Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan:
A Historical Guide
by Dianne Durante
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide is now available
from New York University Press. To order, visit
New York University Press's website or
Amazon.
Paperback $18.95 (ISBN 0814719872), cloth $60.00 (ISBN 0814719864)
Art Book, by
Victoria Keller, Feb. 2008 (read
it on line)
In her Introduction,
Durante explains that her approach to teaching art
history rests on her understanding of Ayn Rand's work on
aesthetics. She says that her problem with most art
historians and critics is that they do not offer a
proper definition of art, whereas Ayn Rand's defining
art as ‘a selective re-creation of reality based on an
artist's metaphysical value judgments’ allows her to be
able to determine what is and is not art. The importance
of Rand is made clear in the Appendix, where the author
urges her readers to philosophical, emotional, and art
historical evaluations of each sculpture. [Ed: European
visitors to the United States may not be so familiar
with Rand as American readers.]
The language of the
book is friendly and chatty, as if the author were in
front of you, conducting an on-site lecture. The photos
in the paperback copy are adequate for identification
purposes but the paper is too absorbent for any real
clarity. Nonetheless, the purpose of the book is to
encourage people to go and see the wealth of outdoor
sculpture in Manhattan, and the book treats this purpose
with the enthusiasm the subjects deserve.
American Individualist blog, by Joseph Kellard, 8/29/07 (read
it on line)
Diane Durante’s “Outdoor
Monuments of Manhattan” (OMOM) is a rarity: a book that
evaluates art from Ayn Rand’s philosophy of aesthetics — the
principles of which she peppers throughout — that highlights
Manhattan’s relatively unexplored outdoor
sculptures-statues, and that illustrates why they are worthy
of such study. ... At its best, OMOM allows readers to
observe an Objectivist’s evaluative and theme-capturing
thinking methods of many handsome, overlooked works of art.
If you seek to develop your ability to objectively evaluate,
understand and appreciate art, this book is a must buy.
New York Times City Room blog, 7/12/07: "Christopher
Columbus Gets a Facelift," by Sewell Chan (read
it online)
Quick trivia
question: How many memorials of
Christopher Columbus are in the
New York City parks system? (The
answer is below.) One of the
memorials — a marble bust at
D’Auria-Murphy Triangle in the
Belmont section of the Bronx —
received a makeover this
morning. ...
The answer to the
trivia question above: Five.
According to
Dianne L. Durante, author of
“Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan:
A Historical Guide” (New York
University Press, 2007), the
others are the marble statue at
Columbus Circle, by Gaetano
Russo; the bronze statue on
Central Park’s Literary Walk, by
Jeronimo Suñol; the statue at
Court and Montague Streets, near
Brooklyn Borough Hall, by Emma
Stebbins (who sculpted the
“Angel of the Waters” at
Bethesda Fountain in Central
Park); and a statue by A.
Racioppi at Astoria Boulevard
and 32nd Street, near the Queens
entrance to the Triborough
Bridge.
Avid Columbus fans may want to
consult Peter van der Krogt’s
Columbus monuments Web site,
Ms. Durante suggests.
Midwest Book
Review, 5/7/07 (read
it online)
Manhattan's streets and parks are packed with
historic monuments, and some fifty of them are included in
OUTDOOR MONUMENTS OF MANHATTAN: A HISTORICAL GUIDE, which
offers up background history, surveys of American sculptors,
and analysis of each sculpture, its influences, and its
history.
A 'must' for any Manhattan resident or
library seeking background information on the area's best
outdoor monuments to use as either a take-along travel tote
or a study.
New York Sun
review by Francis Morrone, Friday 4/20/07, Arts &
Letters / Books (read
it in the Sun)
"The Great Monuments of New York"
A primer on getting to know our city's
monuments. ... Ms. Durante's entries are much longer than
those of ["The Art Commission and the Municipal Art Society
Guide to Manhattan's Outdoor Sculpture"]. More important,
each entry has a uniform structure. It contains a photo,
vital stats (year dedicated, size, materials), an "About the
Sculpture" section, and an "About the Subject" section, as
well as a carefully chosen boxed quotation culled from an
old book or newspaper that pertains to the subject.
