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D O W E R E A L LY U N D E R S TA N D Q UA N T U M MECHANICS?
Second Edition
Quantum mechanics impacts on many areas of physics from pure theory to applica-
tions. However, it is very delicate to interpret, and philosophical difficulties as well
as counter-intuitive results are apparent at a fundamental level. This book presents
our current understanding of the theory, providing a historical introduction and
discussing many of its interpretations.
Fully revised from the first edition, this book contains state-of-the-art research
such as loophole-free experimental Bell tests; theorems on the reality of the wave
function including the PBR theorem; and a new section on quantum simulation.
More interpretations are now incorporated, described, and compared, with dis-
cussion of their successes and difficulties. Other sections, such as the quantum
error correction codes and references, have been expanded. This book is ideal
for researchers in physics and maths, and philosophers of science interested in
quantum physics and its foundations.
f r a n c k l a l o ë is Researcher Emeritus at the National Center for Scientific

Research (CNRS) and is affiliated to the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel at the École
Normale Supérieure. He is co-author of Quantum Mechanics (with Claude Cohen-
Tannoudji and Bernard Diu), one of the most well-known textbooks on quantum
mechanics.
D O W E R E A L LY U N D E R S TA N D
Q UA N T U M M E C H A N I C S ?
Second Edition
F R A N C K L A L O Ë
Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, École Normale Supérieure, Paris and
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
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Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108477000
DOI: 10.1017/9781108569361
© Franck Laloë 2012
© Cambridge University Press 2019
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2012
Second edition 2019
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Laloe, Franck, 1940– author.
Title: Do we really understand quantum mechanics? /
Franck Laloë (École Normale Supérieure, Paris).
Description: Second edition. | Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge
University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018029216 | ISBN 9781108477000 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Quantum theory. | Science–Philosophy.
Classification: LCC QC174.12 .L335 2019 | DDC 530.12–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018029216
ISBN 978-1-108-47700-0 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Contents
Foreword page ix
Preface xi
Preface to the first edition xiii
1 Historical Perspective 1
1.1 Three periods 2
1.2 The state vector 7
1.3 Other formalisms, field theory, path integrals 17
2 Present Situation, Remaining Conceptual Difficulties 21
2.1 Von Neumann’s infinite regress/chain 24
2.2 Schrödinger’s cat, measurements 26
2.3 Wigner’s friend 32
2.4 Negative and “interaction-free” measurements 34
2.5 A variety of points of view 41
2.6 Unconvincing arguments 48
3 The Theorem of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen 49
3.1 A theorem 50
3.2 Of peas, pods, and genes 52
3.3 Transposition to physics 56
3.4 Generalizations 67
4 Bell Theorem 73
4.1 Bell inequalities 74
4.2 Various derivations of the theorem 87
4.3 Impact of the Bell theorem, loopholes 102
5 Other Inequalities, Cirelson’s Limit, Signaling 117
5.1 Other inequalities 117
vi Contents
5.2 Cirelson’s theorem 137

5.3 Relativity, locality, field theory 140
5.4 No instantaneous signaling 143
6 More Theorems 153
6.1 Quantum properties of GHZ states 153
6.2 Cabello’s inequality 163
6.3 Hardy’s impossibilities 165
6.4 Bell–Kochen–Specker theorem, contextuality 169
6.5 Reality of the quantum state, ψ-ontology theorems 179
7 Quantum Entanglement 189
7.1 A purely quantum property 190
7.2 Characterizing entanglement 195
7.3 Creating and losing entanglement 204
7.4 Quantum dynamics of a subsystem 215
8 Applications of Quantum Entanglement 223
8.1 Two theorems 223
8.2 Quantum cryptography 227
8.3 Teleporting a quantum state 234
8.4 Quantum computation and simulation 237
9 Quantum Measurement 243
9.1 Direct measurements 243
9.2 Indirect measurements 255
9.3 Conditional and continuous measurements 260
10 Experiments: Quantum Reduction Seen in Real Time 275
10.1 Single ion in a trap 276
10.2 Single electron in a trap 280
10.3 Measuring the number of photons in a cavity 282
10.4 Spontaneous phase of Bose–Einstein condensates 285
11 Various Interpretations and Reconstructions of Quantum Me-
chanics 293
11.1 Pragmatism in laboratories 294
