]
In 1983, City Councilor Mary Hurley sought to restore the statue to its original location in Stearns Square. This move was initiated in part due to the restoration of the Turtle Fountain and other fixtures at that location, but the proposal lacked support. Then-mayoral candidate Richard Neal opposed the move, as did the descendants of Deacon Chapin, arguing that the statue had become a fixture of the Quadrangle's museums and that the original move had rescued it from vandalism during its short stay in Stearns Square. [6] [7]
The sculpture now stands next to the Springfield City Library built in 1912. The base is inscribed:
1595 Anno Domini 1675
Deacon Samuel Chapin
One Of The Founders Of Springfield
No authentic portraits of Deacon Samuel Chapin were available for the statue's design. The Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site says it was modeled after Deacon Chapin's descendant Chester W. Chapin, [8] as asserted by the artist himself. [9] However, contemporary accounts also describe the face as "no portrait of any Chapin, but a composite in the sculptor's mind of the family type". [10] [11]
In 2014, Chicopee city historian Stephen Jendrysik submitted the theory that the figure was a surreptitious portrait of the militant abolitionist John Brown, who was also a direct descendant of Deacon Chapin and a devout Calvinist. [12] [13] Brown was a leading militant figure in the escalating tensions between North and South which lead to the American Civil War, and it was in Springfield that Brown first organized the militant Underground Railroad movement, the Subterranean Pass Way with Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. [14] [15] Chester Chapin's business associate Ethan S. Chapin [16] owned the Massasoit Hotel, which acted as a safe house for escaped slaves to hide beneath its staircase, and Brown's lodging prior to his move to the city in the 1840s. [17] Chester Chapin had been a War Democrat himself, paying for the uniforms of 10th Regiment at the start of the Civil War. [18] In John Brown, Abolitionist (2005), historian David S. Reynolds refers to Brown as "The Puritan", as Brown often cited the inspiration of figures such as Jonathan Edwards and Oliver Cromwell. [19] [20] Puritan beliefs strongly influenced the abolitionist movement, and were condemned by divines of the South for their antinomian individualism and rebeliousness. [19] The anti-war congressman Samuel S. Cox considered that "[a]bolition is the offspring of Puritanism [which] introduced the moral elements involved in slavery into politics." [21]
Saint-Gaudens remains best known for his Civil War memorial works, including the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common honoring the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the first African-American Union regiment. At the monument's unveiling, the singing of the war ballad John Brown's Body reminded the sculptor of an emotional moment 30 years prior, when a corps of New England infantry had sung it while marching to war past his office . [22] [12] [20]
The statue was so popular that Saint-Gaudens, seeing a business opportunity, decided to produce smaller versions under the title The Puritan. Today more than 25 slightly altered copies can be found in museums, art galleries, universities, and private collections around the world. [23] Prominent examples appear in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, [24] New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, [25] and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. [26] The statue has become a popular motif in advertising, as well as a symbol for the New England Society of New York. [27]
The New England Society of Pennsylvanians commissioned a replicas, with some changes in the figure's dress and face: "For the head in the original statue, I used as a model the head of Mr. Chapin himself, assuming that there would be some family resemblance with the Deacon, who was his direct ancestor. But Mr. Chapin's face is round and Gaelic in character, so in the Philadelphia work, I changed the features completely, giving them the long, New England type, besides altering the folds of the cloak in many respects, the legs, the left hand, and the Bible." The copy, dubbed The Pilgrim , was placed on the South Plaza of City Hall, then relocated to its present site in Fairmount Park in 1920. [9]
Numismatist and art historian Cornelius Vermeule, in his volume on U.S. coins and medals, suggested The Puritan was one of American sculptor Cyrus E. Dallin's influences in designing the portrait of Governor William Bradford on the 1920-1921 Pilgrim Tercentenary half dollar. [28] Like the statue, the obverse of the coin portrays a typified Puritan holding a bible under his left arm. [29]
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was an Irish and American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who embodied the ideals of the American Renaissance. Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin to an Irish-French family, and raised in New York City. He traveled to Europe for further training and artistic study. After he returned to New York City, he achieved major critical success for his monuments commemorating heroes of the American Civil War, many of which still stand. Saint-Gaudens created works such as the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, Abraham Lincoln: The Man, and grand equestrian monuments to Civil War generals: General John Logan Memorial in Chicago's Grant Park and William Tecumseh Sherman at the corner of New York's Central Park. In addition, he created the popular historicist representation of The Puritan.
The Quadrangle is the common name for a cluster of museums and cultural institutions in Metro Center, Springfield, Massachusetts, on Chestnut Street between State and Edwards Streets.
The history of sculpture in the United States begins in the 1600s "with the modest efforts of craftsmen who adorned gravestones, Bible boxes, and various utilitarian objects with simple low-relief decorations." American sculpture in its many forms, genres and guises has continuously contributed to the cultural landscape of world art into the 21st century.
Samuel Chapin was a prominent early settler of Springfield, Massachusetts. He served the town as selectman, magistrate and deacon. Chapin is best known today as the subject of the Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpture entitled Deacon Samuel Chapin.
Chester William Chapin was an American businessman, president of the Boston and Albany Railroad from 1868 to 1878, and U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts. He was a multimillionaire at his death in 1883, and controlled one of New England’s most important rail lines.