For example, the entry on the William
Cullen Bryant Memorial in
Bryant Park includes Bryant's fine poem "My Autumn Walk"
(1864) and some sprightly lines about Bryant's monumental
career as editor and poet: "Some consider Bryant
long-winded; but then, some consider
Bill Clinton eloquent. Depends on your style preferences
and your breath control." Lines like that recur throughout
and leaven a book that at first blush appears dauntingly
didactic. In addition to the entries, the book includes
"Appendix A: How to Read a Sculpture," in which Ms. Durante
outlines how we might analyze a given monument: "Pose: If
you came home to find your Significant Other waiting for you
in this pose (arms crossed, chest thrust out) how do you
think he or she was feeling?" Her tips aren't bad, and may
be helpful to some readers — though the hows and whys of
looking at sculpture are likelier to impress the reader in
the monument entries themselves. ...
"Outdoor Monuments" is well written, well
researched, well thought-out, funny, and often refreshingly
original, and will help any interested New Yorker know about
the wondrous monuments that dot the city.
ArtTimes mention
by Rudolph Steiner (click
here to see the page)
A guide book, a primer on looking at sculpture, and a brief
historical overview of New York City’s monuments, Dianne L.
Durante’s Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan offers up a wealth
of information for both resident and tourist in search of sites
along New York’s Streets and Avenues. Includes photos and
information on some fifty-four sculptural monuments. **** [of a
possible 5 stars]
New York Times, Sunday
1/28/07 (click
here to see an image of the page)
Reading New York: "Tales From Mr. Untouchable,
and a Stroll Among the Statues"
by Sam Roberts
Nicky Barnes cited the statute of limitations. In
“Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide” (NYU Press,
$18.95 paperback, $60 cloth), Dianne Durante suggests that there are
few limitations to statues.
“They can make you stop, look and think when you’d
swear your brain was too tired to function,” she writes. “The
achievements and the virtues of the people represented in these
statues can help supply the emotional fuel — the psychological
energy — that keeps you going.”
Her guidebook is a perfect walking-tour accompaniment
to help New Yorkers and visitors find, identify and better
appreciate statues famous and obscure (honoring, among others, the
“father of gynecology” and the general who had an unremarkable
military and business career but composed taps, the bugle call).
While the tone is sometimes preachy and pedantic (the
book concludes with a tutorial on how to read a sculpture), Ms.
Durante winsomely places 54 monuments in historical and artistic
perspective.
We learn that a trumpet is an allegory for announcing
fame, that the monument to Admiral Farragut in Madison Square Park
altered the course of American sculpture, that the figure with the
winged hat atop Grand Central Terminal is Mercury and that the
statue of Atlas at Rockefeller Center was reviled when it was
unveiled in 1937 because it supposedly resembled Mussolini.
Let’s hope Ms. Durante follows up in the other four
boroughs.
Sculpture Magazine
(click here
to see an image of the page and the magazine's cover)
Anyone
whose curiosity has ever been piqued by the peculiar mixture of
historical statues that ornament the grounds of Central Park will find
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide by Dianne
Durante a satisfying read. Encompassing the entire borough, Durante
begins her tour with the Statue of Liberty and works her way north to El
Sid [sic] Campeador at West 155th St. A map in the front of the book
displays each work’s location in order of what would be a lengthy
walking tour.
Each of
the 54 entries has a black and white image for reference and basic
information on the sculptor, date, medium, dimensions, location, and
directions to reaching the site by subway. Durante places the monuments
in context by providing a brief literary or historical quotation
relating to each subject before detailing the history surrounding the
work’s conception and realization. Readers are encouraged to observe
closely the significance of details that may be missed in a passing
glance or even to the naked eye. The entries provide background on each
work’s origin, explaining, for example, how a statue of the medieval
Polish king Jagiello came to be in New York alongside more predictable
allegorical and American patriotic figures. A brief history of the
subject is also provided, including enough lively anecdotes and obscure
facts to entice all readers. The appendices include a formulaic - though
potentially instructive - guide for viewing sculpture, a list of the
works in chronological order, and brief biographies of the artists.
This
collection of facts, though somewhat elementary in tone, provides a
useful tool to those seeking concise yet wide-ranging information on
Manhattan’s many historical public works. In a city whose focus is ever
forward, it is worthwhile to pause occasionally to consider its history.
“For residents and tourists and historians and students who want to
spend more time viewing and appreciating sculpture and New York history,
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan is the start of a unique voyage of
discovery.”
Outdoor
Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide
by Dianne Durante is scheduled for release on February 1, 2007.
Published by NYU Press. $18.95 softcover, $60.00 hardcover.
Note: Sculpture Magazine is published by
the International Sculpture Center.
