"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
Three
weeks ago I wrote how
Roger Fenton became famous for his battlefield photography during the
1853-56 Crimean War. An even-more famous personality emerged from
that blood-laced conflict: Florence Nightingale.
Augustus Egg, Florence Nightingale, ca. 1840s
Nightingale
(1820-1910) was born into a wealthy, upper-class, British family
pausing in Florence, Italy, which explains her given name. She was
just a year old when the family moved back to England. Among the
family’s residences was Embley Park, one of those huge piles
one sees so often in a variety of BBC television dramas.
Florence
was primarily educated by her father.
She
was living in Embley Park when, at 16, she believed she received a
call from God that she should devote her life in service to others.
The pattern for well-situated young women of her time was to become
wife and mother. Consequently, her family was angrily opposed to her
intentions. Even so, in 1844, she began educating herself to master
the arts and science of nursing. Nursing schools did not exist.
Florence
was attractive and personable. Among her suitors was Richard Milnes, 1st
Baron Houghton, but after a nine-year pursuit, she gave him the gate.
For Florence, marriage would be a stumbling block.
In
Rome, in 1847, she met a British politician, Sidney Herbert, who was
on his honeymoon. Florence and the Herberts became lifelong friends.
When Herbert became Minister of War during the Crimean War, he and
his wife were instrumental in enabling Florence to work there as a
nurse to the wounded warriors.
Hospital at Scutari, where Nightingale worked. An 1856 lithograph, Library of Congress.
Nightingale
was already a relentless social reformer. She was appalled by
conditions she found on the battlefields and in the hospitals of the
Crimean War, and she became famed as “The Lady with the Lamp”
because of her willingness to make her rounds in the night to treat
wounded soldiers.
Jerry Barrett, Nightingale Receiving Wounded at Scutari, National Portrait Gallery, London.
Although
the greatest achievements of her life were yet to come, the Crimean
War made her a legend. She was immortalized in all the art forms —
by sculptors, painters, poets, novelists.
Among
the American sculptors entranced by her legend was Avard Tennyson
Fairbanks (1897-1987), who modeled her, Lady
with the Lamp: Florence Nightingale,
in plaster. The model was taken to Carrara, Italy to be carved in
marble. This marble rendition was featured on the cover of the
Journal of the American
Medical Association, 12
August 1974.
After
the orginal plaster model was returned to the United States, it was
used to cast a single, 26" high signed bronze. Many of Avard’s
children and grandchildren have gone into medicine, and their gifts
of Avard’s art enrich many hospitals and universities.
One
of Avard’s grandsons is in the process of giving this unique
bronze Lady with the Lamp
to a healing institution.
Avard Fairbanks, Lady with the Lamp, bronze
(detail). The beautifully patinated bronze shows Florence
Nightingale, the legendary founder of modern nursing, as she goes
about the night to care for someone in need. She carries a lamp in
her right hand to light her way, while clutching her writings and
notes in her left. The statue by Dr. Fairbanks — who taught
anatomy in the School of Medicine, University of Utah, while serving
as the university’s first Dean of the School of Fine Arts —
is the sculptor’s tribute to the ennobled caregiver from the
Crimean War.
This British statue of Florence Nightingale, Lady with the
Lamp, was installed outside the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, which is now closed. Note the
different kinds of lamps the two sculptors used, one a torch, the
other a lantern.
Returned
to England, Florence founded the first secular nursing school in the
world, at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London. The pledge taken by
new nurses is known as the Nightingale Pledge, and an international
nurses’ day is held worldwide on her birthday.
There
is much more to the Nightingale story. Suffice it to say that her
worldwide legend was enough to attract the healing interest of one of
Utah’s greatest monumental sculptors.
Her
career might be summed up by this beautiful stained glass windows
created by Russ Hamer. Initially installed in the Derby Royal
Infirmary, it is now in St. Peter’s church.
Lawrence Jeppson is an art consultant, organizer and curator of art exhibitions, writer, editor
and publisher, lecturer, art historian, and appraiser. He is America's leading authority on
modern, handwoven French tapestries. He is expert on the works of William Henry Clapp, Nat
Leeb, Tsing-fang Chen, and several French artists.
He is founding president of the non-profit Mathieu Matégot Foundation for Contemporary
Tapestry, whose purview encompasses all 20th-century tapestry, an interest that traces back to
1948. For many years he represented the Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie and
Arelis in America.
Through the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the American Federation of
Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, and his own Art Circuit Services he has been a contributor to
or organizer of more than 200 art exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan.
He owns AcroEditions, which publishes and/or distributes multiple-original art. He was co-founder and artistic director of Collectors' Investment Fund.
He is the director of the Spring Arts Foundation; Utah Cultural Arts Foundation, and the Fine
Arts Legacy Foundation
Lawrence is an early-in-the-month home teacher, whose beat is by elevator. In addition, he has spent the past six years hosting and promoting reunions of the missionaries who served in the French Mission (France, Belgium, and Switzerland) during the decade after WWII.
