John Gibson (sculptor)

Detail of statue of William Huskisson by John Gibson in Pimlico Gardens, London.

Gibson was born near Conwy, Wales, where his father was a market gardener. When he was nine years old the family were on the point of emigrating to America, but his mother put a stop to this plan on their arrival at Liverpool, where they settled, and where Gibson was sent to school. He became fascinated by the displays in the windows of the city's print shops.[4] The painter and printseller John Turmeau lent him some drawings and plaster casts to copy.[5]

At the age of fourteen, Gibson was apprenticed to a firm of cabinet-makers. He soon took a violent dislike to this work, however, and eventually managed to have his articles bought out by the monumental masons Samuel and Thomas Franceys.[4] It was while apprenticed to the Franceys brothers that Gibson came to the attention of the historian William Roscoe, for whom he executed a terracotta bas-relief now in the Liverpool museum. Roscoe gave Gibson access to his library at Allerton, by which means he became acquainted with the designs of the great Italian masters.[4]

Sleeping Shepherd Boy (1824)

A cartoon (now also in the Liverpool museum) of The Fall of the Angels marked this period. He studied anatomy, his lessons provided gratuitously by a medical man, and gained introductions to families of refinement and culture in Liverpool. Roscoe was an excellent guide to his protégée, pointing to the Greeks as the only examples for a sculptor. Gibson here found his true vocation. A basso rilievo of Psyche carried by the Zephyrs was the result. He sent it to the Royal Academy, where John Flaxman, recognizing its merits, gave it an excellent place. Again he became unsettled. He conceived a wish to further his artistic education in Rome, and the first step to this goal went to go to London; there he received conflicting advice from Flaxman and from Francis Legatt Chantrey, the former urging him go to Rome as the highest school of sculpture in the world, the latter maintaining that London could do as much for him.[4]

Sir Robert Peel Statue by John Gibson, The Illustrated London News. 1 October 1853

He arrived in Rome in October 1817, at a comparatively late age for a first visit. There he was generously received by Antonio Canova, to whom he had introductions, the Venetian sculptor putting not only his experience in art but his purse at the English student's service. Up to this time, though his designs show a fire and power of imagination in which no teaching is missed, Gibson had had no instruction, and had studied at no Academy. In Rome he first became acquainted with the rules and technicalities of art. Canova introduced him into the Academy supported by Austria, and the first sense of his deficiencies in common matters of practice was depressing to him. He saw Italian youths already excelling in the drawing of the figure. But the tables were soon turned.[4] His first work in marble, Sleeping Shepherd Boy, was completed in 1824.[6]

Gibson was soon launched, and distinguished patrons, initially sent by Canova, made their way to his studio in the Via Fontanella. His aim was always purity of character and beauty of form. He rarely declined into the prettiness of Canova, and if he did not often approach the masculine strength of Bertel Thorvaldsen, he more than once surpassed him even in that quality. He was essentially classic in feeling and aim, but here his habit of observation enabled him to achieve a grace beyond the reach of a mere imitator. His subjects were gleaned from the free actions of the Italian people noticed on his walks, and afterwards given such mythological names as best fitted them. Thus a girl kissing a child over her shoulder became a Nymph and Cupid; a woman helping her child with his foot on her hand on to her lap, a Bacchante and Faun; his Amazon Thrown from her Horse, one of his most original productions, was taken from an accident he witnessed to a female rider in a circus; and Hunter and Dog was also the result of a street scene.[4]

Gibson was elected R.A. in 1836, and bequeathed all his property and the contents of his studio to the Royal Academy, where his marbles and casts are open to the public as of 2005. He died at Rome on 7 January 1866 and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery there.