The Albert Memorial in London seems to be some kind of high watermark of the technique and social values and sentiment. Or the disturbing nadir of Victorian death-culture, depending on your mood.

The central gilded figure of seated Prince Albert, by John Henry Foley, sits in his canopy, with his own private celestial mosaic of crystal and enamel and agate and marble. The outside of the canopy features sixteen separate statues, along with a few gilded angels for lagniappe, of the geniuses of eight arts and sciences, including Rhetoric, and representations of eight Christian virtues, including Fortitude. All this was the work of H.H. Armstead, J.B. Philip, James Redfern, and William Brindley of Farmer & Brindley, who did high-quality architectural sculpture work on contracts, outside the sculptor star system.

But that's not enough. The exterior corners of the canopy are platforms for four major white sculptural groups, one for each corner. Marble I assume. Each of these groups contains three or four classically-garbed figures, interacting and gesturing significantly to each other. No doubt there's a full explanation somewhere. The four are Agriculture, Commerce, Engineering, and Manufacturing.

But that's not enough. On the outside corners there are platforms for four more major white sculptural groups, one for each corner. Marble here also I'd guess. Each of these four represent the four continents the Victorians though worth mentioning. Europe, America, Africa, Asia. And if the imagery on those continental groups is not quite as racist to modern eyes as you'd expect, each one is deemed by featuring a big animal. Africa has a camel.

But that's not enough. The icing on the Albert Memorial cake is an artist's pantheon, the Frieze of Parnassus, a depiction of 169 individual composers, architects, poets, painters, and sculptors. A revealing habit of the time, here and at the Beaux-Arts school in Paris, to assemble all of the significant artists of the past and to line them up behind England (or France), as if they're all endorsing -- well, you know.

What made this happen?

Economically, what made this building boom and self-confidence possible was England as a world power, the British Empire, the Industrial Revolution, mills and factories, the expression and consolidation of England's economic power, a long building boom, and all that stuff.

And in terms of sculptural style, all this is a major expression of the "New Sculpture", identified in 1894, a movement against dull, bland, neo-classic academic English sculptural work of the time, a movement toward more dynamic, individualized and anatomically 'realistic' modeling.

The list of sculptors associated with the New Sculpture movement includes C.J. Allen, Harry Bates, Alfred Drury, Edward Onslow Ford, George Frampton, Goscombe John, F.W. Pomeroy, and Hamo Thornycroft (my favorite). Alfred Gilbert was the prime figure.

And the New Sculptors were all about integrating their work into architecture. Susan Beattie writes:

...the movement to open out the functional boundaries of sculpture was led by (Alfred Gilbert's) contemporaries, Harry Bates, George Frampton and Alfred Drury. The transformation of architectural carving and modeling from anonymous, scarcely noticed craft to dynamic, seductive art was the greatest collective achievement of the New Sculptors and one of the most rational expressions of Arts and Crafts ideals in nineteeth-century history... The climate created by these three men encouraged sculptors and decorative artists of widely different background and ability to enter into informal partnership with architects. The working relationships between F.W. Pomeroy and the architect E.W. Mountford, between Frederick Schenck and H.T. Hare, between W.S. Frith and Aston Webb, and many others, had a profound effect on late Victorian and Edwardian architectural design, and demonstrated, above all, that the practical application of sculpture to a given setting need not compromise artistic individuality...(and) did not involve some irreversible loss of 'dignity' but vastly increased sculpture's relevance in society. The idea of contributing art to everyday life, so vigorously promoted by the revival of architectural decoration, took on an almost magical significance between 1890 and 1910.

(more to come)

Text copyright 2008 Walt Lockley. All rights reserved.

Photo credits:

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, photo from wikipedia user Man vyi, in public domain.
Albert Memorial, London, photo from wikipedia user Jbattersby, in public domain.
National Westminster Bank, London, from flickr user stevecadman, licensed under cc attr and noncomm.
Institute of Chartered Accountants Building, London, from flickr user brapps, licensed under cc attr and noncomm.
Victoria Law Courts, Birmingham, from wikipedia user Oosoom, licensed under GDFL.