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12  THE NEW YORK TIMES-ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE  JUNE 19, 1898.

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GEORGE GRAY BARNARD'S COLOSSAL FIGURE OF PAN.  To be placed in Central Park, New York.

PAN RECUMBENT 19TH CENTRAL PARK.

THERE is being cast at the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company's foundry a figure which requires the strongest iron fastenings and the most powerful steam cranes to lift and manipulate in its enormous jacket of clay.  It is to be cast in one piece, so that if an error or mishap occurs in any part of the figure, the entire thing will have to be reproduced, remodeled, provided once more with a mold, and refilled with the molten metal.  On the other hand, this casting in a piece is what the sculptor demands, because there can be no fear that the various parts of the statue, separately cast, and brought together by the foundryman, will fail to join by some imperceptible line or curve, and yet, by reason of that false line or curve, harm the statue in its finer qualities as a work of art.

The bronze in question is the colossal figure of Pan, modeled by George Gray Barnard for the late Alfred Corning Clark, and by him destined for Central Park.  Pan is thrown carelessly on a mossy rock, with one knee raised and the other shaggy leg cast over the edge of the rock.  Half sitting, half lying at length, he has put his odd-looking flute to his lips; these are set with large flowing mustachios that blend with his floating beard; he seems industriously engaged in scaring the silences of some grove in Arcady.  He sprawls on the rock with entire satisfaction in himself and his own proficiency in music, so deeply absorbed in what his is about that he seems to have forgot for the moment all his troubles-forgot the inexcusable behavior of the nymph Echo, that teasing creature who is always ready to answer him from every rock and solid clump of trees, but never stays when his oats' feet have brought him swiftly to the spot; forgot the honor felt for him by the nymph Syrinx when she answered his wooing by flying to drown herself, and was thoughtfully turned by Diana or Aphrodite into a clump of reeds!

Pan, so ran the story of the god in one of the Greek legends concerning him, was not horned or long-eared, or goat-faced or goat-footed at first; but owed his hideous appearance to the rancor or Aphrodite.  For, long before the contest for beauty held by that goddess, together with Juno and Minerva on Mount Ida, there had been a contest for beauty between Aphrodite and a human being, or a being nearly enough human to exasperate the tender goddess in the highest degree at the indignity of a mere comparison with her.  Pan was appointed the umpire, and, to the wrath of Aphrodite, he awarded the prize to the other contestant!

So, the story runs, to punish Pan for this unforgivable insult to the sovereignty of her beauty, Aphrodite not only made him luckless in love, inclining his heart especially to never-present, ever-answering Echo-but turned him into the goatlike figure we find him here!

The story does not tally very well with another one, according to which his mother, when he was born, was so frightened at the grotesqueness of of his appearance that she threw him down and fled!  Had it not been for Mercury, who sewed up the little freak in a fresh fawnskin, who knows if there

of goatskin, his horns, and long ears and hoofs fairly, or has been unfairly given them because the Greeks liked to make cruel sport of certain gods and goddesses, is neither here nor there; enough, that since the great period of Greek sculpture the world has accepted the goatlike form of Pan which Mr. Barnard has followed.

The sculptor has not been bothering himself about a new design for a fountain, but simply tried to furnish an ornament for Central Park on the old lines, with so much variation on the ordinary statues that represent  the god of the woods as to lend to Pan a certain freshness and personality.  The face reflects the coarseness and sensuality attributed by the Greeks to the old god of forest and stream, mountain and lake.  There is no trace of the trait attributed to Pan of causing senseless or "panic" fears in hunters and soldiers and other congeriers of men.  The Greeks themselves did not know exactly what that element in Pan meant and contented themselves with recording it as a fact.  It seems to have been their idea, however, that Pan was like the Wild Huntsman in this regard, that he did not wish anybody to poach on his preserves when he deigned to stir abroad.  The fright caused by unexpected sights and sounds in the woods was therefore explained as the terror a deity was able to spread about him, a terror all the more acute because there was nothing visible and tangible to excuse it.

The recumbent Pan for Central Park may 
resting spot in one of the

head from the surface of the water.  But no very definite news can be learned concerning its future location; it seems likely that neither sculptor, nor the family of the donor, who is deceased, nor the authorities in charge of Central Park, nor the city's Art Commission know exactly where it is to be placed.  The need of promptly casting it in bronze deprived the Sculpture Society of the pleasure of showing it at their recent exhibition.  For although it does not represent the highest powers of the young sculptor, it has qualities of style and modelling sufficiently pronounced to have made it a welcome exhibit.  There is all the cleverness in its modelling that one looks for in French sculpture of to-day, but in addition there is a personal quality, which can be better realized than defined in words.  Mr. Barnard was designated at first for the sculptor of the big fountain before the terraced approach to the Library of Congress; while looking at the Pan for Central Park one is apt to wonder what he would have given us had the commission remained with him instead of going to Mr. Hinton Perry.

Mr. Barnard is a sculptor who work slowly and puts much thought into his work.  It may be that, like many younger men in the arts who are at once imaginative and conscientious, he tries to pack too much pondering, too many ideas, into the same figure or the same group, now that he is no longer working under the restraining hand and with the advantage of the sober

[[strikethrough]] ble that for the fountain of the Library of Congress he would have attempted far more than he could have properly carried out in ten years, and therefore has been spared the embarrassment of having attempted more than he could perform. [[/strikethrough]]

The question naturally arises in regard to the Pan, as it does to most monuments, whether it is well conceived as to scale and proportion.  In other words, is there justification for the colossal size of Barnard's Pan?  The question depends for its answer on the purpose for which the bronze was made, and the place where it is to stand.  Its size makes it beyond peradventure a bronze for the open air, and furthermore for a visual range of no mean size.  It is certainly inappropriate to a public square, or a lawn near a road, or the Mall.  But in that charmful plunging view one gets from the Terrace at the end of the Mall looking northward over the fountain down upon the lake there might be a point where this big bronze would fit acceptably into the land and waterscape.  Most fitting would be a lake, for Pan belongs almost as much to inland streams and ponds as to forests.  But perhaps better than so frequented a part of the Park would be some sheltered by on one of the lakes where the bronze might be seen across a narrow arm of water close to the edge of the lake among the reeds and flags.  In some such place the  size of the bronze would tell, and the pose and expression of the figure tally best with the expression of the figure tally best with its surrounding.  CHARLES DE KAY.