Representative women of New England/Anne Whitney
ANNE WHITNEY, Boston's most noted woman sculptor, is a native of Watertown, Mass. The daughter of Nathaniel Ruggles Whitney, Jr., and his wife, vSarah Stone, she was born on September 2, 1821, the youngest of a family of seven children. Her father was a lineal descendant in the seventh generation of John Whitney, a native of Westminster, England, who settled in Watertown in 1635. As revealed by genealogical research, John Whitney was the third son of Thomas and Mary (Bray) Whitney, and was baptized July 26, 1592. Thomas Whitney, his father, was buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster, April 14, 1637. He was a son of Robert Whitney and grandson of Sir Robert Whitney, member of Parliament in 1559. "The Ancestry of John Whitney," compiled by Henry Melville and published in 1896, mentions the names of heads of Whitney families in England for fourteen generations, tracing; the line of John of Water- town and his father, Thomas of Westminster, England, back to a Sir Robert de Witteneye, living in 1242, who is spoken of by Mr. Mel- ville as the "first historic Vhitney."
From John Whitney, the English immigrant, and his wife Elinor, to Anne, the American sculptor, the line was continued through John, Jr.,^ Benjamin,' Daniel,^ Simon,^ Nathaniel Ruggles," and Nathaniel Ruggles, Jr.,' the father above named.
Daniel' Whitney married Dorothy, daughter of Deacon Simon and Joanna (Stone) Tainter, of Watertown. Simon'^ Whitney marrietl Mary Ruggles. Nathaniel Ruggles Whitney, born in 1759, served as Town Clerk of Watertown, Justice of the Peace, anil schoolmaster. His wife, Abigail Frothingham, born in 1760, was a daughter of James° and Abigail (Bradish) Frothingham, of Charlestown, and aunt to the artist, James Frothingham, third of the name, born in 1788, who ranked seventy years ago as "one of our best portrait painters," being thus mentioned by Dunlap in 1834.
Nathaniel R. Whitney, Jr., born in 1782, married in 1806 Sally (or Surah) Stone, who was born in 1784. Her father, Jonathan Stone, of Watertown, Miss Whitney's paternal grand- father, was a descendant in the fifth genera- tion of Deacon Simon Stone, who came from England with his wife Joan and four children in the ship "Increa.se" in the spring of 1635, and, settling at Watertown, became the founder of a prominent branch of the Stone family in New England. The record of the baptism of Deacon Simon Stone, of Watertown, has been found in the parish register of Much Brom- ley, now Great Bromley, Essex County, Eng- land, thus: "1585-6, 9 Feb., Simond, son of Davie Stone & Ursly his wife." His marriage record, also at Much Bromley, is as follows: " 1616, 5 Aug. Symond Stone and Joan Clarke."
To return now to Miss Whitney, the sculptor. Twenty years ago, hi a book on " Famous Women," appeared a sketch of the life of Anne Whitney, which, though incomplete, later biographers and paragraphists writing on the same subject have failed to surpass in sympa- thetic flelineation of character and achieve- ment. "Fortunate in her parentage and in her early training," says this sketch, "Anne Whitney passed through childhood and youth into womanhood under most favorable condi- tions. The simplicity and nobility of nature which strongly marked the parents are traits in the daughter, as are their individualism, their strength of character, their loftiness of moral tone. She has also inherited an inter- est in public affairs and reform, an uncon- querable aversion to any and every form of in- justice, and a vital belief in human betterment."
"As a child she was bright and joyous, over- flowing with animal spirits." In the school- room she was a general favorite. "Said one of her teachers, 'She always brought in with her such a sense of freshness and purity that instinctively I thought of the coming in of the morning. Every teacher in the school observed her, anil all rejoiced in her. ... A gentle grav- ity, a .sweet intelligence of infrequent speech, or a pervasive kindliness of manner marked her intercourse with her fellow-students, it being always apparent that she was with, but not of, them.'"
