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Plaster Casts after Antique Sculpture: Their Role in the Elevation of Public Taste and in American Art Instruction Author(s): James K. McNutt Source: Studies in Art Education, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Spring, 1990), pp. 158-167 Published by: National Art Education Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1320763 . Accessed: 28/04/2014 22:07

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STUDIES in Art Education Copyright by the A Journal of Issues and Research National Art Education Association 1990, 31 (3) 158-167

Plaster Casts After Antique Sculpture: Their Role in the Elevation of Public Taste

and in American Art Instruction

James K. McNutt

The University of Alabama

Plaster casts of famous works of ancient sculpture are rarely encountered today in American art museums and art schools. Nevertheless, for almost two hundred years, plaster casts were used in this country to transmit the artistic and cultural values of Western civilization to generations of Americans. This paper examines some of the social and ideological forces surrounding the introduction of these once-important art instructional aids into public institutions.

Until the advent of modernism in the early twentieth century, the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome were considered by educated Europeans and Americans to have embodied the highest aims of Western society in their arts (Haskell & Penny, 1981). At the time of the Italian Renaissance, relatively little ancient painting had survived from among the major art forms. It was therefore classical architecture and sculpture which had the most influence on the devel- opment of Western taste during and after the Renaissance period.

Architectural studies containing detailed measurements and diagrams of classical buildings and monuments made ancient concepts of the beauty of proportion in architecture understandable to post-Renaissance readers (Trachtenberg & Hyman, 1986). As interest in the classical world gained mo- mentum, hundreds of treatises dealing with the architectural principles of classicism were published from the Italian Renaissance until the late nine- teenth century (pp. 281-333). These books made the ancient temples and classi- cal orders available to any architect or builder who could read or follow a plan. Among the most influential of these books were Andrea Palladio's Quattro Libri dell' Architettura, published in 1570, and James Stuart and Nicholas Revett's The Antiquities of Athens, published in 1769 (Trachtenberg & Hyman, 1986, pp. 319-326; Watkin, 1986, p. 322).

In contrast to architecture, ancient sculpture exemplified an ideal beauty that was much more difficult to analyze and interpret. Because it was also more difficult to communicate to artists eager to participate in the legacy of Western tradition, a direct study of the originals was deemed preferable. However, art teachers in academies soon discovered that reproductions in the form of plaster casts were equally effective in capturing and conveying the cultural heritage embodied in "ideal" statues, which, over the centuries since the Italian Renais- sance, had become cultural icons (Haskell & Penny, 1981).

During the sixteenth century, the most powerful rulers in Europe collected original antique sculptures. Because these were in limited supply and hard to obtain, the aristocracy and members of the wealthy upper class commissioned copies in marble, bronze, and lead to decorate the interiors and gardens of their great homes. For similar reasons, by 1550, plaster casts were being made in

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PLASTER CASTS AFTER ANTIQUE SCULPTURE

molds taken directly from many of the original antique sculptures (Haskell & Penny, 1981, pp. 1-22). As early as 1665, these casts were introduced into European art academies as instructional aids for art students who were encour- aged to imitate their "perfect," ideal beauty (p. 37). By the middle of the eighteenth century, copies and casts of ancient statues had become generally associated with the refinement of good taste and good breeding, and their use in art academies as instructional tools had spread throughout Europe (pp. 79-91). These European developments established a precedent which the English colo- nies in North America were soon to follow.

Published histories of art education have discussed the use of plaster casts as instructional aids for art students in American art academies (Logan, 1955, pp. 32-42). These histories have also noted the placement of plaster casts in public schools (Wygant, 1983, p. 49). However, the important role plaster casts played in conveying to the general public its European cultural heritage and in improv- ing American taste has generally been neglected.

This historical study begins by considering the introduction of plaster casts in colonial America and traces some of the complex ideological, social, and cultur- al forces which led to their introduction in American public schools and newly created art museums at the end of the nineteenth century.

The Introduction of Plaster Casts into the English Colonies When John Smibert, a Scotsman, brought a collection of casts to this country

in 1728, it was the first Western sculpture of any sort to reach these shores (Foote, 1935; Hagen, 1940). Smibert, an artist, had assembled a collection of casts, engravings, and copies of famous Renaissance paintings to serve as teach- ing aids in Dean George Berkley's proposed college for instructing the Indians of Bermuda (Foote, p. 17). This well-intentioned, but quixotic plan never materialized. Smibert subsequently moved to Boston with his unusual collec- tion and there established himself as a portrait painter.