11.2 Ensemble interpretations 302
11.3 Relational interpretation, relative state vector 304
11.4 Logical, algebraic, and deductive approaches 309
11.5 Veiled reality 315
11.6 Contextual quantum reality 316
11.7 History interpretation 316
11.8 Additional (“hidden”) variables 328
Contents vii
11.9 Modal interpretation 368

11.10 Modified Schrödinger dynamics 371
11.11 Transactional interpretation 391
11.12 Everett interpretation 392
Conclusion 405
12 Annex: Basic Mathematical Tools of Quantum Mechanics 409

12.1 General physical system 409
12.2 Grouping several physical systems 421
12.3 Particles in a potential 425
Appendix A Mental Content of the State Vector 433

Appendix B Bell Inequalities in Nondeterministic Local Theories 435
Appendix C Attempting to Construct a “Separable” Quantum The-
ory 439
Appendix D Maximal Probability for a State 442
Appendix E The Influence of Pair Selection 443
Appendix F Impossibility of Superluminal Communication 447
Appendix G Quantum Measurements at Different Times 452
Appendix H Manipulating and Preparing Additional Variables 457
Appendix I Correlations and Trajectories in Bohmian Theory 460
Appendix J Models for Spontaneous Reduction of the State Vector 473
Appendix K Consistent Families of Histories 478
Appendix L Attractive Schrödinger Dynamics 481
References 489
Index 527
Foreword 1
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
Quantum mechanics is an essential topic in today’s physics curriculum at both

the undergraduate and graduate levels. Quantum mechanics can explain the micro-
scopic world with fantastic accuracy; the fruits from its insights have created tech-
nologies that have revolutionized the world. Computers, lasers, mobile telephones,
and optical communications are but a few examples. The language of quantum me-
chanics is now an accepted part of the language of physics, and day-to-day usage
of this language provides physicists with the intuition that is essential for achieving
meaningful results. Nevertheless, most physicists acknowledge that, at least once
in their scientific career, they have had difficulties understanding the foundations
of quantum theory, perhaps even the impression that a really satisfactory and con-
vincing formulation of the theory is still lacking.
Numerous quantum mechanics textbooks are available for explaining the quan-
tum formalism and applying it to understand problems such as the properties of
atoms, molecules, liquids, and solids; the interactions between matter and radia-
tion; and more generally to understand the physical world that surrounds us. Other
texts are available for elucidating the historical development of this discipline and
describing the steps through which it went before quantum mechanics reached its
modern formulation. In contrast, books are rare that review the conceptual diffi-
culties of the theory and then provide a comprehensive overview of the various
attempts to reformulate quantum mechanics in order to solve these difficulties. The
present text by Franck Laloë does precisely this. It introduces and discusses in
detail results and concepts such as the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen theorem, Bell’s
theorem, and quantum entanglement that clearly illustrate the strange character of
quantum behavior. Within the last few decades, impressive experimental progress
1 Translated by D. Kleppner
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x
has made it possible to carry out experiments that the founding fathers of quantum
mechanics considered only as “thought experiments”. For instance, it is now pos-
sible to follow the evolution of a single atom in real time. These experiments are
briefly reviewed, providing an updated view of earlier results such as convincing
violations of the Bell inequalities.
This book provides a clear and objective presentation of the alternative formu-
lations that have been proposed to replace the traditional “orthodox” theory. The
internal logic and consistency of these interpretations is carefully explained so as
to provide the reader with a clear view of the formulations and a broad view of
the state of the discipline. At a time when research is becoming more and more
specialized, I think that it is crucial to keep some time for personal thought, to step
back and ask oneself questions about the deep significance of the concepts that we
employ routinely. In this text, I see the qualities of clarity, intellectual rigor, and
deep analysis that I have always noticed and appreciated in the work of the author
during many years of friendly collaboration. I wish the book a well-deserved great
success!
