Arts and Letters

The Institute and the Academy have the duty of inviting into their membership those who create outstanding and magnificent contributions to Music, Literature, and the Fine Arts, and also the duty of marking each member's departure. We are thinking now of Carl Milles, sculptor member, who came into the Institute in 1947 and into the Academy in 1951.

Milles was born in Lagga, Stockholm, Sweden, on June 23, 1875. He was said to be a "delicate and rebellious child with a deep love of nature." He cared more for the fields, the forests, ships, and wharves than for school. So little interest did he take in his studies that his teacher told his parents their boy was mentally as well as physically weak. At the age of seventeen, after he tried to run away to sea, his father apprenticed him to a cabinet maker in Stockholm. There he learned about Borjeson, the Swedish sculptor, whose studio was near the cabinet shop, and knew his first desire to become a sculptor. During this period he also attended the Technical School, where he won the Arts and Crafts award of 200 kroner, and with this money he set out for Chile, stopping in Paris on the way. He stayed in Paris seven years and never did reach Chile. In order to maintain himself in Paris he held a variety of jobs: he worked for Italian ornament makers; joined the claque at the Odeon and Opera; served as a waiter in a restaurant; and was employed by a coffin maker who allowed him to sleep in the shop.

At the same time Milles was attending classes in the Academy Colarossi, and spent hours studying plants and animals. He won several encouraging awards, but after his model of "Paolo and Francesca" was rejected by the Ecole des Beaux Arts, he was surprised one morning by a knock on his door. "A little old man with a large beard stood on the threshold saying he would like to meet Milles, the sculptor, whose group he had fought to have accepted for the exhibition." As might be surmised, his visitor was Rodin. Milles was then employed for a short time by Rodin and his work for a period reflected Rodin's influence.

The health of Milles had troubled him since childhood, and after an illness in 1904, he went to Italy to recuperate. There the villas and fountains of Rome stirred his imagination and when he returned to Sweden in 1908 he began to work and live in his own villa on the cliffs of Lidingö, whose gardens and terraces, decorated with his sculpture, form one of the most beautiful combinations of art and nature to be found in this world.

By 1917 his style had changed from what has been described as a "pictorial naturalism" to a more monumental style. He said of himself: "At this time I found almost all I had done was like the work of another man, so I decided to destroy what I could and start again."

Milles' native country first gave him recognition in 1902, when he was awarded fourth place in a competition for the monument to the Swedish epic hero, Sten Sture, in Uppsala. This was changed to first place when Swedish artists and students of sculpture demanded it. His first work had been admitted to the Paris Salon in 1899. In 1925 he received the Gold Medal at the Salon des Arts Decoratifs. In 1927 he was honored with an exhibition of his work in the Tate Gallery, in London.

In 1928 Milles was asked to design a fountain for the Michigan Square Building in Chicago, and shortly after, Mr. Booth, founder of the Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield, Michigan, asked him to head its department of sculpture.

When Carl Milles arrived here in 1931, America was in the depths of the great depression. Opportunities were so rare that it was not unusual to hear groups of Americans of his profession discussing the commissions that came to him with scant kindliness. Today I think most American sculptors feel that American sculpture was enriched by Milles' sojourn here. His influence was definite. Just as Fremiet, Falguière, and Rodin helped shape the trend of American sculpture in their time, so did Milles, to a considerable extent, in his day. And while he gave much to America, I have been told that he felt that America gave much to him. Although he never lost his love for his native land, he was proud to become a citizen of the United States, where he was afforded the understanding and appreciation which brought forth his great monumental works, the Peace Monument in St. Paul, the St. Louis Fountain, and others. His Orpheus Fountain for the Concert House in Stockholm was done in Cranbrook, and the strain of this work forced him to rest for a period and to have an operation on his eyes.

Milles had a very simple manner of adapting the human figure to sculptural forms. I would say, however, that he was more a master of mass than of form. His sculpture is hard to define. There is something elemental about it. I am thinking back seventeen years to when he was asked to design something for the New York World's Fair. He sent a sketch in small scale of a composition with all the heroic qualities customary in his work, but it was so unusual some feared it would disturb everything else in the Fair. This was an enormous head of Mother Earth, only part of her nose and eyes above the ground, with Phoebus and his steeds encircling the head. This was to have gone in the place where his "Astronomer" eventually stood, gazing quizzically into the heavens. In sunlight the figure of the astronomer was magnificent, but at night with the stars overhead and the grounds lighted, it seemed to be asking for the answers to all the mysteries.

I feel that the art of sculpture is a growth. Every man's accomplishment shows some of the influences that have gone before, but once in a while someone comes along who has something to add. One can see in the work of many men under forty the influence of Milles, not only in the execution of their sculpture but in the use of simple forms—something new in the expression of the human figure.

It is interesting to note that while his forms did not seem to express an architectural sense, the simple modeling, mass, and outline made them fit into any architectural setting. And architects of all kinds—Gothic, classic, and ultra-modern—agree that a piece of sculpture by Milles enhances a wall, a garden, or any architectural area.

Recently I saw his "Man with the Unicorn," the man sitting on the unicorn's rump, contemplating a little flower. It sets one thinking, as do all of Milles' works. In all of it there is the humor of a natural philosopher, unique to him in his field. He combined whimsy and beauty in simple forms that give joy to the mind and the eye.