Two years later, the artist opened his studio to the public, and the citizens of Boston were treated to the first art exhibition to be held on this continent (Hagen, 1940, p. 45). At this public showing, Smibert exhibited his newly completed portraits along with his unique collection of casts, painted copies, and engravings.

The exhibition was recorded and publicized in local and London papers in a poem by Mather Byles, a self-appointed keeper of Boston's public conscience (McLanathan, 1968, p. 78). This poem, a versified catalogue of the exhibition, began by praising Smibert for introducing culture to New England. Among the various contents of the exhibition, reported by Byles, were casts of the Venus de'Medici and a bust of Homer, which Byles described as "the breathing Statue and the living Bust" (Foote, 1935, p. 20). Byles' critique of the exhibition is the earliest known reference in North America to the educational value of plaster casts with regard to improving the cultural environment.

Not only did Smibert's art collection appear to "improve" the cultural climate of New England, but, on a more practical level, it functioned as an art school for colonial artists. Indeed, it can be considered the first American art school because, until his death in 1751, a generation of Boston area artists, unable to travel abroad, received their only first hand knowledge of important European art works from Smibert's collection (Hagen, 1940, p. 46). Well-known artists, who were familiar with and who, on occasion, copied Smibert's casts, included John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, and John Trumbull, to name a

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few (Flexner, 1947, p. 130). In his 1756 anatomical sketchbook, now in the British Museum, Copley is said

to have made a measured drawing of Smibert's cast of the Venus de'Medici (Hagen, 1940, p. 46). Eighteen years later, when Copley traveled to Europe, he recorded his experiences and sensations on viewing original works of art. He often contrasted the originals to the copies that he had studied earlier in Smibert's Boston studio (Jones, 1914, pp. 333-342). While in Florence, Copley wrote his wife that he had purchased a collection of plaster casts in order to "always have the advantage of drawing from them" (Amory, 1882, p. 53). He had these casts sent to his London address. Unfortunately, they were improper- ly packed and arrived broken in many pieces. Copley was overwhelmed with dismay and, according to his son, "he never ceased to regret" the loss (p. 54).

American Statesmen Collect Casts Other collections of plaster casts were formed in the colonies for decorative

and aesthetic purposes by wealthy merchants and planters whose travel and education freed them from the puritanical and provincial restrictions of less affluent Americans (Dinsmoor, 1944). As early as 1743, Benjamin Franklin observed:

The first Drudgery of Settling new Colonies, which confines the Attention of People to mere necessaries, is now pretty well over; and there are many in every Province in Circumstances that set them at Ease, and afford Leisure to cultivate the finer Arts, and improve the common Stock of Knowledge. (p. 71)

The greater leisure time and improved economy allowed many members of the upper middle class to travel to Europe where collections of plaster casts could be acquired. Some individuals, however, chose to order their collections through agents abroad (pp. 72-73).

In 1759, George Washington obtained a collection of plaster casts in this manner. He sent to London for busts of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and other military personalities. By mistake, his agent sent nude or partially draped statues of Bacchus and Flora (Dinsmoor, 1944, pp. 72-73). Washing- ton's reaction to these works is not known. Nevertheless, during his presidency in Philadelphia, he did continue to enlarge his collection of art for Mount Vernon with engravings, several of which represented the nude (Halsey, 1935, pp. 24-35).

Unlike Washington, whose initial interest was in political and military fig- ures, Thomas Jefferson was more concerned with classical art and architecture. In his original 1771 plans for Monticello, Jefferson intended to decorate his new home with ten plaster casts after antique examples. Among these were the Venus de'Medici, the Apollo Belvedere, and the Farnese Hercules (Kimball, 1944, pp. 239-241). Although he never carried out his plan, this list is interesting because it reveals Jefferson's extensive knowledge of antique sculpture.

