PLATE XXXIII.
Whenever popular judgment is concurrent, there is good ground for trusting to its correctness,whether the matter involved be a question of fact, of wisdom, or of taste. The universal admirationwhich was excited by this grand Equestrian Statue , alike in the mind of the connoisseur and in the sensesof the most uncultivated who flocked to gaze upon the marvels of the Great Exhibition , may thereforebe regarded as an unquestionable tribute to the power of the truly great artist. Few among the multitudes
who looked with pleasure upon that work could at all appreciate the nature of the peculiar difficulties
which its great scale presented. The knowledge of proportion and of effect which is absolutely requisiteto be brought to bear upon a statue executed two or three times the size of life, and probably in a numberof detached pieces, is not only far greater in amount than that which will suffice to reproduce nature onits ordinary scale, but is necessarily much more precise.
In consequence of the extreme difficulty of appreciating, in the limits of a studio, the general appear-ance of a great object, destined to be seen by the ever-varying light of day, much must be trusted torule, and modelled in obedience to the prescriptions of perhaps erroneous, or at least prejudiced, experience.The obvious danger arising from this necessity is, that the work should be tamed down, in process of workingtogether, into undue conventionality of style, and life and fire be extinguished beneath it. To recognise,then, in an heroic statue on such a scale as the Richard, all the truth and ease which might be rapidly
dashed into form in a small clay sketch, is to confess the triumph of genius over mechanical difficulties,
and to acknowledge the true prerogative of Art—to please by Art—and yet to show no Art.
The talent of the Baron Marochetti appears to have developed itself, or to have been developed byaccidental circumstances in an especial degree in this department of the sculptor’s art, owing to his havingbeen called upon to devote himself sedulously to the study of those ingredients which are necessary tobe combined to make up a grand equestrian statue. Within the last fifteen years the Baron has executeda considerable number of such works, and as much of his artistic life has been spent in their productionwe shall notice the principal, in the order in which they have been modelled.
About thirteen years ago, Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, desiring to raise a monument to the cele-brated Emanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, victor in the fields of St. Quentin and Gravelines , selected theBaron Marochetti as the fitting artist to carry his design into execution. He was justified in his choice,not only by the talent which the then youthful sculptor had displayed, but by the fact that, though bornin France , his ancestors were Piedmontese. This statue, which is of colossal size, has been erected on the
Piazza di San Carlo, at Turin , a situation worthy of so fine a work. Adopting the costume of the period,
the sculptor has worked out, with extreme freedom and care, the details of the armour worn by the warrior.The action, both of the man and the horse, is in the highest degree spirited. The latter, yielding to theaction of the curb, is restrained in the midst of violent effort: and his rider, apparently unmoved by theexertion of the animal, is inserting the point of his sword into its scabbard with the grace and dexterity
of a finished cavalier. The head of the Duke beautifully conveys the character of his mind. Warlike