Page:Hamilton Men I Have Painted 123.jpg



LFRED GILBERT is the modern Cellini and the greatest of all English sculptors. He has more originality than Alfred Stevens, and surpasses him beyond measure in knowledge and technical skill—in this last he is unrivalled. Cellini has given us the Perseus and a number of small pieces; Gilbert has enriched the field of English sculpture with many noble monuments and a series of decorative pieces that surpass in design and execution the best of Cellini's table ornaments.

When Gilbert was working upon the Lord Mayor's chain, I asked him if he did not fear that the jeweller's art, that then seemed to fascinate him, would interfere with his hand and eye, and tend to diminish the loftiness of his conception of great monuments. His reply was that the study of small things would enlarge his vision and improve his technical ability to deal with big work.

He was at this time engaged upon the construction of the fountain that now stands in Piccadilly Circus. As I looked at this work, looming large in the confined space of the studio, I felt instinctively that when erected in the open it would so diminish in appearance as to be dwarfed by the surrounding buildings. He did not agree with me, and explained that it was sometimes moved out into the street, behind the studio, in order that its scale might be