Despite the fact that Washington and Jefferson sought to use plaster casts to decorate their own homes, the Founding Fathers expressed a different attitude toward art for the general public. Jefferson considered painting and sculpture to be "too expensive for the state of wealth among us. They are worth seeing but not studying" (LaFollette, 1929, p. 8). At the end of the American Revolution, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams agreed with Jeffer- son that the fine arts were a luxury the new nation could not afford. They also believed the American people were too occupied with settling the new frontier

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to concern themselves with the arts (Rourke, 1942, pp. 3-46). Charles Willson Peale was one of the first Americans to recognize the cultur-

al need to train future American artists. Between 1791 and 1795, this artist attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to establish several art schools in Philadelphia (Dunlap, 1918, pp. 104-105). Peale, who had studied with Benjamin West in London at the Royal Academy, was aware of the importance of art schools, their use of plaster casts, and their influence on artists enrolled in European academies.

The Problem of The Nude In 1791, Robert Edge Pine, an English painter, arrived in Philadelphia with a

cast of the Venus de'Medici. Four years later, Charles Willson Peale borrowed Pine's cast to display and to instruct students in his newly founded art school, the Columbianum (Dinsmoor, 1944, p. 72). In 1823, Joseph Hopkinson, a Philadelphian, recalled that this cast had been "kept shut up in a case, and only shown to persons who particularly wished to see it; as the manners of our country, at that time, would not tolerate a public exhibition of such a figure" (Dunlap, 1918, p. 378). He ironically observed that this particular situation "shows our progress in civilization and the arts" (p. 378). Hopkinson's state- ment is an indication of the dilemma in which art teachers and tastemakers found themselves when they dared to propose the public exhibition of the nude figure in art. The display of the undraped body, whether in a painting by Titian or a sculpture by Phidias, was bound to offend provincial American morals.

Part of the problem with the public display of the nude was due to the prevalent sexual attitudes toward women in the late eighteenth and early nine- teenth centuries. At the time, women's minds were considered inferior and thought to be more innocent and pure than those of men (Rugnoff, 1971, p. 46). For example, in a lecture on the distinctive characteristics of the female, deliv- ered before a class of medical students in 1847, Dr. Charles Meigs stated "hers is a pious mind. Her confiding nature leads her more readily than men to accept the proffered grace of the Gospel" (Welter, 1966, p. 153). The doctor then referred to famous classical sculptures to illustrate the differences of cranial capacity between men and women. He used the heads of the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus de'Medici to demonstrate to his students that a "woman has a head almost too small for intellect but just large enough for love" (p. 160).

A woman, having a "pure mind," was believed to show no interest in sex except to gratify her spouse and to beget a family. Therefore, it was thought to be the duty of men to shelter and protect her from any situation that could be considered immoral (Rugnoff, 1971, p. 46).

Fifty years earlier, these protective "instincts" on the part of solicitous mid- dle-class males were no doubt responsible for the fact that Charles Willson Peale kept the cast of the Venus de'Medici hidden away in a wooden box, except on special occasions. Despite such serious doubts about the effect improperly or immorally displayed nudes might have on the general public and on female sensibilities in particular, casts after classical statues remained important sources of instruction and inspiration for artists.

At the end of the eighteenth century, little had been accomplished to pro- mote the art education of artists or the general public in the United States. Suzanne LaFollette (1929) summarized the problem which faced North Amer- ica in this respect. She observed "not only were there no schools of art worth speaking of; what was infinitely more important, outside of a few private collec-

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tions there were almost no works of art to be seen, and none at all of the highest quality" (p. 67).

In 1804, Joseph Allen Smith of South Carolina presented the city of Philadel- phia with a collection of casts of antique sculpture that he had collected in Italy. At the time, the city lacked a suitable building to exhibit them. Therefore, Charles Willson Peale agreed to exhibit the casts in his natural history museum until a proper building could be constructed (Sellers, 1947, pp. 242-243).

The following year Sir Augustus John Foster, French Secretary of Legation to the United States, viewed the collection in Peale's natural history museum and was impressed by the quality of the casts (Foster, 1954). However, he was shocked by the prudery of Philadelphians which required that men and women view the collection separately. He observed that it was a "stupid kind of regula- tion" rather than a "delicate" one, and he blamed it for damage inflicted upon the casts by vandals (p. 257). Foster recorded that the custodian of the gallery told him that "lines written with a pencil which I spied here and there in a female hand upon the legs" of some of the casts were most surely scrawled "during a late visit of some young women, the latter being generally not so much under the influence of that timidity and reserve charactertistic of young ladies in Europe" (p. 258). The custodian noted (with male paranoia) that "when they [young ladies] get together [alone, in the gallery] they are said to be extremely plain spoken" (p. 258). Segregation of the sexes probably did contribute to the graffitti on the statues, and it certainly did nothing to improve Philadelphians' aesthetic sensitivity to works of art.

