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Long ago I expressed my conviction that the "Sherman Monument" is third in rank of the great equestrian statues of the world. To-day I am not sure that that conviction remains unaltered. Donatello's "Gattamelata" is unapproached and unapproachable in its quiet dignity; Verrocchio's "Colleone" is unsurpassed in picturesque attractiveness. Both are consecrated by the admiration of centuries.
It was fortunate that the artist whose greatest task was to commemorate the heroes of the Civil War should have had the temperament and the training of such a master, and I know of no other sculptor than Saint-Gaudens who has so magnificently succeeded in the rendering of modern clothing no other who could have made the uniform of Farragut or the frock coat of Lincoln as interesting as the armor of Colleone or the toga of Augustus.
He cannot have been much more than four feet in height; he had a head nearly as large as his body, the strong-jawed, big-nosed, slit- mouthed head of some Condottiere of old, some Fortebraccio or Colleone of history and equestrian statuary.
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