Preface
This second edition has benefited from many discussions with colleagues, sem-
inars, etc. at various places; this stimulated various improvements and additions
to the first edition. I am especially grateful to Philip Stamp, who read the first
edition of this book very thoroughly and provided an impressive list of excellent
suggestions. My dear old friend Bill Mullin also helped a lot with many excel-
lent remarks on some chapters. I greatly benefited from the deep understanding
of Johannes Kofler concerning the domain of validity of the various Bell inequali-
ties, and the various possible “loopholes” in the interpretation of the experiments.
Philippe Grangier, Patrick Peter, Jean Bricmont, Ward Struyve, Roger Balian, Julia
Kempe, and Michel le Bellac provided many excellent suggestions and remarks to
improve the text.
Finally, a wonderful feature of Internet is that the author of a book can receive by
mail many reactions from readers all over the world. In particular, I wish to thank
Paul Slater, who, from California, sent me by email a series of particularly useful
suggestions, but alas I cannot give here the long list of the many other colleagues
who also helped in various ways with their suggestions.
Preface to the First Edition
In many ways, quantum mechanics is a surprising theory. It is known to be nonin-

tuitive, and leads to representations of physical phenomena that are very different
from what our daily experience could suggest. But it is also very surprising because
it creates a big contrast between its triumphs and difficulties.
On the one hand, among all theories, quantum mechanics is probably one of the
most successful achievements of science. It was initially invented in the context
of atomic physics, but it has now expanded into many domains of physics, giving
access to an enormous number of results in optics, solid-state physics, astrophysics,
etc. It has actually now become a general method, a framework in which many
theories can be developed, for instance to understand the properties of fluids and
solids, fields, elementary particles, and leading to a unification of interactions in
physics. Its range extends much further than the initial objectives of its inventors
and, what is remarkable, this turned out to be possible without changing the general
principles of the theory. The applications of quantum mechanics are everywhere in
our twenty-first century environment, with all sorts of devices that would have been
unthinkable 50 years ago.
On the other hand, conceptually this theory remains relatively fragile because of
its delicate interpretation – fortunately, this fragility has little consequence for its
efficiency. The reason why difficulties persist is certainly not that physicists have
tried to ignore them or put them under the rug! Actually, a large number of in-
terpretations have been proposed over the decades, involving various methods and
mathematical techniques. We have a rare situation in the history of sciences: con-
sensus exists concerning a systematic approach to physical phenomena, involving
calculation methods having an extraordinary predictive power; nevertheless, almost
a century after the introduction of these methods, the same consensus is far from
xiv
being reached concerning the interpretation of the theory and its foundations. This
is reminiscent of the colossus with feet of clay.
The difficulties of quantum mechanics originate from the object it uses to de-
scribe physical systems, the state vector |Ψi. While classical mechanics describes a
system by directly specifying the positions and velocities of its components, quan-
tum mechanics replaces them by a complex mathematical object |Ψi, providing a
relatively indirect description. This is an enormous change, not only mathemat-
ically, but also conceptually. The relations between |Ψi and physical properties
leave much more room for discussions about the interpretation of the theory than
in classical physics. Actually, many difficulties encountered by those who tried (or
are still trying) to “really understand” quantum mechanics are related to questions
pertaining to the exact status of |Ψi. For instance, does it describe the physical re-
ality itself, or only some (partial) knowledge that we might have of this reality?
Does it describe ensembles of systems only (statistical description), or one single
system as well (single events)? Assume that, indeed, |Ψi is affected by an imperfect
knowledge of the system; is it then not natural to expect that a better description
should exist, at least in principle? If so, what would be this deeper and more precise
description of the reality?
Another confusing feature of |Ψi is that, for systems extended in space (for in-
stance, a system made of two particles at very different locations), it gives an over-
all description of all its physical properties in a single block, from which the notion
of space seems to have disappeared; in some cases, the properties of the two remote
particles are completely “entangled” in a way where the usual notions of space-time
and of events taking place in it seem to become diluted. It then becomes difficult,
or even impossible, to find a spatio-temporal description of their correlations that
remains compatible with relativity. All this is of course very different from the
usual concepts of classical physics, where one attributes local properties to physi-
cal systems by specifying the density, the value of fields, etc. at each point of space.