Abraham Lincoln: The Man is a larger-than-life size 12-foot (3.7 m) bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. The original statue is in Lincoln Park in Chicago, and later re-castings of the statue have been given as diplomatic gifts from the United States to the United Kingdom, and to Mexico.
Philip H. Martiny was a French-American sculptor who worked in the Paris atelier of Eugene Dock, where he became foreman before emigrating to New York in 1878—to avoid conscription in the French army, he later claimed. In the United States he found work with Augustus Saint-Gaudens, with whom he remained five years; a fellow worker in Saint-Gaudens' shop was Frederick MacMonnies. A group photograph taken in Saint-Gaudens's studio about 1883, conserved in the Archives of American Art, shows Kenyon Cox, Richard Watson Gilder, Martiny, Francis Davis Millet, Saint-Gaudens, Julian Alden Weir and Stanford White.
Judith Shea is an American sculptor and artist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1948. She was awarded a degree in fashion design from the Parsons School of Design in 1969 and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree there in 1975. This dual education formed the basis for her figure based works.
Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State is a 9-foot (2.7 m) tall bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln in Grant Park, in Chicago. Created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and completed by his workshop in 1908, it was intended by the artist to evoke the loneliness and burden of command felt by Lincoln during his presidency. The sculpture depicts a contemplative Lincoln seated in a chair, and gazing down into the distance. The sculpture is set upon a pedestal and a 150-foot (46 m) wide exedra designed by architect Stanford White.
Elsie Ward (1871–1923) was an American sculptor born in Fayette, Missouri. Her collection largely consists of bronze and other metal sculptures. Ward worked on a host of diverse works of art, but "her specialty was portraits, busts, and reliefs".
Louis Saint-Gaudens was an American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation. He was the brother of renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens; Louis later changed the spelling of his name to St. Gaudens to differentiate himself from his well-known brother.
Stearns Square is an urban, city square located in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, in the heart of Metro Center's Club Quarter. It was designed by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and the landscape architect Stanford White, to accompany Saint-Gaudens' statue, The Puritan.
Diana – also known as Diana of the Tower – is an iconic statue by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, representing the goddess Diana. Once a major artistic feature of New York City, the second version stood atop the tower of Madison Square Garden from 1893 to 1925. Since 1932, it has been in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, also known as the Admiral Farragut Monument, is an outdoor bronze statue of David Farragut by Augustus Saint-Gaudens on a stone sculptural exedra designed by the architect Stanford White, installed in Manhattan's Madison Square, in the U.S. state of New York.
The John Bridge Monument, in the northeast corner of the Cambridge Common in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was given by Samuel James Bridge in honor of his ancestor John Bridge (1578–1665) and sculpted by Thomas R. Gould.
The City of Springfield, Massachusetts has two official symbols, and is also often represented by depictions of the Municipal Group as a de facto emblem of its government.
Springfield Cemetery is located in the Connecticut River Valley city of Springfield, Massachusetts. The cemetery opened in 1841 and was planned on the model of a rural cemetery. With the relocation of remains from the city's earliest burying ground, the cemetery became the final resting place for many of Springfield's 17th and 18th century pioneer settlers.
Hettie Anderson was an African-American art model and muse who posed for American sculptors and painters including Daniel Chester French, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John La Farge, Anders Zorn, Bela Pratt, Adolph Alexander Weinman, and Evelyn Beatrice Longman. Among Anderson's high-profile likenesses are the winged Victory figure on the Sherman Memorial at Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan, New York City and $20 gold coins known as the Saint-Gaudens double eagle. Theodore Roosevelt deemed Victory "one of the finest figures of its kind." Saint-Gaudens described Anderson as "certainly the handsomest model I have ever seen of either sex" and considered her "Goddess-like."
The Christopher Lyman Magee Memorial is a public memorial in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Located outside of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in Schenley Park, the memorial honors Christopher Magee, a local political boss and philanthropist during the late 1800s. It was designed by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, with assistance from Henry Hering, while Stanford White and Henry Bacon served as architects for the project. The memorial was dedicated on Independence Day, July 4, 1908, before a crowd of two thousand spectators. It was one of the last works created by Saint-Gaudens, who died several months before its dedication.
Augustus St Gaudens, the sculptor of the Chapin statue, has been in town looking at possible sites for his work. He disapproves wholly of Court square, but is favorably inclined toward the city library grounds...A position on the city library grounds, on the contrary, would exhibit the artist's intent to the best advantage
The statue is no portrait of any Chapin, but a composite in the sculptor's mind of the family type, and fitly given the ideal name, 'The Puritan'
The face is a sort of composite–made up by a study of the family features of the Chapins
Directors:...Chester W. Chapin...Ethan S. Chapin
The years before the Civil War were profitable ones for the hotel and its proprietors, who were ardent anti-slavery men. They may have been swayed by John Brown, the famous abolitionist, who roomed at the Massasoit House before moving his family to Springfield in the late 1840s
He was a working member of the constitutional convention of 1853, held sundry town and city offices, and good-naturedly consented to run for Congress several times when there was no possible chance for one of his part to be elected. He was a war democrat, and largely paid for the uniforms of the City guard when that organization joined the 10th regiment.
In his reminiscences, Saint-Gaudens recalls a moment 30 years before, when the same song had moved him nearly as much as it had during the monument's unveiling. While apprenticing for a cameo cutter with an office on Broadway, he had watched New England volunteers marching by, singing "John Brown's Body".
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