Modern Giants Which Dwarf the Colossus of Rhodes

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 123, 27 May 1933, Page 18

Modern Giants Which Dwarf the Colossus of Rhodes

' Tho old Colossus of Ehodes was franked as one of tho seven wonders of the ancient world. But this statuo, about which men have spoken with awe, was small in comparison with tho effigy of Lenin which, it is reported, will bo Bet above one of tho dams in tho port of Leningrad. It is to bo 370. feet in height, and a powerful beacon on it will serve as lighthouse for sailors and airmen, says tho "New York Times." The Colossus of Ehodes was 70 cubits, lor 105 feet tall. "Few men can clasp tho thumb in their arms, and tho fingers are longer than most statues," "wrote Pliny. It is said that this work ]o£ Chares, tho Lindian, was not only ~.of suporb proportions, but fine in ex- ; ceution. Its life was of short durnfor an carthquako destroyed it fifty-six years after it was erected. The Colossus- of Ehodes, finished in £8 8.C., was not the first of tho huge statues. Centuries earlier the Pharaohs of Egypt commanded architects to fashion their likenesses on a scale symbolising their power and dominion. V A'fewof these mammoth statues still guard the golden sands over which tho - Pharaohs ruled. On the plain separating the mountains, in- whose sand pockets tho tombs of ancient Egypt's rulers are concealed from tho crawling stream of the Nile, sit Amenhotep 111 and Tiyi, his consort, carved more than a 000 years ago. Lonely as mountain peaks, tho two figures rise fifty-threo feet abovo the plain. Hands on his knees, vacant eyes eterInally gazing into Egypt's sun, mighty Barneses II sits in front of his rock temple at Abu Simbel. The artist cut tho pomegranate-coloured figures out of tho hard flank of tho mountain. Kameses is in royal attire-, wearing the double-crown of his kingdom. At his huge knees" stand tho images of tho ladies of his household, miniature in size in comparison with the towering figure pf their lord that rises sixty-five feet. The great statues of Greece were femong its finest works of art. Phidias created the Athena of tho Parthenon in ivory and gold. She was sixty feet tall. His masterpiece, however, was the Jupiter of Olympia, a marvellous image of ivory and gold that nearly touched the sixty-foot ceiling, of the temple chamber in which, it was enshrined. . Borne, too, had its colossi. They were famed' rather for size" than for mastery of execution. Three of them are known to modern times, though thoy have long since disappeared. On the Capitolino Hill stood a mammoth Jupiter, whose muscles were made of armour taken by the Eomans from the Samnites in 293 B.C. Less conspicuous was the large statue of Apollo in the library adjoining the temple to tho god on the Palatine Hill. Of greater renown was the golden effigy of Nero,

made at his command and placed in the vestibulo of his palace. The modern world, like the ancient, has statues of heroic size. High aboyo Arona, overlooking Lake Maggiore, is a statuo of Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, who, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, vigorouslyopposed the Reformation. In 1566, when tho plague raged in Milan, he went about among the stricken, organising help for them. Two monuments were erected to him, one in tho Cathedral of Milan, tho other the seventyfoot figuro that towers above- Arona, his native town. The Woria War was the reason for tho erection of tho so-called "Iron Hindcnburg," put up by the Germans to raise funds for tho rehabilitation of East Prussia, in 1915. The thirty-nine-foot wooden effigy was placed at the head of the Sieges Alle in Berlin, where it looked down upon tho double row of marble Hohenzollerns. Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney is the sculptor of two monuments whose proportions rank them among tho "colossi" of our day. On a promontory j surmounting tho harbour of St. Nazaire is her statue commemorating the landing of tho first American troops in France. The graceful figure of a soldier, "tin" helmet on his head, knapsack on his back, is poised on tho back of an eaglo with outstretched wings. The group is forty feet high. Even taller is her statuo of Columbus', which stands by tho side of tho harbour of Palos in Spain. In the pedestal which supports the seventy-foot imago of tho navigator arc figures of Ferdinand and Isabella. Becently Signor Marconi touched a switch in his laboratory in Borne, thereby flooding with light tho figure of Christ that juts into the sky abovo Kio do Janeiro. Tho statue crowns a mountain peak 3000 feet above the level of tho sea; in front of it spreads one of tho most beautiful harbours in tho world. With arms outstretched, it seems as if the figure were about to be lifted into tho heavens above. Paul Landowski, the sculptor, has kept the surfaces and lines of his great statuo (it is 130 feet tall) as simple as if it were cut out of ice. Tho most renowned of the modern colossi is New York's Statuo of Liberty, whoso cornerstone was laid nearly half a century ago. Liberty measures 305 feet from the base of tho pedestal to tho tip of tho torch. i The record for size, according to present indications, will in tho course of a few years be held by the Eushmore National Memorial, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. On the faco of a mountain Gutzon Borglum is cirving ; th& portraits of four great Americans —Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Boosevelt. It is expected that tho monument, begun in 1927, will be finished by 1937.