In quantum mechanics, this separability between the physical content of different
points of space is no longer possible in general. Of course, one could think that this
loss of a local description is just an innocent feature of the formalism with no spe-
cial consequence. For instance, in classical electromagnetism, it is often convenient
to introduce a choice of gauge for describing the fields in an intermediate step; in
the Coulomb gauge, the potential propagates instantaneously, while Einstein rel-
ativity forbids any communication that is faster than light. But this instantaneous
propagation is just a mathematical artifact: when a complete calculation is made,
proper cancellations of the instantaneous propagation take place so that, at the end,
the relativistic limitation is perfectly obeyed. But, and as we will see, it turns out
that the situation is much less simple in quantum mechanics: in fact, a mathemat-
ical entanglement in |Ψi can indeed have important physical consequences for the
xv
result of experiments, and even lead to predictions that are, in a sense, contradictory
with locality. Without any doubt, the state vector is a curious object for describing
reality!
It is therefore not surprising that quantum mechanics should have given rise to
so many interpretations. Their very diversity makes them interesting. Each of them
introduces its own conceptual frame and view of physics, sometimes attributing to
it a special status among the other natural sciences. Moreover, these interpretations
may provide complementary views on the theory, shedding light onto some inter-
esting features that, otherwise, would have gone unnoticed. The best-known exam-
ple is Bohm’s theory, from which Bell started to obtain a theorem illustrating gen-
eral properties of quantum mechanics and entanglement, with applications ranging
outside the Bohmian theory. Other examples exist, such as the use of stochastic
Schrödinger dynamics to better understand the evolution of a quantum subsystem,
the history interpretation and its view of complementarity, etc.
This book is intended for the curious reader who wishes to get a broad view on
the general situation of quantum physics, including the various interpretations that
have been elaborated, and without putting aside the difficulties when they occur.
It is not a textbook designed for a first contact with quantum mechanics; there
already exist many excellent reference books for students. In fact, from Chapter
1, the text assumes some familiarity with quantum mechanics and its formalism
(Dirac notation, the notion of wave function, etc.). Any student who has already
studied quantum mechanics for a year should have no difficulty in following the
equations. Actually, there are relatively few in this book, which focuses, not on
technical, but on logical and conceptual difficulties. Moreover, a chapter is inserted
as an annex at the end of the book in order to help those who are not used to the
quantum formalism. It offers a first contact with the notation; the reader may, while
he/she progresses in the other chapters, choose a section of this chapter to clarify
his/her ideas on such or such a technical point.
Chapters 1 and 2 recall the historical context, from the origin of quantum me-
chanics to the present situation, including the successive steps from which the
present status of |Ψi emerged. Paying attention to history is not inappropriate in
a field where the same recurrent ideas are so often rediscovered; they appear again
and again, sometimes almost identical over the years, sometimes remodelled or
rephrased with new words, but in fact more or less unchanged. Therefore, a look at
the past is not necessarily a waste of time! Chapters 3 and 4 discuss two important
theorems that form a logical chain, the EPR (Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen) the-
orem and the Bell theorem; both give rise to various forms, several of which will
be described. Chapters 5 and 6 introduce more recent theorems that follow similar
lines, as well as possible consequences on the status of the state vector. Chapter
7 gives a more general view on quantum entanglement, and Chapter 8 illustrates
xvi
the notion with various processes that make use of it, such as quantum cryptog-
raphy and teleportation. Chapter 9 discusses quantum measurement, in particular
weak and continuous measurements. A few experiments are described in Chapter
10; among the huge crowd of those illustrating quantum mechanics in various cir-
cumstances, we have chosen a small fraction of them – those where state vector
reduction is “seen in real time”. Finally, Chapter 11, the longest of all chapters,
gives an introduction and some discussion of the various interpretations of quan-
tum mechanics. The chapters are relatively independent and the reader may prob-
ably use them in almost any order. Needless to say, no attempt was made to cover
all subjects related to the foundations of quantum mechanics. A selection was un-
avoidable; it resulted in a list of subjects that the author considers as particularly
relevant, but of course this personal choice remains somewhat arbitrary.
