Philadelphia: City of Sculpture and the Schuylkill and the Fountain of the Three Rivers

In late afternoon, the setting sun’s rays glance up from the Schuylkill’s shimmering surface toward an area populated by some of the most distinguished sculptural figures in the country. Along Kelly Drive (formerly, East River Drive) reside such esteemed statuary as Daniel Chester French’s and Edward C. Potter’s equestrian figure of Ulysses S. Grant, Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ James A. Garfield, and Randolph Rogers’ Abraham Lincoln. There, Frederic Remington’s Cowboy rides, Khoren der Harootian’s Poet muses, and Henry Rosin’s John B. Kelly rows (as he did in life, along the Schuylkill). There are also such masterful sculptural compositions as Jacqes Lipchitz’s The Spirit of Enterprise, Robert Laurent’s Spanning the Continent, and Henry Kreis’s The Birth of a Nation. Moving along the scenic East Bank on the road that leads toward Emmanuel Fremiet’s Joan of Arc, Alexander Stirling Calder’s Swann Memorial Fountain, and on to Alexander Milne Calder’s William Penn atop City Hall, it is clear to see Philadelphia as The City of Sculpture and the Schuylkill.

Swann Memorial Fountain, pictured on the cover of this journal, is located at Logan Circle on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Also called the Fountain of the Three Rivers, it is a great example of collaboration between a sculptor (Calder) and an architect (Wilson Eyre, Jr.). Eyre designed the fountain and Calder designed the sculptural figures. The sculptural work comprises three human figures in the semblance of Native Americans: a male representing the Delaware River, a young female representing Wissahickon Creek, and the mature female figure, representing the Schuylkill River. Along with the three human figures, there also appear frogs, turtles, and a fish, as well as two swans Calder fashioned as a sculptural pun on the name of the man memorialized by the work. Dr. Wilson Cary Swann was the founder of the Philadelphia Fountain Society, a temperance group founded in 1869 on the principle that availability of drinking water would reduce tavern patronage and increase sobriety. By the time the fountain was built in the 1920s, Prohibition had dampened the temperance movement (perhaps more effectively than it did the consumption of alcohol). However, the Philadelphia Fountain Society was still in existence and wished to commemorate its founder. Although the temperance movement, Dr. Swann, and the Fountain Society are largely forgotten, the fountain remains as a spectacular feature of Philadelphia’s scenic parkway.

Long before the twenty-seven ton bronze William Penn was hoisted aloft to become the largest statue on any building in the world, Philadelphia had established a sculptural tradition. That tradition reflected the city’s relation to the Schuylkill, thanks largely to the artist recognized as the first American sculptor, William Rush. Rush was born in Philadelphia on the fourth of July, before it was a holiday, in 1756. The Schuylkill was already important to Philadelphia, and was soon to become much more so.

The earth is two-thirds water, and cities, though built on land, run on water. Independent as Philadelphia is, with its Independence Hall, Independence Mall, and Liberty Bell, the city is very much dependent on the Schuylkill River. This has been particularly so since the city’s first public waterworks was built at the start of the nineteenth century, on the very site where City Hall now stands.

WATERWORKS OF CENTER SQUARE

The Center Square Waterworks was built largely in reaction to an epidemic of Yellow Fever that decimated Philadelphia’s population in the 1790s. The disease was attributed to the generally filthy conditions in the city, while the actual transmitter of the virus, the mosquito, was mistaken for an innocent bystander. The Watering Committee was formed to try to provide clean, safe water for street cleaning as well as for drinking. The Schuylkill River, then reputed to be of “uncommon purity”, a reputation since sullied along with its water, was the natural resource to be used to supply the city. (Today, defying the taint of pollution, Schuylkill River water, still a crucial resource, is purified at two of the city’s three water treatment facilities.)

From a functional standpoint, the Center Square Waterworks was to pump water upward from the Schuylkill by steam power to a tank from which it could feed the municipal water system. But the Center Square Waterworks was a thing of beauty as well, designed in the neo-classical style by architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe. In Philadelphia, aesthetics was a major consideration even in the case of a project as vital as this. It was decided to adorn the waterworks with a sculptural fountain.

Sculptor William Rush, a member of the City Council, who took an active role with the Watering Committee, also served alongside Charles Wilson Peale on the initial board of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1805. The Philadelphia Gazette dubbed Rush “the father of American sculpture.” He had established his virtuosity carving ship figureheads. The architect Latrobe admired Rush’s figureheads, saying, “They seem rather to draw the ship after them than to be impelled by the vessel.” In 1808, Rush’s sculptural figures of Comedy and Tragedy were set in niches in front of another Latrobe project, the Chestnut Street Theater.

Installed in 1809 in front of the Center Square Waterworks, Rush’s Allegory of the Schuylkill River, also called Water Nymph and Bittern, is believed to be the first publicly funded decorative fountain in the country. For the fee of two hundred dollars, Rush sculpted and supervised the installation of the female figure holding a bird from whose beak the fountain water would spout. This fountain stood in front of Center Square Waterworks for two decades.

WATERWORKS OF FAIRMOUNT

Before long, the needs of the growing city exceeded the capacity of the Center Square Waterworks. In 1812, the Fairmount Waterworks facility was built to pump Schuylkill River water to a reservoir on the hill (known then as “Fair Mount”) where the Philadelphia Museum of Art now stands. Steam engines powered this operation initially. Technology advanced and safer and more reliable water power replaced steam, as a mill house and dam were built. Functionality was once more accompanied by aesthetics, as the facility’s grounds were expanded and beautified to produce the “Fair Mount Gardens.” Once again William Rush was called upon to provide sculptural features. In 1825, his The Schuylkill Freed and The Schuylkill Chained, complementary figures that symbolize man’s complex relation with the river, were placed on the mill house entrances. In 1829, after the original Center Square Waterworks building was destroyed, Rush’s Water Nymph and Bittern joined the newer Rush sculptures at Fairmount.

