William Westmore Story

Hailed by his contemporaries as a "modern Michelangelo," William Wetmore Story enjoyed recognition in his lifetime as one of the preeminent sculptors and litterateurs of his era. By the century's conclusion, however, his reputation began to plummet as a new generation of critics openly questioned the originality of his genius and the relevancy of his art to the modern age. Drawing on a collection of the artist's papers that few scholars have had access to until recently, this dissertation reassesses the significance of Story's career and oeuvre within the context of Victorian culture and taste. It is prefaced by a study of the pivotal role played by Henry James in shaping an image of Story that has colored most twentieth-century interpretations of the sculptor's life; specifically, James' portrayal of the expatriate Story in William Wetmore Story and His Friends (1903) as a privileged dilettante to whom all things came easily, and whose social influence and force of personality gained him a professional success far in excess of his talent. While James' book serves throughout this text as a thematic guide in framing discussion about Story, James is revealed as a prejudiced biographer whose ambivalence toward his subject biased his account of Story's career. The first chapter explores the reasons for Story's seemingly precipitate decision of 1847 to abandon a promising legal future in Boston to pursue art studies in Rome. Subsequent chapters review the formative phase of his artistic development abroad, establishing an accurate chronology of his activities and sculptural production. A study of Story's early experimental work charts his efforts to devise an original conceptual and compositional approach to sculpture. The impact of his friendship with the English poet Robert Browning is considered for the imaginative impulse it supplied to the formula Story eventually conceived, exemplified in the emotionally-charged, psychologically-probing marble renderings of ancient personalities he began to model in the late 1850's. Using Story's mature sculptural oeuvre and writings as narrative orientation, the concluding chapters document Story's ascent to fame and analyze the problems, personal and professional, that accompanied him in this celebrity.