The motivation of this book is not to express preference for any given interpreta-
tions, as has already been done in many reference articles or monographs (we will
quote several of them). It is even less to propose a new interpretation that would
miraculously solve all problems. The objective is, rather, to review the various in-
terpretations and to obtain a general perspective on the way they are related, their
differences and common features, and their individual consistency. Indeed, each of
these interpretations has its own logic, and it is important to remember it; a clas-
sical mistake is to mix various interpretations together. For instance, the Bohmian
interpretation has sometimes been criticized by elaborating constructions that re-
tain some elements of this interpretation, but not all, or by inserting elements that
do not belong to the interpretation; one then obtains contradictions, but this says
very little on the Bohmian interpretation itself. The necessity for logical consis-
tency is general in the context of the foundations of quantum mechanics. Some-
times, the EPR argument or the Bell theorem has been misunderstood because of
a confusion between their assumptions and conclusions. We will note in passing a
few occasions where such mistakes are possible in order to help avoiding them. We
should also mention that it is out of the question to give an exhaustive description
of all interpretations of quantum mechanics here! They may be associated in many
different ways, so that it is impossible to account for all possible combinations
or nuances. A relatively abundant bibliography is proposed to the reader, but, in
this case also, reaching any exhaustiveness is impossible; some choices have been
made, sometimes arbitrary, in order to keep the total volume within reasonable
limits.
To summarize, the main purpose of this book is an attempt to provide a balanced
view on the conceptual situation of a theory that is undoubtedly one of the most
remarkable achievements of the human mind, quantum mechanics, without hid-
ing either difficulties or successes. As we already mentioned, its predictive power
constantly obtains marvelous results in new domains, sometimes in a totally un-
xvii
predictable way; nevertheless, this intellectual edifice remains the object of dis-
cussions or even controversy concerning its foundations. No one would think of
discussing classical mechanics or the Maxwell equations in the same way. Maybe
this signals that the final and optimum version of the theory has not yet been ob-
tained?
Acknowledgments
Many colleagues played an important role in the elaboration of this book. The
first is certainly Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, to whom I owe a lot. Over the years
I benefited, as many others did, from his unique and deep way of using quan-
tum mechanics (and even to think quantum-mechanically); more than 40 years of
friendship (and of common writing) and uncountable stimulating discussions were
priceless for me. Alain Aspect is another friend with whom, from the beginning of
his thesis in the seventies, a constant exchange of ideas took place (it still does!). At
the time, the foundations of quantum theory were not very well considered among
mainstream physicists, even sometimes perceived as passé or mediocre physics;
Alain and I could comfort each other and make progress together in a domain that
we both found fascinating, with the encouragement of Bernard d’Espagnat. Jean
Dalibard and Philippe Grangier have been other wonderful discussion partners, al-
ways open-minded with extreme intellectual clarity; I wish to thank them warmly.
The title “Do we Really Understand Quantum Mechanics?” was suggested to me
long ago by Pierre Fayet, on the occasion of two seminars on this subject he was
asking me to give. This book arose from a first version of a text published in 2001
as an article in the American Journal of Physics, initiated during a visit at the
Theoretical Physics Institute at the California University of Santa Barbara. During
a session on Bose–Einstein condensation, I was lucky enough to discuss several
aspects of quantum mechanics with its organizer, Antony Leggett; another lucky
event favoring exchanges was to share Wojciech Zurek’s office! A little later, a visit
to the Lorentz Institute of Leiden was also very stimulating, in particular with the
help of Stig Stenholm. As for Abner Shimony, he guided me with much useful
advice and encouraged the writing of the first version of this text.
