I can't help being overtaken by daydreams in a place like this, dreams of having my own vast lawns and gardens filled with art and perfect little nooks for sitting with a book, and a screened-porch where I and my friends (all artists and intellectuals, of course) could while away the afternoon in spirited conversation or casually enjoying one anothers talents. This particular place was the home of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the prolific American sculptor whose early years in Paris figure heavily in David McCullough's The Greater Journey: American's In Paris (which I had just finished). The estate is now a national historic site (nps.gov/saga). Just a short drive over a covered bridge from Windsor County, Vermont and there we were.
Many of Saint Gauden's original works are there--large, breathtaking memorials and smaller bas-relief portraits, as well as the kind of small cameos upon which he cut his artistic teeth, so to speak. We toured the house and then wandered on our own through the studio, styled after his favorite places in Italy. Ah, Someday, I think, but really, I was happy just to pretend it was mine for a day.
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