THE closing session of the Fifty-eighth congress ought to be memorable to American womanhood. At such time as that congress designates this winter there will be unveiled in Statuary hall of the beautiful capitol building at Washington a full length marble figure Of Frances Elizabeth Willard, reformer.
It is the first occasion on which the statue of a woman has been deemed worthy to adorn the fine old hall where-in American statesmen and others who have deserved well of their country look down in effigy upon the hustling hosts that tread upon one another's heels in this gallery of greatness. Perhaps some of them are looking down in silent contempt, too —contempt of their own bad looking images. Who knows?
At any rate, the image of Frances Willard will not cause that good lady to be made ashamed if perchance she can look upon it. The statue is noble and beautiful. It is nearly eight feet high in reality, but in its place in the hall it will appear life size. Frances Willard is represented standing beside a reading desk, the right hand resting upon the desk, the left arm hanging by her side, the hand holding the notes of an address she is apparently about to deliver. She raises her head like an eagle and looks out over her audience in the way Frances Willard had just before opening her lips to speak. It was as if she paused a moment to gather strength and inspiration for her sermon, for sermon it was always from Frances Willard, though no ceremony of ordination ever crowned her minister.
If she had been a man Miss Willard would probably have been One of the greatest and most eloquent ordained ministers the Methodist church everhad. Having been born a woman, however, this could not be, though devout Methodist Frances Willard always was.
Not being able to work for her church as a preacher. Miss Willard turned to preach and practice for humanity, and humanity, especially the woman part of it, was the gainer. Because of this broader field in which her powers found play all the world came to know of her and her work for temperance, for moral purity and, for woman. And because of this worldwide renown of good works the legislature of Illinois chose Frances Willard for the honor of reproduction in marble in the national capitol. Each state is permitted to place there the statues of two of its greatest and noblest citizens.
So that it really marks an era in woman's progress when the state Of Illinois selects the statue of a woman citizen for one of the two.
"Born into the priestly caste!" was my involuntary exclamation when I saw the model of the Willard statue In the studio of the sculptor, Miss Helen Mears, in New York. Priest and preacher all over was Frances Willard, and the statue speaks it.
It is true to the life, even to the hair waving naturally around the noble head, that head which when she came to model it the sculptor found almost classically correct according to art's canons. The very tenderness, the yearning love for the race, mingled at the same time with the full consciousness of her own lofty mission, are all marvelously reproduced in the head, the face, the attitude of the statue of Frances Willard.
"Nobody but a woman could have done it!" exclaimed Anna Gordon, the secretary and years long friend of Frances Willard.
And perhaps nobody but a Woman could. At any rate, Miss Mears seems to have read intuitively the soul of Frances Willard and reproduced its delicate, real expression as it peeped through the mask of flesh. The face of Frances Willard was delicate as well as strong. The gifted sculptor who has achieved this success is Miss Helen Farnsworth Mears, born and bred in Oshkosh, Wis.
So far as she has yet climbed the road of achievement Miss Mears has been able to succeed in her aims without so much of the struggle and heart saddening disappointment as most artists endure, and it is pleasant to write it.
As far back as she can remember she knew she was going to be a sculptor, also that she was some day going to Europe. These were her two aspirations. As far back as she can remember, too, she modeled, at first from the common clay that lay all around, mud pies, mud pie plates and finally mud heads. Her father, seeing true talent for sculpture in these, specimens of child work, sent for some modeling wax, and thus Nellie's artistic career began.
She had no instruction beyond such drawing lessons as the Oshkosh Normal college could give, and that did not help her much. She simply worked on alone in her own way, following her own ideas and ideals. The progress she made was remarkable, considering there was not one fine group of statuary to look at in the town and no sculptured marble of a higher order than tombstones. Yet she learned so rapidly that before she ever had taken a lesson in modeling she received a commission for an art work. It was to prepare a figure of the genius of Wisconsin for that state's building at the Chicago World's fair in 1893.
Helen Mears thereupon journeyed to Chicago and took six-weeks' lessons in modeling before she began work on Miss Wisconsin. Following that she began the actual modeling work on the World's fair grounds not long before the opening of the show itself. Winter was still on, water froze into ice, the winds swept across those grounds as it were from the north pole itself, and the plaster workers of the fair were on strike when the girl, all new to such work, began to mold the big genius of Wisconsin. She herself, with one ordinary workman, had the grit to undertake the task of manipulating the plaster.
By and by, though, the statue —that of a woman upon a rock, with her arm around the neck of an eagle— was in place in the state building, and Miss Wisconsin in all her glory stood forth revealed. A pretty incident of the unveiling was that, unknown to her, some ladies of the committee, in sight of the public, suddenly pulled away the drapery and showed the dark eyed, handsome, girlish sculptor herself poised upon a ladder, putting the finishing touches to her work. Cheers and applause greeted both her and the statue.
The Women's club of Milwaukee gave Miss Mears a separate prize of $300 for the piece. With this in her pocket aspiring Helen Mears hastened to New York and entered an art school. In time she became a pupil of St. Gaudens and finally his assistant. She went to Paris and studied there two years, with all her soul in her work. She also assisted St. Gaudens in his Paris studio.
Before she returned to America her sister, the story writer, joined her, and the two girls traveled and studied in Italy. One of Miss Mears' most important pieces is the model for a great fountain, allegorical in scheme. She is now engaged on some portrait busts.
ALICE W. MORTIMER.