Among those who helped much with the present version of the text, Michel Le
Bellac played an important role by reading the whole text and giving useful ad-
vice, which helped to improve the text. He and Michèle Leduc chose a wonderful
(anonymous) reviewer who made many very relevant remarks; I am grateful to all
three of them. Among the other friends who also helped efficiently on various as-
pects and made interesting suggestions are Roger Balian, Serge Reynaud, William
Mullin, Olivier Darrigol, Bernard d’Espagnat, and Catherine Chevalley; I am very
grateful for many comments, advice, questions, etc. Markus Holzmann kindly read
xviii
the whole manuscript when it was completed and made many interesting sugges-
tions. The careful editing work of Anne Rix has been invaluable for improving the
homogeneity and the quality of the text.
Last but not least, concerning the chapter describing the various interpretations
of quantum mechanics, I asked specialists of each of these interpretations to be
kind enough to check what I had written. I thank Sheldon Goldstein for reading
and commenting on the part concerning the Bohmian theory, Philip Pearle and
Giancarlo Ghirardi for their advice concerning modified Schrödinger dynamics,
Robert Griffiths and Roland Omnès for their comments on the history interpreta-
tion, Bernard d’Espagnat for clarifying remarks on veiled reality, Richard Healey
for his help on the modal interpretation, Carlo Rovelli for his comments and sug-
gestions on the relational interpretation, Alexei Grinbaum for illuminating com-
ments concerning quantum logic and formal theories, and Thibault Damour for
his helpful reading of my presentation of the Everett interpretation. According to
the tradition it should be clear that, if nevertheless errors still subsist, the respon-
sibility is completely the author’s. Finally, without the exceptional atmosphere of
my laboratory, LKB (Laboratoire Kastler Brossel), without the constant interaction
with its members, and without the intellectual environment of ENS (Ecole Normale
Supérieure), nothing would have been possible.
1
Historical Perspective
The founding fathers of quantum mechanics had already perceived the essence of
the difficulties of quantum mechanics; today, after almost a century, the discussions
are still lively and, if some very interesting new aspects have emerged, at a deeper
level the questions have not changed so much. What is more recent, nevertheless,
is a general change of attitude among physicists: until about 1970 or 1980, most
physicists thought that the essential questions had been settled, and that “Bohr was
right and proved his opponents to be wrong”. This was probably a consequence
of the famous discussions among Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Pauli,
de Broglie, and others (in particular at the Solvay meetings [1–3], where Bohr’s
point of view had successfully resisted Einstein’s extremely clever attacks). The
majority of physicists did not know the details of the arguments. They nevertheless
thought that the standard “Copenhagen interpretation” had clearly emerged from
the infancy of quantum mechanics as the only sensible attitude for good scientists.
This interpretation includes the idea that modern physics must contain indetermi-
nacy as an essential ingredient: it is fundamentally impossible to predict the out-
come of single microscopical events; it is impossible to go beyond the formalism
of the wave function (or its generalization, the state vector |Ψi) and complete it. For
some physicists, the Copenhagen interpretation also includes the difficult notion of
“complementarity” – even if it is true that, depending on the context, complemen-
tarity comes in many varieties and has been interpreted in many different ways! By
and large, the impression of the vast majority was that Bohr had eventually won
the debate against Einstein, so that discussing again the foundations of quantum
mechanics after these giants was pretentious, passé, and maybe even in bad taste.
Nowadays, the attitude of physicists is more open concerning these matters. One
first reason is probably that the nonrelevance of the “impossibility theorems” put
forward by the defenders of the standard interpretation, in particular by von Neu-
mann [4], has now been better realized by the scientific community – see [5–7]
and [8], as well as the discussion given in [9]). Another reason is, of course, the
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2 Historical Perspective
great impact of the discoveries and ideas of J.S. Bell [6] in 1964. At the begin-
ning of a new century, it is probably fair to say that we are no longer sure that the
Copenhagen interpretation is the only possible consistent attitude for physicists –
see for instance the doubts expressed by Shimony in [10]. Alternative points of
view are considered with interest: we have theories including additional variables
(or “hidden variables”1 ) [11, 12]; other theories are modified dynamics of the state
vector [7, 13–15] (nonlinear and/or stochastic evolution); at the other extreme, we
have points of view such as the so-called “many worlds interpretation” (or “many
minds interpretation”, or “multibranched universe”) [16]; more recently, other in-
terpretations such as that of “decoherent histories” [17] have been put forward (this
list is nonexhaustive). These interpretations and several others will be discussed in
Chapter 11. For a recent review containing many references, see [18], which em-
phasizes additional variables, but which is also characteristic of the variety of posi-
tions among contemporary scientists2 . See also an older but very interesting debate
published in Physics Today [19]; another very useful source of older references is
the 1971 American Journal of Physics “Resource Letter” [20]. But this variety of
possible alternative interpretations should not be the source of misunderstandings!