Slowly her girlhood passed into womanhood. With soul growth came new susceptibility to outward impressions, whether of beauty and of joy, or of sorrow and pain, while far above the possibility of attainment soared her cherished ideals. Fortunately the gift of expression was not denied. She wrote as prompted from within, wrote as the spirit gave utterance. A modest volume of poems, published in 1859, was the result. Poems of "remarkable quality," says Mrs. Livermore. Not that they made their author famous: rather may it be said, "Fit audience they found, though few." It was Samuel Johnson, himself a poet in the same order, who wrote of them, "They send the repose of absolute truth and spiritual in- tuition through the aspirations and conflicts of life, and give us its poetry and highest philosophy."
An extended critique, both admiring and judicial, appeared in the North Avierican Review, contributed l)y Harriet Prescott Spofford. "The publishers," she remarks, "did not give it [the book] their best style. The advertisement was limited, the criticism casual. . . . 'Earnest' and 'thoughtful' have been the only adjectives to spare. Earnest and thoughtful! What verses, if otherwise, would deserve a notice? Was there no more to say for poems overflowing with beauty, serene and calm, yet instinct with the fire of a proud, passionate nature? . . . But neither keen eye nor sympathetic h(art makes a poet. ... A lyrical and dramatic power is needed, together with that sway over language which welds a fancy immutably into its own sentences. This last the author has in the highest degree: every word strikes home; every line is clear, distinct as if cut in stone ; the pen in her hands becomes so like the sculptor's chisel that one questions if poetry be the fittest exponent of her genius. Her logical power is entirely beyond question, but the dramatic element is entirely wanting. ' ' "A Last Dream," the dream of an arctic hero—Kane—is characterized as a "wonderful poem, which climbs with strong and stately steps to the last line."
"The 'Hymn to the Sea' is full of felicitous phrasing, also rich in picturesque effects. That this Hymn loses no jot of its regal resonance in the presence of its subject, but interprets and is interpreted best there, is its highest praise. It is certainly the finest single piece among the poems, though 'Camille' (first published in the Atlantic, vol. i.) affects us more, from its warmer humanity and the better developed power it exhibits. There is no fault to be found with 'Camille.' It is the work of an artist. Its pathos is unsurpassed. . . . The keynote of this poem is struck most clearly in the fourth stanza: —
"'To swell some vast refrain beyond the sun,
The very weed breathed music from its sod:
And night and day, in ceaseless antiphon,
Rolled off throiigh windless arches in the broad
Abyss. Thou saw'st I too
Would in my place have blent accord as true,
And justified this great enshrining, God?
"The three chief faults of these poems are obscurity, lack of euphony, and defect of artistic polish." However, "there are no words woven to conceal the absence of thought: on the other hand, the line teems with more significance than it can express. . . . We ought in justice to say that the artist's soul is keenly represented, especially in the 'Five Sonnets Relating to Beauty,' most worthily so entitled. In these the love of beauty is a passion. ... In beauty is found the reconciliation of pain and joy, the riddle of the earth, the secret of the sea."
Referring to the sonnets entitled "Night" as "the heart of the book": "All through the preceding pages has run the golden cord on which the.se gay, many-colored beads are strung—a pure, high, and profound religious love. . . . A truth, never so keenly felt as at the present day, revolves in all its phrases here — the necessity of joy in faith, the quintessence of the text, 'Rejoice evermore.'"
