MONUMENT MAKER

The environment that nurtured Daniel Chester French is given loving treatment by Sweeney and Fields.

Sculptor French was a largely self-taught artist when he fashioned the embattled farmer that stands in Concord, Massachusetts, to commemorate the opening salvoes of the American Revolution. The work made French’s name a household word, but he had plenty of experience with art before that. As Sweeney ably tells his story, French loved the outdoors, where he would sketch birds and the like. He tended the family farm, working his artistry into the plowing of the fields and repairs to the fences and outbuildings. Having grown up during the Civil War, he was influenced by the event and its idealistic aspects, especially those espoused by his Transcendentalist neighbors. As Sweeney traces French’s way in the world, French goes on to create numerous statues of Civil War heroes, including the epic sculpture of Abraham Lincoln enshrined in his memorial. A timeline and author’s note fill in various gaps in the text, and Fields’ drawings are both powerful and graceful, just as French would have wanted, depicting a largely white cast but including some figures of color, including one of the two modern children who observe the story. They are modeled in color while French and his times are represented in vigorously crosshatched black and white.

Both bracing and winning, a fine tribute to the sculptor and his world.