File:Adams Memorial By Augustus Saint Gaudens In Rock Creek Cemetery (13912211).jpg
Erected in 1891, the monument was commissioned by author/historian Henry Adams (a member of the Adams political family) as a memorial to his wife, Clover Hooper Adams.
Adams advised Saint-Gaudens to contemplate iconic images from Buddhist devotional art. One such subject, Kwannon (also known as Guan Yin, the Bodhisattva of compassion), is frequently depicted as a seated figure draped in cloth. Saint-Gaudens may also have been influenced by Parisian funerary art from his stay in France.
Saint-Gaudens's name for the bronze figure is The Mystery of the Hereafter and The Peace of God that Passeth Understanding, but the public commonly called it Grief—an appellation that Henry Adams apparently disliked. In a letter addressed to Homer Saint-Gaudens, on January 24, 1908, Adams instructed him:
"Do not allow the world to tag my figure with a name! Every magazine writer wants to label it as some American patent medicine for popular consumption—Grief, Despair, Pear's Soap, or Macy's Mens' Suits Made to Measure. Your father meant it to ask a question, not to give an answer; and the man who answers will be damned to eternity like the men who answered the Sphinx."
At the time of Saint-Gaudens's death, the statue was well-known as an important work of American sculpture. Its popularity inspired at least one forgery, the Black Aggie, which was sold to General Felix Agnus for his gravesite.
An informative and engaging study of the memorial and the relationship between Clover and Henry Adams is Clover: The Tragic Love Story of Clover and Henry Adams and Their Brilliant Life in America's Gilded Age by historian Otto Friedrich.
On March 16, 1972, the Adams Memorial was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.Licensing
- You are free:
- to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to remix – to adapt the work
- Under the following conditions:
- attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
This image was originally posted to Flickr by dbking at https://flickr.com/photos/65193799@N00/13912211 (archive). It was reviewed on 30 July 2019 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0. |