Higher attainments in verse were looked for by Miss Whitney's friends, but, so far as the world knows, she had sung her last note. Her genius called her in another direction. A heap of wet sand in the greenhouse responded to a thought in her brain to which she at once sought to give visible form. The success of this attempt at modelling was so gratifying that she resolved to devote herself thenceforth to sculpture. For a long time, in the absence of teachers, she was self-taught.. Working at home in a studio in the garden, she made portrait busts of her father and mother and of several friends. Her first ideal work was a statue in marble of Lady Godiva of Coventry, a beautiful figure. Her next creation—during the period of the Civil War— was a symbolical work, "Africa," a colossal statue of a woman who has been sleeping for ages, and is now half-awakened by the tramp of armies, the roar of artillery, and the din of battle. In her look of startled wonder and hope, as with her right hand she shades her eyes from the too powerful light, is foreshadowed the deliverance of a race held in bondage, the illumination of a dark continent. Exhibited both in Boston and in New York, "it received," says Mrs. Livermore, "some intelligent and some extravagant praise, as did the Godiva, and also much criticism, which its author welcomed."
Not long after the production of a third statue, the "Lotos Eater," she carried out a long-cherished plan of going abroad. With her friend Miss Manning, devoted to another branch of art, she spent four years in Europe, studying ancient sculpture, drawing, and modelling, chiefly in Rome and Paris. In this period she made many sketches and modelled several statues, among them the "Chaldean Astronomer," "Toussaint L'Ouverture," and "Roma." In the latter Miss Whitney personi- fied the Rome of Pio Nono's time, "Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe," a beggar "whose aged and wrinkled face shows traces of early, majestic beauty. She sits on a broken Corinthian capital, with her head bowed in profound reverie."
After her return, with increased technical skill, enlarged conceptions of art, and the inspiration born of years of contact and communion with the great masterpieces of the world, Miss Whitney resumed her work in the studio, and continued to design and model. She executed several commissions for portrait busts, which gave entire satisfaction to the large constituencies interested. Among these were busts of President Stearns of Amherst College, President Walker of Harvard, of Garrison, of the poet Keats, of Mrs. Livermore, Lucy Stone, Alice Freeman Palmer, and many others. One of her best works is the statue of the Revolutionary patriot, Samuel Adams, which she was commissioned by the State of Massachusetts to execute for the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Of this statue a reproduction in bronze was ordered for the city of Boston; and, having been put in place, it gave the name to Adams Square.
Of later date is Miss Whitney's portrait statue of Harriet Martineau, representing her in the prime of life, sitting in a garden chair, her face raised, her thought far-reaching. This statue was exhibited in Boston in 1888, and is now at Wellesley College.
An ideal figure in bronze, commended as a "work of rare genius in physical detail," and a "notable addition to the public decorations of the city" of Boston, is that of Leif Ericson, standing on the edge of Back Bay Fens, just beyond Commonwealth Avenue parkway.
The dedication of this statue, on October 29, 1887, was an occasion of rare interest. At a meeting in Faneuil Hall, presided over by Dr. Edward Everett Hale, a scholarlv address relating to the Norscnicn and their discoveries was given by Professor E. N. Horsford. The statue of Leif Ericson is of heroic size. It stands on a pedestal of red sandstone, being about eighteen feet in height. The figure is symbolical. It represents a youth gazing eagerly at the distant horizon, his left hand partially shading his eyes, not from the light on sea or land to-day, but from the glory of the future, as he dimly forecasts the events of coming centuries in the new land that meets his vision. The inscription on one side of the pedestal, giving the date of the voyage of Leif the discoverer, is in runic characters. On the opposite side it is in English. A replica of this statue is in Milwaukee on the shore of Lake Michigan.
A later production, a statue of Charles Sumner, in sitting posture, completed about three years ago, has received the recognition of critics. It is in Cambridge.
Still more recent is a bronze fountain in memory of a woman of rare beauty of character—Mrs. Catherine Lambert—which was put in place in West Newton in September, 1903. A HI}' held in the upraised hands of a sturdy little cherub is the cup whence issues the sparkling spray.
Miss Whitney took up her residence in Boston in 1872. For a number of years she had her home and her studio at 92 Mount Vernon Street. She is now in the locality designated as the "New Back Bay," where, in a smaller studio than the former one, the sculptor's chisel still displacing the long-discarded pen, her high poetic thought continues to find its truest expression.
m. h. g.