TRYING TO PLEASE

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 104, 27 January 1931, Page 9

TRYING TO PLEASE

Sculptor of Haig Statue

“PRETTY, PRETTY STUFF”

London, January 25. 'Another storm has blown up over the second model of the Haig statue. It will be recollected that the sculptor, A. E. Hardiman's, first design caused endless controversy, resulting in the artist preparing a new model. Though this was unanimously approve?! by five assistants appointed to give advice, the opinion of others is unfavourable. Mr. George Lansbpry, Minister of Works, himself prefers the first model. Others describe It as “Pretty, pretty stuff.” Colonel Boraston, at one time Haig's private secretary says that when he

saw Hardiman’s first model he thought that nothing could be worse. Since seeing the new model, he realised he was wrong. Criticism is largely confined to the horse. The first horse had a short, thick neck, the second a long, thin neck and spindle legs.’ Hardiman is as patient as Job. He says he will make a third model. Mr. Lansbury declares that everybody ought to be pleased.

It is obvious that the design is overwhelmingly and passionately disliked, remarked “The Times” in discussing the first statue. Mr. Hardiman has sacrificed the obvious and expressed the wrong idOa. This man is not Douglas Haig, and the thousands who looked for the figure so well known and so much loved, turned away disappointed. But, far worse than that, the spirit of this statue is not the spirit which made Haig our leader to victory. The figure in the statue may express “heroic leadership”; but it is that of a triumphant brigand. Vainglorious, burly, bloodthirsty, he proclaims the triumph of brute force. It was bv his patience, by his professional industry, by his unruffled determination. that Haig achieved his military success. A merciful man. a great gentleman. he toiled in peace'at the other part of the double service which the statue and the Dougins Haig Memorial Homes are to make immortal. It is vain to talk of the highly specialised art of sculpture and the incompetence of the public to express an oninion on any production of that art. When, sculpture is wholly. imaginative or symbolical, the public is for the most part content to hone —with a growl, indeed, or a laugh—that future ages will see beaiitv that is hidden from the present. But Mr. Hardiman’s design is not wholly imaginative or symbolical. It is a very untruthful likeness of a real and much-love " man; and it is a powerful expression of the very spirit which Haig and his soldiers fought to suppress.