John Gibson (sculptor) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

John Gibson, (19 June 1790 - ) was a Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

sculptor

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

Early life

He was born near Conwy

Conwy

Conwy is a walled market town and community in Conwy County Borough on the north coast of Wales. The town, which faces Deganwy across the River Conwy, formerly lay in Gwynedd and prior to that in Caernarfonshire. Conwy has a population of 14,208...

, Wales

Wales

, his father being a market gardener. To his mother, whom he described as ruling his father and all the family, he owed the energy and determination which carried him over every obstacle.

When he was nine years old the family were on the point of emigrating to America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, but Mrs Gibson's determination stopped this project on their arrival at Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, and there John was sent to school. The windows of the print shops of Liverpool riveted his attention, and, having no means to purchase the commonest print, he acquired the habit of committing to memory the outline of one figure after another, drawing it on his return home. Thus early he formed the system of observing, remembering and noting, sometimes even a month later, scenes and momentary actions from nature. In this way he, by degrees, transferred from the shop window to his paper at home the chief figures from Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...

's picture of Napoleon crossing the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

, which, by particular request, he copied in bright colours as a frontispiece to a little schoolfellow's new prayer-book, for sixpence.

At fourteen years of age Gibson was apprenticed to a firm of cabinetmakers, portrait and miniature painters in Liverpool requiring a premium which his father could not give. This employment so disgusted him that after a year (being interesting and engaging then apparently as in after-life) he persuaded his masters to change his indentures, and bind him to the wood-carving with which their furniture was ornamented. This satisfied him for another year, when an introduction to the foreman of some marble works, and the sight of a small head of Bacchus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

, unsettled him again. He had here caught a glimpse of his true vocation, and in his leisure hours began to model with such success that his efforts found their way to the notice of Mr Francis, the proprietor of the marble works. The wood-carving now, in turn, became his aversion; and having in vain entreated his masters to set him free, he instituted a strike. He was every day duly at his post, but did no work. Threats, and even a blow, moved him not.

At length the offer of £70 from Francis for the rebellious apprentice was accepted, and Gibson found himself at last bound to a master for the art of sculpture. Francis paid the lad 6 shilling

Shilling

The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...

s a week, and received good prices for his works, sundry early works by the youthful sculptor, which exist in Liverpool and the neighborhood, going by the name of Francis to this day. It was while thus apprenticed that Gibson attracted the notice of William Roscoe

William Roscoe

William Roscoe , was an English historian and miscellaneous writer.-Life:He was born in Liverpool, where his father, a market gardener, kept a public house called the Bowling Green at Mount Pleasant. Roscoe left school at the age of twelve, having learned all that his schoolmaster could teach...

, the historian. For him Gibson executed a basso rilievo in terracotta, now in the Liverpool museum. Roscoe opened to the sculptor the treasures of his library at Allerton

Allerton, Merseyside

Allerton is a suburb of Liverpool, in Merseyside, England. It is located southeast of Liverpool city centre, bordered by Mossley Hill, Woolton, Hunts Cross and Garston....

, by which he became acquainted with the designs of the great Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

masters.

Academy, London and Rome

A cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

(now also in the Liverpool museum) of The Fall of the Angels marked this period. We must pass over his studies in anatomy

Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...

, pursued gratuitously by the kindness of a medical man, and his introductions to families of refinement and culture in Liverpool. Roscoe was an excellent guide to the young aspirant, pointing to the Greeks

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

as the only examples for a sculptor. Gibson here found his true vocation. A basso rilievo of Psyche carried by the Zephyr
Zephyr
Zephyr may refer to:* A light or west wind* Zephyrus, one of the Anemoi and the Greek god of the west wind* Zephyranthes, a plant genus whose species include the zephyr lily* Zephyr , a well-known graffiti artist from New York City...

s was the result. He sent it to the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

, where John Flaxman

John Flaxman

John Flaxman was an English sculptor and draughtsman.-Early life:He was born in York. His father was also named John, after an ancestor who, according to family tradition, had fought for Parliament at the Battle of Naseby, and afterwards settled as a carrier or farmer in Buckinghamshire...

