University of Virginia Library

SHOBAL VAIL CLEVENGER,[1]
THE SCULPTOR.

The Queen City of the West may indeed be proud
of her arts, and her artists. Powers, Beard, Frankenstein,
Powell, Clevenger, will give her a reputation,
we believe, which will be honored wherever
the arts are cultivated. Many of their productions
already grace the halls of her citizens, where the
travelling stranger, in partaking of their hospitality,
often gazes in wonder on their works, which
he pronounces to exhibit a genius kindred to that
which guided the pencil and the chisel of the masters
of the olden time.

Situated so beautifully by the “beautiful river,”
Cincinnati, as if conscious of her advantages, already
displays an architectural elegance, which is

not surpassed by any city in the Union. She now
numbers fifty thousand inhabitants; yet there are
many who well remember when the glancing river
rolled on unshadowed by anything that denoted
civilization. In patronizing her artists, her citizens
will not only reward merit, but cultivate their taste,
and thus, adding the graces of ornament to the beauties
of situation, will crown the queen with an enduring
magnificence.

Clevenger is a “born Buckeye.” Middletown,
a small village in the interior of Ohio, is the place
of his birth. He was born in 1812. His father is
by trade a weaver, and Shobal is the third child of
a family of ten. His parents are still living to
rejoice in the rising reputation of their son. A
year after the birth of Shobal, his parents moved
to Ridgeville, and afterwards to Indian Creek. At
the age of fifteen, Shobal left his parents, and went
with his brother to Centerville, to learn, under his
direction, the art of stonecutting, in which employment
his brother was engaged on the canal. It
was indeed fortunate for the future sculptor, that
he thus early learned the use of the chisel, and it
accounts for the accuracy and tact with which he
handles it.

On the canal, the future artist, at his humble
occupation, caught the ague and fever, and was compelled
to return home. As soon as he recovered,
he went to Louisville, from which, after being engaged

for a short time, he came to Cincinnati, and
stipulated to remain with Mr. Guiou, a stonecutter,
for the purpose of learning the trade. While he
was with Mr. Guiou, an order, among others, came
to the establishment for a tombstone, which was to
have a seraph's head chiselled upon it. Mr. Guiou
undertook the task himself, and formed the figure,
which Clevenger criticised. His master said, satirically,
“You shall do the next.” This remark galled
Clevenger, and he determined to try. The next
day was Sunday, and instead of enjoying its recreation,
he repaired to the shop and busied himself
all day in producing a seraph's head. On Monday,
when his fellow-workmen saw it, they pronounced
it better than Mr. Guiou's. This, as may be supposed,
gave great pleasure to the youthful aspirant,
and inflamed his ambition. He used to visit the
graveyard on the moonlight nights, and take casts
from the tombstones, particularly from those sculptured
by an English artist, which are thought to
be very good. Mr. Guiou now gave Clevenger all
the ornamental jobs to do, which sometimes provoked
the ill-humor of his fellows, as was to be
expected, but the amiability of the artist and his
acknowledged skill soon reconciled them to the
justice of the preference.

Soon after Clevenger's time expired with Mr.
Guiou, he married Miss Elizabeth Wright, of Cincinnati,
and repaired to Xenia, an inland town of

Ohio, where he commenced business. Meeting with
poor encouragement there, he returned to Cincinnati
and worked as a journeyman for his former
master, but shortly after entered into partnership
with Mr. Basset, and they established themselves
in a little shop on the corner of Seventh and
Race streets.

It was this shop that Mr. E. S. Thomas, the
editor of the “Evening Post,” chanced to enter
one day, attracted, as he glanced in, by the figure
of a cherub, which Clevenger was carving. Mr.
Thomas, who has a fondness for such things, and
who has had an opportunity of seeing the best
statuary of Europe, was instantly impressed with
the genius of Clevenger, and warmly told him that
he had great talents in the art. The next day
Mr. Thomas noticed Clevenger in his paper, and
expressed firmly his conviction that his genius was
of the first order, and that, if encouraged, he would
be eminent.

Powers, the sculptor, who is now in Florence,
pursuing his art, and who will shed fame on the
Queen City, was then in Washington, where he had
modelled the heads of some of our leading statesmen,
with an accuracy and talent that were winning
universal commendation. Clevenger, still at his
stonecutting, understood that Powers was about
to return to Cincinnati, and bring with him his
clay model of Chief-Justice Marshall, from which

he meant to take a bust in stone. On hearing this,
the youthful aspirant said, to use his own expression,
that he “would cut the first bust from stone
in Cincinnati, if he couldn't cut the best!” He
accordingly forthwith procured the material—the
rough block of stone—and asked Mr. Thomas to sit
to him. Mr. Thomas did so, and from the rude
block, without moulding any model previously in
clay, with the living form before him, and with
chisel in hand, in his little shop, the young artist
went fearlessly to work; and, without having seen
anything of sculpture but the memorials of the
dead in a western graveyard, casts from which
he had taken by moonlight, unaided, by the
inspirations solely of genius, he struck out a likeness
that wants but the Promethean heat to make
it in all respects the counterpart of the veteran
editor.

This bust was executed about three years ago.
The press of the city spoke in just terms of praise
of the performer. Patronage followed. Many of
the wealthiest citizens had their busts taken, and
the accuracy of each successive one seemed to
strike more and more. The artist's shop—now
dignified with the name of studio—attracted the
attention of all classes of the citizens. There the
visitor might behold him eagerly at work, apparently
unconscious of the attention he attracted;
his fine clear eye lighting with a flash upon the

model, and then upon the stone, from which, with
consummate skill, he would strike the incumbrance
which seemed to obscure from other eyes (not his
own), the form which he saw existing in the marble.

Clevenger is now in Boston, where he has
moulded a bust of Mr. Webster, said universally
to be the best likeness ever taken of the great
lawyer. Among his best efforts are said to be his
busts of Messrs. Biddle, Clay, Van Buren, and
Poindexter. The visitor stands in his studio, and
gazes at the models, even of those he has not seen,
with the conviction that they must be likenesses—
there is ever something so lifelike about them.

This spring Clevenger goes to Italy, for the
purpose of studying the masterpieces of his art,
'mid the scenes where they were fashioned. We
can sympathize with the deep devotion with which
he will gaze on the glories of his craft, and call up
the memories of the mighty masters of old upon
the very spot where they bent, chisel in hand, over
the marble, and almost realized, without the aid of
the gods, the fable of Pygmalion. While he is
over the waters, in that classic land, we shall send
glad greetings to our bold Buckeye, and bid him
not despair. Let him assist to make his land
classic too—what man has done, man may do.