Summers with Lincoln by Percoco James A.;Holzer Harold;

Author:Percoco, James A.;Holzer, Harold;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Published: 2008-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

A carpet of colors, lavender, pink, yellow and blue, the byproduct of verbenas, black-eyed Susans, lilies, and ornamental grass leads me from the street to Lincoln. The sweet floral fragrance from the air fills my nose and the gently drifting butterflies, more of nature’s pleasures, adds to what has so far been a glorious morning. Lincoln is bathed in brilliant sunlight.

Children run, laugh, and play throughout the park and in the shadow of Lincoln. Two gardeners work the grounds, methodically removing debris and weeds from the flowerbeds. Sunrays play off the bronze just as the sculptor intended, casting facial shadows so necessary to create the right mood. The combined effort of Saint-Gaudens and White created a space that truly makes Standing Lincoln a monument that invites the visitor and admirer to participate with the sculpture, where one can engage actively in a kind of civic pilgrimage, walking the six steps up the expansive plaza to stand or sit at the feet of Lincoln. The president is raised on a separate granite altar, a kind of island, protected by White’s curving bench. In this environment we are invited to contemplate on the life of Lincoln the man and engage in our own “mystic chords of memory.” I wonder, as I do, whether the modern world can produce another Lincoln, someone who can provide a sense of compassionate yet firm leadership in times of travail while offering a fixed moral compass.

Saint-Gaudens’s greatest works are psychological studies that engage the viewer to enter the action. As an artist, he actively seeks involving you. The space works exactly as the sculptor and architect intended. I approach the sculpture and ascend to the plaza. This is another step in my mythic pilgrimage. Here, a full eight hundred miles from home, I am at the feet of a kind of Holy Grail. Like fifteen-year-old George Gitt, who managed to position himself underneath the speaker’s platform at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, I am literally at the feet of my hero. My approach is reverent.

The spirit of the moment comes to a sudden end as I notice from the corner of my eye that someone had scrawled a green “X” on the granite pedestal; green paint had also been dripped on White’s platform. My heart sinks. Why would anyone want to deface this statue and mar a space, a space that offered comfort and spiritual renewal? Someone, too, had spray-painted white graffiti at the point where the bronze meets the stone at the base of the statue. None of the graffiti was intelligible. The work of the vandals appeared to be for the sake of vandalism. Trash is strewn in places, while old newspapers and beer cans litter the area. I am saddened at the obvious facts of life in an American city.

Looking at Lincoln’s face, I recall various remarks about his looks. Many of Lincoln’s contemporaries commented that Lincoln’s face bore the burden of the war. But this was not that Lincoln; this is Lincoln the Statesman.

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