Plaster Casts and Art Academies While serving as Minister to France in 1801, Robert R. Livingston expressed

concern about the art situation in the United States. While in France, he developed a plan to establish an art academy in New York. His idea was to import plaster casts of ancient sculpture in order to expose Americans to their European artistic heritage and provide instructional aids for future American artists (Dunlap, 1918, pp. 104-105). Livingston's plan was accomplished, and the New York Academy of the Fine Arts was organized. In 1803, the casts arrived from Paris and were publicly exhibited in the rotunda of the "Panthe- on," a Roman Revival building originally built for a circus or riding school (Cummings, 1865, p. 6). They included the following full-size casts: the Laoco- on, Castor and Pollux, and Hermaphrodite, to name a few. Busts were also sent which included representations of Homer, Niobe, and Cleopatra (Dunlap, 1918, p. 105).

In 1805, the value of such casts for art students was argued by Charles Brockden Brown, America's first novelist. He contended that young artists who studied casts at home "would be less confused on their arrival in Europe among the originals" and a "much shorter stay would then suffice" (p. 113). Brown also felt that when artists returned to their homeland, galleries of plaster casts would

help to perpetuate in their memories the result of their studies: a fund of employment would be afforded to young artists in copying these antiques for foreigners, as well as natives; and our engravers, either native or imported would here always find objects from whence great works might be executed, equally interesting and much more correct, as well as less expensive, than any that have hither to appeared in elucidation of an- tiques. (pp. 113-114)

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Brown's arguments may have overestimated the value of casts for artists. Never- theless, plaster casts of the nude did allow artists of the time to study the human figure, since the use of a nude model was not an accepted practice in American art academies until the last quarter of the nineteenth century (Bellows, 1869, p. 470).

As previously noted, casts representing the nude figure created a problem for many puritanical North Americans. Public displays of casts of the nude were a source of controversy. Therefore, the New York Academy of the Fine Arts set a day aside for ladies only. Even with this provision, some visitors felt that the casts were not suitable for public exhibition. In order to resolve this problem, Robert R. Livingston, in Paris, wrote to Academy members and suggested that some of the casts be fitted with "fig leaves." This was to be accomplished by "getting from the broker a small concave shell or fig leaf which you paint white and hang with a small pach around the Waist" (Richards, 1965, p. 48). The suggestion was carried out; however, the casts did not remain on public display for very long. In 1805, one year after the name of the academy was changed to the American Academy of the Fine Arts, the original building was demolished, and the casts were packed and put in storage in the cellar of another New York building (Cowdrey, 1953, p. 13; Cummings, 1865, p. 7).

In 1805, Joseph Hopkinson, a congressman from Philadelphia, initiated the establishment of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He had been impressed by the casts in the New York Academy and felt that Philadelphia needed a similar institution (Dunlap, 1918, p. 106). On December 26, 1805, a pledge was drawn up by 72 gentlemen to carry out the plan (Henderson, 1911, pp. 4-5). Early the following year, a loan was requested to construct a building designed by John Dorsey. It was the first structure to be specifically designed and built as an art school and art museum in the United States (Searing, 1982, p. 22).

Nicholas Biddle, secretary to General Armstrong in Paris, was contacted by Academy members to purchase a collection of casts for the new institution. These were to come from a collection of sculpture that Napoleon had accumu- lated on his victorious campaigns in Italy. The emperor had molds of these sculptures made as soon as they arrived in Paris so that casts could be made easily and quickly. Other casts were to come from art works at the Louvre. Napoleon, eager for each of these collections of sculpture to be studied, con- sented to Biddle's request (Henderson, 1911, pp. 10-12).

In March of 1806, the casts were installed in the newly completed rotunda of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the exhibition was opened to the public. The admission price to the gallery was twenty-five cents, and Mondays were set aside "with tender gallantry, for ladies exclusively" (Henderson, 1911, p. 13). Among the full-size casts exhibited were the Laocoon, Castor and Pollux, and a Crouching Venus.