During much of the nineteenth century, the Fairmount Waterworks was the second most popular tourist attraction in the United States, drawing more visitors than any other site in the nation except for Niagara Falls. Among the many visitors was Charles Dickens who wrote, “the water works at Fairmount were no less ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a public garden and kept in best and neatest order.” In 1911, the Fairmount Waterworks, which had served Philadelphia in many ways for many years, was put out of operation.

WOOD, WOOD, AND MORE WOOD

Two years after the Fairmount Waterworks stopped running, so did the last incarnation of the Chestnut Street Theater, although both Tragedy and Comedy survived. These pine sculptures can be seen today at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They have been fortunate to last longer than many other wooden objects.

In America at the start of the nineteenth century, wood and clean water were plentiful as well as vital resources. Both sculpture and underground water pipe were made from wood. Bridges were also being built of wood when the Schuylkill Permanent Bridge was constructed between 1801 and 1805. One of only two covered bridges in the world at the time, this bridge that helped Market Street (then High Street) across the Schuylkill River, was decorated with two wooden sculptural figures, one representing Agriculture on the west side, and another on the east, representing Commerce. These sculptures were, in the words of the Philadelphia Engineering Department’s report on the bridge, “executed, by that eminent American naval sculptor, William Rush of Philadelphia; whose works as an artist, are admired, in whatever part of the world they are seen.” This bridge and its adornments were part of the scene admired by the many visitors to the Fairmount Waterworks area.

Despite its robust constitution and its name, the Schuylkill Permanent Bridge was destroyed by fire in 1875.

HOMAGE

A year after the demise of the Schuylkill Permanent Bridge and nearly a half century after William Rush’s own demise (flesh being even less durable than wood), the event of Rush’s creation of the Water Nymph statue was commemorated by the foremost and most controversial of Philadelphia painters, Thomas Eakins. “William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River” is arguably the most famous painting of a sculptor at work in his studio. The homage to Rush is indirect, as the featured figure in the painting is neither Rush nor his sculpture. They appear in the dark background, while highlighted is the nude form of the young socialite who served as model for the sculpture. Louisa Vanuxem may not have posed in the nude as Eakins’ painting would have it, but if she was clad at all, it was scantily, judging from the carving that resulted. Neither the allegorical label nor the diaphanous clothing in which Rush dressed the Water Nymph did anything to hide the sensuality of the figure. Rush’s artistic rendering of the buxom Ms. Vanuxem caused a stir at the time. In the intervening years, Rush’s continued artistic accomplishments, attainment of old age and death rendered him a venerable personage.

Eakins was an ardent advocate of anatomical accuracy, and a firm believer in the virtue of the liberal use of nude models, a practice that earned Eakins a measure of censure in his academic career. While Eakins may have been exploiting Rush to promote his own views, it is a tribute to Rush that Eakins considered him a sufficiently formidable figure in the history of art to use in this capacity.

The Eakins painting is displayed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art across from a bronze replica of Rush’s sculpture. This display reminds us that some things endure.

Art and the precise rendition of the human form have stirred controversy through many ages. This was true in Rush’s time, in Eakins' time, and our own. But so long as the art is good, as it is in hands like those of Eakins and Rush, whatever draws attention to it is providing a worthwhile service.

It has been noted by many that, seen from the Parkway, the scroll in William Penn’s hand can be easily mistaken for a detail of anatomical completion that the sculptor never intended. Adolescents like to call each others’ attention to this. They look and they titter, as adolescents have done from time immemorial. But at least they look. It does make them aware of sculpture and the three-dimensionality of it. And perhaps, when the tittering dies down, some stop and reflect on the virtues of art beyond vulgar interpretation.

IMPERMANENCE AND CONTINUANCE

Wooden works like William Rush’s seem particularly susceptible to the ravages of the ages. There is much more sturdy stuff, but permanence is too much to ask of any material. Stone, steel, even Styrofoam, eventually succumb to the rushing waters of time. And the current solid sculptural citizens of the Schuylkill’s east bank, too, will eventually pass the way of the Schuylkill Permanent Bridge. And when they do, the Schuylkill will likely continue to flow along much the same course. Yet, so long as there is a Philadelphia, there will be new generations of hands to fashion the art of the coming ages, new generations of art to catch the rays of sunlight that glance off the shimmering water, to uphold the tradition of sculpture and the Schuylkill begun by William Rush so many years ago.

Bibliography:

1. “The History of Philadelphia’s Watersheds and Sewers” Compiled by Adam Levine, Historical Consultant, Philadelphia Water Department on PhillyH2O Website.
2. Philadelphia History: Consisting of Papers Read Before the City History Society of Philadelphia : with a History of the Society and a General Index. By City History Society of Philadelphia Published by The Society, 1917
3. A Statistical Account of the Schuylkill Permanent Bridge,commenced September 5th 1801,opened January 1st,1805,communicated to the Philadelphia Society of Agriculture,1806: Communicated to the Philadelphia Society of Agriculture, 1806 By Richard Peters, Theodore Cooper Published by Re-print by Jane Aitken, 1807
4. Philadelphia Kelly Drive and Schuylkill River Photos From John Fischer, for About.com
5. Fairmount Water Works: Past and Future by Dena Sher from Friends of the Wissahickon Newsletter Archives.
6. Penny Balkin Bach. PUBLIC ART IN PHILADELPHIA. Temple University Press, 1992
7. Wayne Craven. AMERICAN ART–HISTORY AND CULTURE Brown and Benchmark, 1994