, recognizing its merits, gave it an excellent place. Again he became unsettled. The ardent young breast panted for the great university of Art, Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

; and the first step to the desired goal was to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Here he stood between the opposite advice and influence of Flaxman and Francis Legatt Chantrey

Francis Legatt Chantrey

Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey was an English sculptor of the Georgian era. He left the Chantrey Bequest or Chantrey Fund for the purchase of works of art for the nation, which was available from 1878 after the death of his widow.-Life:Francis Leggatt Chantrey was born at Norton near Sheffield ,...

, the one urging him to Rome as the highest school of sculpture in the world, the other maintaining that London could do as much for him. It is not difficult to guess which was Gibson's choice. He arrived in Rome in October 1817, at a comparatively late age for a first visit. There he immediately experienced the charm and goodness of the true Italian character in the person of Antonio Canova

Antonio Canova

Antonio Canova was an Italian sculptor from the Republic of Venice who became famous for his marble sculptures that delicately rendered nude flesh...

, to whom he had introductions,the Venetian

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

putting not only his experience in art but his purse at the English student's service. Up to this time, though his designs show a fire and power of imagination in which no teaching is missed, Gibson had had no instruction, and had studied at no Academy. In Rome he first became acquainted with rules and technicalities, in which the merest tyro was before him. Canova introduced him into the Academy supported by Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, and, as is natural with a mind like Gibson's, the first sense of his deficiencies in common matters of practice was depressing to him. He saw Italian youths already excelling, as they all do, in the drawing of the figure. But the tables were soon turned. His first work in marble, a Sleeping Shepherd
Shepherd
A shepherd is a person who tends, feeds or guards flocks of sheep.- Origins :Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations, beginning some 6,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool...

modelled from a beautiful Italian boy, has qualities of the highest order.

Gibson was soon launched, and distinguished patrons, first sent by Canova, made their way to his studio in the Via Fontanella. His aim, from the first day that he felt the power of the antique, was purity of character and beauty of form. He very seldom declined into the prettiness of Canova, and if he did not often approach the masculine strength which redeems the faults of Bertel Thorvaldsen

Bertel Thorvaldsen

Bertel Thorvaldsen was a Danish-Icelandic sculptor of international fame, who spent most of his life in Italy . Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen into a Danish/Icelandic family of humble means, and was accepted to the Royal Academy of Arts when he was eleven years old...

, he more than once surpassed him even in that quality. We allude specially to his Hunter and Dog, and to the grand promise of his Theseus
Theseus
For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

and Robber, which take rank as the highest productions of modern sculpture. He was essentially classic in feeling and aim, but here the habit of observation we have mentioned enabled him to snatch a grace beyond the reach of a mere imitator. His subjects were gleaned from the free actions of the splendid Italian people noticed in his walks, and afterwards baptised with such mythological names as best fitted them. Thus a girl kissing a child, with a sudden wring of the figure, over her shoulder, became a Nymph
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...

and Cupid
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...

; a woman helping her child with his foot on her hand on to her lap, a Bacchante and Faun
Faun
The faun is a rustic forest god or place-spirit of Roman mythology often associated with Greek satyrs and the Greek god Pan.-Origins:...

; his Amazon
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...

Thrown from her Horse, one of his most original productions, was taken from an accident he witnessed to a female rider in a circus; and the Hunter holding in his Dog was also the result of a street scene. The prominence he gave among his favorite subjects to the little god of soft tribulations was no less owing to his facilities for observing the all-but-naked Italian children, in the hot summers he spent in Rome.

Death

Gibson was elected R.A. in 1836, and bequeathed all his property and the contents of his studio to the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

, where his marbles and casts are open to the public . He died at Rome on 7 January 1866 and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery

Protestant Cemetery, Rome

The Protestant Cemetery , now officially called the Cimitero acattolico and often referred to as the Cimitero degli Inglesi is a cemetery in Rome, located near Porta San Paolo alongside the Pyramid of Cestius, a small-scale Egyptian-style pyramid built in 30 BC as a tomb and later incorporated...

there.