Meanwhile, in New York, the American Academy of Fine Arts was inactive from 1805 until 1816 when an attempt was made to revive the institution. The casts were taken out of storage and exhibited in a gallery of the Alms House. The Academy, however, continued to have problems with the public's accep- tance of the plaster casts. In 1818, the Torso of Venus and another statue of Venus in the collection had been disfigured to the extent that they were placed on pedestals behind a railing to protect them from the public (Cowdrey, 1953, pp. 22-23).

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In 1826, the collection was moved to the National Academy of Design, which had broken away from the American Academy to form an institution more closely concerned with the instruction of art students. By 1831, however, the casts in their new home had been "mutilated" to the extent that on October 31 the board of directors passed "the fig-leaf resolve" whereby "a plaster leaf be placed in lieu thereof' (Cummings, 1865, pp. 127-128).

The plaster casts in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts also suffered damage from the hands of visitors. In the late 1820s, Frances Trollope, an English writer, visited the Academy. Trollope (1839) considered the situation at the gallery to be deplorable. She recalled that just within the open door was a screen which prevented her from seeing the contents of the room. As she stood outside, "an old woman who appeared to officiate as guardian of the gallery, bustled up" and spoke to her "with an air of much mystery," urging her to enter (p. 216). Trollope stared at her and asked her meaning. The old woman replied, "Only, ma'am, that the ladies like to go into that room by themselves, when there be no gentlemen watching them" (p. 216).

One of the first things Trollope (1839) observed on entering the gallery was a notice "depreciating the disgusting depravity which led some of the visitors to mark and deface the casts in a most indecent and shameless manner" (p. 216). She was convinced that this was "occasioned by the coarse-minded custom which sends alternate groups of males and females into the room" (p. 217). She felt that damage to the casts would cease as soon as this prudish practice was dropped. Until then, she believed the "antique casts should not be exhibited to ladies at all" (p. 217).

Trollope (1839) further remarked, "I never felt my delicacy shocked at the Louvre, but I was strongly tempted to resent as an affront the hint I received that I might steal a glance at what was deemed indecent" (p. 217). She informed her readers that her experiences in the Pennsylvania Academy furnished a "good specimen of the kind of delicacy on which the Americans pride them- selves" (p. 217). As might be expected, her book Domestic Manners of the Americans, though widely read by Americans, was thoroughly disliked by them because it pointed out the shortcomings of contemporary American society.

Plaster Casts Versus Live Models Obviously, the casts were not original works of art. Apart from art-conscious

travelers to Europe, few North Americans had seen original sculpture. Some educated Americans despised the collections of casts which were being formed in New York and Philadelphia because they were reproductions composed of the lowly, common material, plaster of paris. For example, an article in the July 1831 issue of The New England Magazine made the following contrast between an original sculpture and a plaster cast. The writer stated that viewing a cast was like trying to form "an idea of a living flower by a dried specimen in an herbarium, or of a handsome man by his shadow on the wall" (Tyro, 1831, p. 21). Americans' lack of education was the real problem, and he continued:

Some people in this country, employ the little remains of learning they possess in decrying the study of the Greek and Latin classics, as an useless waste of time-others, who would look with equal emotions of pleasure, on the Laocoon or the Belvedere Apollo, and a barber's block, or the painted head of a China mandarin, wonder what earthly good can arise from an Academy of arts, or how the world is to be improved by a mutilated Torso. (p. 537)

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Despite the fact that the public viewed the casts with trepidation, the usefulness of these casts to young artists unable to travel to Europe was undeniable.

Some artists preferred to use a live model even though it was not an accepted practice at this time in the United States. This was one of the reasons that Hiram Powers, one of America's most famous nineteenth-century sculptors, moved to Europe. In 1868, he stated that it was "impossible ... to model successfully without living models; and in America, in my time it was almost at the peril of reputation, both for the model and sculptor," to employ a live model "even if he could procure it" (Bellows, 1869, p. 470). Nevertheless, Powers lamented their scarcity: "Now, I understand, a few models may be obtained in New York; but they are so rare and so expensive, that it is almost ruinous to employ them" (p. 470).