Click here to see the current issue on the Net. According to
their website: “Sculpture is the premier publication in the
field of contemporary sculpture. Sculpture offers exceptional
editorial coverage, striking pictorial layouts …” Circulation is
22,000, but because many libraries subscribe, estimated readership
is over 55,000. The Insider section, where this review appeared, is
a 12-page supplement bound into members' copies of Sculpture.
The review of Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan was featured
prominently on the Insider's first page, under the heading "Resource
publication."
New York Sun
11/3/06, in "An
Icon of the City Gets an Opening" by
Francis Morrone
From a review of an exhibition on Paul Manship:
After the Statue of
Liberty, perhaps the most famous public sculpture in New York is
Rockefeller Center's Prometheus, who adorns the Lower Plaza.
Prometheus, bearer of fire from gods to man, fell afoul of Zeus and
was condemned to an eternity of having his liver plucked at by
birds. The sculpture has also received some plucks.
As Dianne Durante
wisely notes in her new book, "Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan," it's
really, really hard to do a statue of a man flying — especially when
he doesn't have wings. Consequently, Prometheus looks rather as
though he is doing the sidestroke. Or, as he apparently struck some
observers in the 1930s, when the sculpture was installed, as though
he is not so much flying as falling — perhaps from high in the RCA
Building. Did New Yorkers really used to call him "Leaping Louie"?
Even the sculptor, Paul Manship, was none too pleased with his own
handiwork. ...
Dale Flick, Jersey City,
New Jersey
I finished your book last night, and have made mental
notes to myself to look up several of the monuments
whenever I am in the city and have a chance. I thought
your concise sections on the art and the history of each
piece were just delightful, like truffles; intensely
flavorful but short lived, so I was always looking
forward to the next one. I thought your explanations of
how art works were down-to-earth and easy to grasp, but
also quite elegant. Your detective’s eye was very
impressive and I was always wishing I could zoom in on
each of the images to see all the detail you uncovered.
All-in-all, I thought it was a very well balanced
presentation and I am eagerly waiting to be whisked away
to your next collection of city monuments.
Adam Schwartz,
WFIU Radio, Bloomington, Indiana
I
just want to tell you how thrilled I am to have discovered
your writings on sculpture on the Web and in your book
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan. Your writing has shown
me that it’s OK to stop and look at sculpture. For the many
years I lived in NYC, I would sometimes stop and look at
outdoor sculpture in public places, but on the sly, because
it wasn’t cool. I now realize what a dumb attitude that is,
and intend to spend the rest of my life looking at every
piece of sculpture I come across. … I had forgotten
how to look at art with the point of view of that part of us
that takes delight in things. I guess I had bought into all
the theory that allows all sorts of dreck to be called art
… Your method of looking at sculpture is helping me to find
values and inspiration in art; getting me to think about my
values and my philosophy, while gaining a greater
discrimination of all sorts of artworks. We need values and
inspiration and moral guidance, even in the twenty-first
century. We're not beyond that, we just think we are.
Amazon review by
Robert Begley
As
a native New Yorker, at one time or another I've passed by
and gazed at every one of the 54 sculptures listed in this
excellent book. What I learned was how great each one is ….
Dr. Durante's style of writing is very clear and she gives a
practical guide in 'How to Read a Sculpture' with an
objective basis.
Neil
Estern, sculptor of La Guardia at La Guardia Place (Outdoor
Monuments Essay 9)
It's very good - informative and well documented - Now you can go
for Brooklyn - which has many monuments too!
Amazon review
by Sylvia Bokor (click
here to see the review on the Amazon site)
Apart from Ayn Rand's own work in esthetics (The
Romantic Manifesto---and several other articles outside of it) and
Dr. Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Dr.
Dianne Durante's Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan is the first
published work to apply some of Miss Rand's revolutionary esthetics
to works of art. This is a MAJOR achievement.
In order to shape a culture dominated by by a rational philosophy,
the Objectivist ethics is THE most important idea to get into the
culture. And a number of outstanding philosophers have each,
independent of one another, done admirable work in this area.
The second most important idea essential to changing our culture is
Miss Rand's esthetics. Dr. Durante opened the door to this with her
criticism of the thoroughly reprehensible exhibition in New York's
Central Park of Christo's Gates. She stood firm against invective.
Now she is offering more details as she applies Miss Rand's
esthetics to Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan.
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan is a clever organization of facts and
commentary. It is also a welcomed introduction to important ideas
that offer the reader rational guidelines to better appreciate and
understand art in general and the outdoor monuments of Manhattan in
particular.