Reception

In monumental and portrait statues for public places, necessarily represented in postures of dignity and repose, Gibson was very happy. His largest effort of this class was the group of if Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

Supported by Justice and Clemency, in the Houses of Parliament, his finest work in the round. Of noble character also in execution and expression of thought is the Statue of William Huskisson

William Huskisson

William Huskisson PC was a British statesman, financier, and Member of Parliament for several constituencies, including Liverpool...

with the bared arm; and no less, in effect of aristocratic ease and refinement, the seated figure of Dudley North

Dudley North

Sir Dudley North was an English merchant, politician and economist, a writer on free trade.-Life:He was the fourth son of Dudley North, 4th Baron North. In his early years he was carried off by Gypsies and recovered by his family...

.

But great as he was in the round, Gibson's chief excellence lay in basso rilievo, and in this less-disputed sphere he obtained his greatest triumphs. His thorough knowledge is the horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

, and his constant study of the Elgin Marbles

Elgin Marbles

The Parthenon Marbles, forming a part of the collection known as the Elgin Marbles , are a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures , inscriptions and architectural members that originally were part of the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis of Athens...

, casts

Plaster cast

A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – particularly in palaeontology .Sometimes a...

of which are in Rome, resulted in the two matchless bassi rilievi, the size of life, which belonged to Lord Fitzwilliam: The Hours Leading the Horses of the Sun, and Phaethon driving the Chariot of the Sun. Most of his monumental works are also in basso rilievo. Some of these are of a truly refined and pathetic character, such as the monument to the Countess of Leicester, or that to his friend Mrs Huskisson in Chichester Cathedral

Chichester Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, otherwise called Chichester Cathedral, is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Chichester. It is located in Chichester, in Sussex, England...

, and that of the Bonomi children. Passion, either indulged or repressed, was the natural impulse of his art: repressed as in the Hours Leading the Horses of the Sun, and as in the Hunter and Dog; indulged as in the meeting of Hero and Leander, a drawing executed before he left England. Gibson was the first to introduce color on his statues, first as a mere border to the drapery of a portrait statue of the queen, and by degrees extended to the entire flesh, as in his so-called Tinted Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...

, and in the Cupid tormenting the Soul, in the Holford Collection.

Gibson's individuality was too strongly marked to be affected by any outward circumstances. In all worldly affairs and business if daily life he was simple and guileless in the extreme; but was resolute in matters of principle, determined to walk straight at any cost of personal advantage. Unlike most artists, he was neither nervous nor irritable in temperament. It was said of him that he made the heathen mythology

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

his religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

; and indeed in serenity of nature, feeling for the beautiful, and a certain philosophy of mind, he may be accepted as a type of what a pure-minded Greek pagan, in the zenith of Greek art, may have been.

Biographies

The letters between Gibson and Mrs. Henry Sandbach, granddaughter of Mr. Roscoe, and a sketch of his life that lady induced him to write, furnish the chief materials for his biography. See his Life, edited by Lady Eastlake.

Published works

Imitations Of Drawings By Iohn Gibson R.A. Sculptor. Engraved By G. Wenzel And L. Prosseda Rome 1852 [London]: J. Hogarth 1852

Gibson provided almost all the illustrations for:

Elizabeth Strutt
Elizabeth Strutt
Elizabeth Strutt , also or previously known as Elizabeth Byron, was an English writer and traveller. She was the wife of Jacob George Strutt and mother of Arthur John Strutt, and an acquaintance and critic of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whom she describes as having written "two of the most absurd...

The story of Psyche: with a classical enquiry into the significance and origin of the fable; by Elizabeth Strutt With Designs In Outline By John Gibson Esq. R.A. [London: s.n. 1852].

Material by him is incorporated in:

Joseph Bonomi
Joseph Bonomi
Joseph Bonomi or Giuseppi Bonomi may mean either of a father-son pair notable in architecture and sculpture:*Joseph Bonomi the Elder , architect*Joseph Bonomi the Younger , sculptor, Egyptologist...

The proportions of the human figure, as handed down to us by Vitruvius, from the writings of the famous sculptors and painters of antiquity: to be which is added, the admirable method of measuring the figure, invented by John Gibson, sculptor; with description and illustrative outlines Third edition. London: Charles Robertson 1872; Gibson is not credited in the 1st and 2nd editions, London: Henry Renshaw 1856 [1855] and London: Chapman & Hall; H. G. Bohn 1857

External links

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