The Decline of Casts for Art Instruction in Academies During the 1860s, art students at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

generally took advantage of the casts; however, they formed life classes for themselves and paid their models by subscription. The models usually came from the lowest ranks of society and were required to wear masks to hide their identities from students (Brownell, 1879, p. 738). This was the situation when Thomas Eakins, now considered one of America's foremost nineteenth-century painters, studied art at the Academy.

In 1876, Thomas Eakins became an assistant professor of painting and anato- my for the Academy. Eakins disliked drawing from the plaster casts and de- clared that "at best, they are only imitations, and an imitation of imitations cannot have so much life as an imitation of nature itself' (Brownell, 1879, p. 742). Eakins rightly contended that "the Greeks did not study the antique: the 'Theseus' and 'Illyssus' [Sic] and the draped figures in the Parthenon pediment were modeled from life, undoubtedly" (p. 742). Also, Eakins consid- ered nature in his day to be "just as varied and just as beautiful" as it was "in the times of Phidias" (p. 742).

Recognizing the educational value of drawing from nature, Eakins developed a class in which both men and women students could draw from a nude model, albeit, at different hours. Before students were admitted into this class, they had to submit to a committee a satisfactory drawing from a plaster cast of the entire human figure (Brownell, 1879, p. 742; Nochin, 1971).

By the end of the nineteenth century, the nude model was more or less taken for granted in art academies. This acceptance of the nude model led to the decline of the usefulness of plaster casts in such schools. However, with this decline, individuals concerned with the aesthetic education of the general public began to recognize the value of placing plaster casts in public schools (Stan- kiewicz, 1984; Efland, 1985) and newly created art museums (Whitehill, 1970; Howe, 1974).

Conclusions This study has described a few of the complex social and ideological forces as

they relate to the educational value of plaster casts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It demonstrates that with their first arrival in colonial America, casts were recognized as important instructional aids - a trend which continued into the early years of the twentieth century.

Smibert (Foote, 1935) had intended to use plaster casts to convey concepts of beauty, strength of character, and nobility to American Indians who were to be "civilized" in an ill-fated (and from a contemporary point of view, ill-conceived)

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university for Indians. These concepts were, however, ultimately instilled, if not in the minds of native Americans, then in the minds of self-taught colonial painters who were eager to participate in the legacy of Western civilization. Smibert's collections thus served two important functions: as three-dimensional aids for teaching the values of Western civilization and as ideal models for training artists.

In the colonial era, comprehensive collections of casts were a great rarity. In most instances, one or two casts, such as Robert Edge Pine's copy of the Venus de'Medici, were highly valued by their owners. With the exception of artists like Pine who collected them for their obvious instructional value, wealthy, well- educated private individuals such as Washington and Jefferson purchased, or considered obtaining, casts to adorn their homes and demonstrate their taste and social class. These trends thus formed the basis for the great emphasis placed in the nineteenth century upon the value of plaster casts as visual aids in imparting to the American public Western ideas and concepts of beauty, nobil- ity, and morality, as well as their value in training young American art students.

Plaster casts were never as popular with the general public as they were with art students in academies. Throughout much of the nineteenth century, most poorly educated provincial Americans in a male-dominated society remained uncomfortable in the presence of classical nudity. Women, for instance, were thought to need protection against "immodest" displays and this led to the plaster casts being displayed on separate days for "ladies only." Such practice seems to have often led to the disfigurement of the casts. As a consequence, European visitors such as Frances Trollope ridiculed Americans for their false modesty. Nevertheless, many well-educated citizens were convinced that plas- ter casts were an important means to educate and improve the general popula- tion's taste.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, plaster casts began to lose their significance as teaching aids in North American art academies. This was due in part to new developments in art which downplayed the importance of classicism and the concept of the ideal. Another factor contributing to the less frequent use of casts in professional art academies was the increasingly liberal trend which began to allow, albeit on a strictly controlled basis, the study of anatomy from a live model.

Ironically, as plaster casts lost their importance for professional art acade- mies, they assumed an even greater role in the elevation of public taste in other institutions. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, casts in art academies served the dual function of instructing artists and serving as a "museum" for the general public. This role of "elevating" public taste was greatly expanded as concerned citizens and educators (particularly in New England) began to ex- plore the usefulness of placing reproductions of art in the form of plaster casts of sculpture in the nation's public schools and newly created art museums.

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