Gus Van Horn's blog,
2/1/2007, "Outdoor
Monuments in NY Times." Excerpts:
Based on her articles in
The Objective
Standard, I would say that it's a safe bet that the book will be
well worth it -- even if you never step foot in New York. (Here are
a few opening paragraphs from each of the TOS articles, "Getting
More Enjoyment from Art You Love" and the fascinating "19th-Century
French Painting and Philosophy".) [NOTE: you can read the opening
paragraphs by clicking the links above.]
The best advice I can give to those unfamiliar with the
TOS
articles is to subscribe.
A very close second would be to visit the
blog of
Forgotten Delights, where the author offers some of her insights
about and presents interesting facts pertaining to the sculptures
she reviews in the book. ...
I applaud the Times for its positive review, but its apparent
sense of priorities has me scratching my head -- and wanting to
crack wise about whether Nicky Barnes [the former heroin dealer
whose autobiography was reviewed on the same page as Outdoor
Monuments] really has stopped dealing drugs and whether the
staff of the Times are customers.
Why you need
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan
if you're an
avid and insatiably curious reader
Outdoor Monuments aims to entertain, stimulate and inspire.
Filled with fascinating but little-known stories, it emphasizes the
positive aspects of America, Western civilization and capitalism. The
book also provides a method for looking at sculpture with an informed
and inquisitive eye - it's guaranteed to help you understand art better
and enjoy it more.
Why you need
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan
if you're a tourist
The 54 sculptures in
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan are among
the most beautiful and least known attractions of New York - and free
for the looking, even if you're awake at 3 a.m. with jet lag. The only
book in print to focus on such sculptures, it has been acclaimed by the
New York Times as "a perfect walking-tour accompaniment to help
New Yorkers and visitors find, identify and better appreciate statues
famous and obscure." If you need help locating the sculptures, they're
all conveniently
marked on this Google map.
Why you need
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan
if you're a New Yorker
There are eight million stories in the Naked City, and some of the most
fascinating belong to the bronze and marble figures who stand nearly
forgotten in our parks. This book recounts their stories as no other
book in print does. (Gayle and Cohen's comprehensive but necessarily
terse Art Commission and Municipal Art Society Guide to Manhattan's
Outdoor Sculpture, published in 1988, has been out of print for
several years. If you have a copy, hang on to it.)
If you're a mass-transit maven, you can visit all
54 of the sculptures in Outdoor Monuments in one moderately
frantic day - unless you also use the book for its second purpose, as a
handbook for learning to look at sculpture with an informed and
inquisitive eye. In that case, you'll have many pleasurable days of
discovery ahead of you - and think of all the neighborhoods and
restaurants you'll get to explore on the way! On a day when we're
dripping with some of our 46" of annual rainfall, you can apply the
method in Appendix A ("How to Read a Sculpture") to works in the
Metropolitan Museum and the Frick Collection.
Why you need
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan
if you're a historian or history buff
The 54 sculptures covered in
Outdoor Monuments include major
figures in American history, among them George Washington, the Marquis
de Lafayette, Horace Greeley and Gertrude Stein. Numerous fascinating
but less familiar figures also make appearances: Daniel Butterfield, J.
Marion Sims, Edwin Booth, and King Jagiello, to name a few. Rather than
giving a two-paragraph biography of each person's life, Outdoor
Monuments focuses on one revealing or thought-provoking episode,
researched in primary sources when possible - for example, Sherman's
court martial of a journalist and the Vallandingham affair that helped
inspire Edward Everett Hale's "The Man Without a Country." Sidebars in
each essay offer a lengthy quote from a contemporary periodical or
literary work.
Space considerations precluded footnotes and
bibliography in Outdoor Monuments, but
references plus occasional out-takes are gradually being uploaded to
the Forgotten Delights website.
Why you need
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan
if you're an art lover, art historian, or art critic
The 54 sculptures included in Outdoor Monuments were chosen
for artistic merit, for the fascination of their subjects, or both.
Among them are works by top-notch sculptors such as Augustus Saint
Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, John Quincy Adams Ward, and Anna Hyatt
Huntington. Sculpture magazine referred to the book as "a useful
tool to those seeking concise yet wide-ranging information on
Manhattan's many historical public works."
But the book is more than a historical survey of
important American sculptors. As a primer for how to look at sculpture
(from the significance of a gesture to the purpose of sculpture) with an
informed and inquisitive eye, it will increase your ability to
understand and enjoy any sculpture. Appendix A, "How to Read a
Sculpture," is a methodical list of stimulating questions to ask of a
sculpture, and conveniently refers the reader to specific essays where
the questions are considered in more detail.
