Seventh Regiment Memorial

Seventh Regiment Memorial
Seventh Regiment Memorial
	The monument in 2011
Artist	John Quincy Adams Ward
Year	1869
Type	Sculpture
Medium	Bronze
Location	New York City, New York, United States
	40°46′26″N 73°58′35″W / 40.77377°N 73.97640°W

Seventh Regiment Memorial is an outdoor bronze sculpture atop a granite base honoring those members of the regiment whose lives were lost during the Civil War. The sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward created the statue and the architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the base. Although the statue is dated 1869 the monument was not unveiled until June 22, 1874.

Description and history

Ward likely received the commission in 1867, with funds to be provided by the Seventh Regiment Monument Association. He finished a model by the spring of 1868. Initially, Hunt designed a much larger monument, one with at least five figures, part of his elaborate scheme for the "Warrior Gate" entrance to Central Park. However the park's architects, Olmsted to and Vaux, had already clashed with Hunt over matters of aesthetics^[1] with the result that Hunt's grand scheme of a series of showy Beaux-Arts entrances to the park was reduced to the Seventh Regiment Memorial.^[2]

The art historian E. Wayne Craven considers the work "a failure", even though it is a work of art, stating,"neither the 'Shakespeare' nor the 'Seventh Regiment Soldier' were portrait statues in the usual sense, and therein lies the explanation for their failures. Ward often lacked the vision to create a successful imaginary portrait, and his images of men who could actually stand before him were, as a rule, much stronger as works of art."^[3] The soldier in the monument was modeled by actor, and veteran of the Regiment Steele MacKaye, who wore his own uniform to pose in.^[4]

References

^ Hall, Lee, Olmsted's America: An "Unpractical Man and His Vision of Civilization, A Bulfinch Press Book, Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1995 p. 94.
^ Stein, Susan R., editor, The Architecture of Richard Morris Hunt, Lewis I. Sharp, Richard Morris Hunt and His Influence on American Beaux-Arts Sculpture, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1986, pp. 126–128.
^ Craven, Wayne, Sculpture in America, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York 1968 p. 250.
^ Sharp, Lewis I., John Quincy Adams Ward: Dean of American Sculpture, with Catalogue Raisonné, University of Delaware Press, Newark, 1985 p. 177.

[1] Hall, Lee, Olmsted's America: An "Unpractical Man and His Vision of Civilization, A Bulfinch Press Book, Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1995 p. 94.

[2] Stein, Susan R., editor, The Architecture of Richard Morris Hunt, Lewis I. Sharp, Richard Morris Hunt and His Influence on American Beaux-Arts Sculpture, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1986, pp. 126–128.

[3] Craven, Wayne, Sculpture in America, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York 1968 p. 250.

[4] Sharp, Lewis I., John Quincy Adams Ward: Dean of American Sculpture, with Catalogue Raisonné, University of Delaware Press, Newark, 1985 p. 177.

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