It should also be emphasized very clearly that, until now, no new fact whatsoever
(or new reasoning) has appeared that has made the Copenhagen interpretation ob-
solete in any sense.
1.1 Three periods

Three successive periods may be distinguished in the history of the elaboration of
the fundamental quantum concepts; they have resulted in the point of view that is
called “the Copenhagen interpretation”, or “orthodox”, or again “standard” inter-
pretation. Actually, these terms may group different variants of the general inter-
pretation, as we see in more detail later in this book (in particular in Chapter 11).
Here we give only a brief historical summary; we refer the reader who would like to
know more about the history of the conceptual development of quantum mechanics
to the book of Jammer [21] – see also [22] and [23]. For detailed discussions of
fundamental problems in quantum mechanics, one could also read [10, 24, 25] as
well as the references contained, or those given in [20].
1 As we discuss in more detail in §11.8, we prefer to use the words “additional variables” since they are not
hidden, but actually appear directly in the results of measurements.
2 For instance, the contrast between the titles of [10] and [18] is interesting.
1.1 Three periods 3
1.1.1 Prehistory
Planck’s name is obviously the first that comes to mind when one thinks about the
birth of quantum mechanics: in 1900, he was the one who introduced the famous
constant h, which now bears his name. His method was phenomenological, and his
motivation was actually to explain the properties of the radiation in thermal equi-
librium (blackbody radiation) by introducing the notion of finite grains of energy
in the calculation of the entropy [26]. Later he interpreted them as resulting from
discontinuous exchange between radiation and matter. It is Einstein who, still later
(in 1905), took the idea more seriously and really introduced the notion of quantum
of light (which would be named “photon” only much later, in 1926 [27]) in order
to explain the wavelength dependence of the photoelectric effect – for a general
discussion of the many contributions of Einstein to quantum theory, see [28].
One should nevertheless realize that the most important and urgent question at
the time was not so much to explain the fine details of the properties of interac-
tions between radiation and matter, or the peculiarities of the blackbody radiation.
It was more general: to understand the origin of the stability of atoms, that is, of
all matter which surrounds us and of which we are made! According to the laws
of classical electromagnetism, negatively charged electrons orbiting around a pos-
itively charged nucleus should constantly radiate energy, and therefore rapidly fall
onto the nucleus. Despite several attempts, explaining why atoms do not collapse
but keep fixed sizes was still a complete challenge for physics3 . One had to wait a
little bit longer, until Bohr introduced his celebrated atomic model (1913), to see
the appearance of the first ideas allowing the question to be tackled. He proposed
the notion of “quantized permitted orbits” for electrons, as well as of “quantum
jumps”, to describe how they would go from one orbit to another, for instance dur-
ing radiation emission processes. To be fair, we must concede that these notions
have now almost disappeared from modern physics, at least in their initial forms;
quantum jumps are replaced by a much more precise and powerful theory of spon-
taneous emission in quantum electrodynamics. But, on the other hand, one may
also see a resurgence of the old quantum jumps in the modern use of the postulate
of the wave packet (or state vector) reduction (§1.2.2.a). After Bohr, came Heisen-
berg, who, in 1925, introduced the theory that is now known as “matrix mechan-
ics”4 , an abstract intellectual construction with a strong philosophical component,
sometimes close to positivism; the classical physical quantities are replaced by
“observables”, corresponding mathematically to matrices, defined by suitable pos-
tulates without much help of intuition. Nevertheless, matrix mechanics contained
3 For a review of the problem in the context of contemporary quantum mechanics, see [29].
4 The names of Born and Jordan are also associated with the introduction of this theory, since they immediately
made the connexion between Heisenberg’s rules of calculation and those of matrices in mathematics.
many elements that turned out to be essential building blocks of modern quantum
mechanics!