Outdoor Monuments relies for its esthetic
theory on the writings of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and
The Fountainhead. It is the first book-length analysis of
sculpture based on Rand's esthetics, and even those who disagree with
Rand's theories will find much food for thought in the discussions about
the nature and purpose of art.
Why you need
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan
if you're a
gallery owner or a museum staff member
Visitors and potential buyers are more likely to linger if they can
think actively about what they see, rather than struggling to absorb and
retain someone else's interpretation. Outdoor Monuments is a
primer for how to look at sculpture with an informed and inquisitive
eye, and will increase anyone's ability to understand and enjoy any
sculpture.
Why you need
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan
if you're a librarian
Outdoor Monuments is a multi-purpose book. The appeal to
tourists is obvious: it has been acclaimed by the New York Times as "a
perfect walking-tour accompaniment to help New Yorkers and visitors
find, identify and better appreciate statues famous and obscure." The
book will also be useful for historians and art lovers who may never
visit Manhattan. Each of the essays has a section on the sculpture as a
historical memento, in which fascinating figures and events are
described with infectious enthusiasm. A sidebar offers a lengthy comment
on the person or event represented, often from the 19th-c. New York
Times, Harper's Weekly, or a contemporary biography.
The sections dealing with the sculpture as a work
of art - inspired by Ayn Rand's writings on aesthetics - tackle issues
that range from specific details of pose, costume and setting to broader
questions such as the nature of art and why two viewers might react very
differently to a particular work. Appendix A, "How to Read a Sculpture,"
outlines a method by which readers can study art on their own, in New
York or their home town. Appendix C offers short biographies of dozens
of artists, noting their most important works and listing all their
works on display outdoors in New York.
Why you need
Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan
if you're an
Objectivist
This is the first book-length analysis of sculpture
based on Ayn Rand's theories of esthetics. It argues intransigently in
favor of representational works over abstract "art," and "chews" such
topics as metaphysical value-judgments and the nature and purpose of
art. Aside from the theoretical aspects, fans of Ayn Rand will enjoy the
fact that Outdoor Monuments exudes a love of capitalism and
Western civilization. Its pages are crowded with inspiring men - among
them some of the 19th century's greatest innovators and businessmen -
whose efforts changed New York, the United States and the world.
See also the Forgotten Delights blog entry, "Why
Ayn Rand's esthetics is the basis for my writing on art."
Stop, look, and discover-the streets and parks of Manhattan are
filled with beautiful historic monuments that will entertain,
stimulate, and inspire you. Among the 54 monuments in this volume are
major figures in American history: Washington, Lincoln, Lafayette,
Horace Greeley, and Gertrude Stein; more obscure figures: Daniel
Butterfield, J. Marion Sims, and King Jagiello; as well as the icons
of New York: Atlas, Prometheus, and the Firemen's Memorial. The
monuments represent the work of some of America's best sculptors:
Augustus Saint Gaudens' Farragut and Sherman, Daniel Chester French's
Four Continents, and Anna Hyatt Huntington's Jose Marti and Joan of
Arc.
Each monument, illustrated with black-and-white photographs, is
located on a map of Manhattan and includes easy-to-follow directions.
All the sculptures are considered both as historical mementos and as
art. We learn of furious General Sherman court-martialing a civilian
journalist, and also of exasperated Saint Gaudens' proposing a
hook-and-spring device for improving his assistants' artistic acuity
as they help model Sherman. We discover how Lincoln dealt with a
vociferous Confederate politician from Ohio, and why the Lincoln in
Union Square doesn't rank as a top-notch Lincoln portrait. Sidebars
reveal other aspects of the figure or event commemorated, using
personal quotes, poems, excerpts from nineteenth-century periodicals
(New York Times, Harper's Weekly), and writers ranging from Aeschylus,
Washington Irving, and Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi to Mark Twain and
Henryk Sienkiewicz.
As a historical account, Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A
Historical Guide is a fascinating look at figures and events that
changed New York, the United States and the world. As an aesthetic
handbook it provides a compact method for studying sculpture, inspired
by Ayn Rand's writings on art. For residents and tourists, and
historians and students, who want to spend more time viewing and
appreciating sculpture and New York history, this is the start of a
unique voyage of discovery.
Dianne L. Durante is a freelance writer, lecturer, and
researcher living in Brooklyn, New York. She is author of Forgotten
Delights: The Producers, A Selection of Manhattan's Outdoor Sculpture.
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