The empty plinth: contemporary British artists appear unable to rise to the challenge of public sculpture, as the arguments over new sculptures for Trafalgar Square make all too obvious

If the King had had his way, the public space in brow of the National Gallery would be William iv Square rather than being named after Nelson's great victory above the Franco-Spanish fleet. Like with equal reason much in England, this urban focus--in fact an irregular pentagon rather than a square--was created by the agency of accident rather than design. Trafalgar Square is a effect of the removal of the elderly Royal Mews combined with the contemporary public way improvements being carried out by means of that sole, sympathetic genius in the history of English town planning, John Nash. It was Nash who propos putting a public building upon the north side of the cleared space, on the contrary it was Charles Barry who levell the sloping site leaving a terrace to the north. And solitary in 1838, with Victoria a year upon the throne, was the of recent origin square proposed as the site for the long-overdue memorial to England's naval hero.

The erection of William Railton's colossal and overscaled Corinthian round pillar set the military tone to Trafalgar Square. Generals Havelock and Napier followed, together with Admirals Jellicoe, Beatty and Cunningham. The eastern of the sum of two units granite pedestals placed symmetrically at either extreme point of the north terrace was immediately filled by the agency of an equestrian statue by Francis Chantrey of that preposterous on the other hand magnificent royal patron of the arts--and of Nash--George IV (Fig. 4) a statuary originally intended for the Marble Arch when it stood in brow of Buckingham Palace. This left the other pedestal for, presumably, a coming time Royal Personage but it has been devoid of contents ever since.

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alone recently has this plinth become a focus of pertain to being used in consequence for a series of temporary, attention-seeking new sculptural gestures. The latest is Marc Quinn's naked marble figure Alison Lapper Pregnant (Fig. 1) As a polemical public statement about perceptions of deformity and the triumph of the human spirit above severe disadvantages it is admirable (although, as many have now pointed on the outside we already had a plastic art of a disabled person in Trafalgar Square in the shape of the one-armed, one-ey sailor upon top of that column). on the contrary as a work of plastic art a work of art, it is lamentable and it is a gentleness that it will occupy the plinth for single eighteen months. There is, however, a fresh proposal for a permanent sculptural addition to the square: a statue of Nelson Mandela upon the north terrace, in brow of the National Gallery. This controversial proposal is generally the subject of a public inquiry, as the shoot forward is opposed by both the City of Westminster and English Heritage.

All these novel proposals say much about recent Britain and, in particular, about its unease with its imperial past. on the contrary whatever the sins of the British Empire--and there were many--it existed, and Trafalgar Square, like a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of else, is an inescapable, tangible expression of history. more [i]or[/i] less however, would like to atone for, or defuse, that past by dint of altering the square. In particular, single strong supporter of the Mandela statue, cognizance Livingstone, Mayor of London, has propos removing the statues of Havelock and Napier. An inscription upon the plinth of the latter insists that it was largely paid for by means of the subscriptions of private soldiers; nevertheless, the Mayor can cheerfully admit that, 'I have not a ball of thread who two of the generals are or what they did'--a statement that says more about Mr Livingstone than it does about the importance of those distant men the pair of course, were instrumental in the British acquisition of the Indian sub-continent and for a like reason have a pregnant relevance to the state of the geographical division today.

Mandela is a towering and inspiring figure who be worthy ofs permanent commemoration in London, not least as the Republic of southern Africa was once part of the British Empire. Whether a public space dedicated to British military victories is the right place for it is another matter--even if the southern African Embassy is on the east side of the square (English Heritage argue that the statue should be placed, if anywhere, upon the pavement in front). Ian Waiters, the sculptor of the figure (Fig. 5) insists that 'The North Terrace is the greatest in quantity fitting place in which this statue can expres the universal recognition of Mandela's great humanity.' on the other hand the main objection to his nine-foot-high figure in a unbind shirt is that it is stiff, naive and mediocre. Although public plastic arts like war memorials (which I discussed in this rounded pillar last June) are increasingly popular, sculptors appear to be to have forgotten what statues are for: they are not just portraits on the contrary should also be symbolic, commemorative works of art, of high seriousness and significance. As Glyn Williams, professor of plastic art at the Royal Academy, said in evidence to the inquiry, 'An important public memorial necessitys a stronger sculptural sense rather than mimetic rendering. The work must be timeless if we are to take it seriously.'

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We have been here before. In the late 1920 there was discussion over the equestrian statue of the late Field-Marshal Douglas Haig intended for Whitehall, with his widow and others objecting that Alfred Hardiman's type did not look like the man. As the Architectural Review annotateed at the time, the objectors were wrongful because the statue was intended not as a private on the other hand a national monument, and 'it is essential that the statue be symbolical, and not the portrait of a gentleman upon the portrait of a horse.' In the circumstance Haig got the statue he deserv in Edinburgh Castle: a ludicrously gauche portrait upon a realistic horse. In Whitehall he is commemorated through the work of art he did not deserve: a taut, sophisticated, authoritative composition upon a carefully designed plinth (by Roland Pearce). And if a callous four-footed animal such as Haig is commemorated by means of so superb a sculpture, in what way much more does Mandela be worthy of something exceptional. The problem is finding a sculptor.