In retrospect, one can be struck by the very abstract and somewhat mysterious
character of atomic theory at this period of history; why should electrons obey
such rules, which forbid them to leave a restricted class of orbits, as if they were
miraculously guided on simple trajectories? What was the origin of these quantum
jumps, which were supposed to have no duration at all, so that it would make no
sense to ask what were the intermediate states of the electrons during such a jump?
Why should matrices appear in physics in such an abstract way, with no apparent
relation with the classical description of the motion of a particle? One can guess
how relieved physicists probably felt when another point of view emerged, a point
of view that looked at the same time much simpler and more in the tradition of the
physics of the nineteenth century: the undulatory (or wave) theory.
1.1.2 The undulatory period

The idea of associating a wave with every material particle was first introduced
by de Broglie in his thesis (1924) [30]. A few years later (1927), the idea was con-
firmed experimentally by Davisson and Germer in their famous electron diffraction
experiment [31]. For some reason, at that time de Broglie did not proceed much fur-
ther in the mathematical study of this wave, so that only part of the veil of mystery
was raised by him (see for instance the discussion in [32]). It is sometimes said
that Debye was the first, after hearing about de Broglie’s ideas, to remark that in
physics a wave generally has a wave equation: the next step would then be to try
and propose an equation for this new wave. The story adds that the remark was
made in the presence of Schrödinger, who soon started to work on this program; he
successfully and rapidly completed it by proposing the equation that now bears his
name, one of the most basic equations of all physics. Amusingly, Debye himself
does not seem to have remembered the event. The anecdote may be inaccurate;
in fact, different reports about the discovery of this equation have been given, and
we will probably never know exactly what happened. What remains clear is that
the introduction in 1926 of the Schrödinger equation for the wave function5 [33]
is one of the essential milestones in the history of physics. Initially, it allowed one
to understand the energy spectrum of the hydrogen atom, but it was soon extended
and gave successful predictions for other atoms, then molecules and ions, solids
(the theory of bands, for instance), etc. It is at present the major basic tool of many
branches of modern physics and chemistry.
Conceptually, at the time of its introduction, the undulatory theory was wel-
comed as an enormous simplification of the new mechanics. This is particularly
5 See footnote 12 for the relation between the state vector and the wave function.
1.1 Three periods 5
true because Schrödinger and others (Dirac, Heisenberg) promptly showed how
it could be used to recover the predictions of matrix mechanics from more intu-
itive considerations, using the properties of the newly introduced “wave function”
– the solution of the Schrödinger equation. The natural hope was then to extend
this success, and to simplify all problems raised by the mechanics of atomic parti-
cles: one would replace it by a mechanics of waves, which would be analogous to
electromagnetic or sound waves. For instance, Schrödinger initially thought that all
particles in the universe looked to us like point particles just because we observe
them at a scale that is too large; in fact, they are tiny “wave packets” that remain
localized in small regions of space. He had even shown that these wave packets
remain small (they do not spread in space) when the system under study is a har-
monic oscillator – alas, we now know that this is a very special case; in general,
the wave packets constantly spread in space!
1.1.3 Emergence of the Copenhagen interpretation

It did not take long before it became clear that the completely undulatory theory
of matter also suffered from very serious difficulties, actually so serious that physi-
cists were soon led to abandon it. A first example of difficulty is provided by a
collision between particles, where the Schrödinger wave spreads in all directions,
like a circular wave in water stirred by a stone thrown into it; but, in all collision
experiments, particles are observed to follow well-defined trajectories and remain
localized, going in some precise direction. For instance, every photograph taken
in the collision chamber of a particle accelerator shows very clearly that particles
never get “diluted” in all space! This stimulated the introduction, by Born in 1926,
of the probabilistic interpretation of the wave function [34]: quantum processes are
fundamentally nondeterministic; the only thing that can be calculated is probabili-
ties, given by the square of the modulus of the wave function.
Another difficulty arises as soon as one considers systems made of more than one
single particle: then, the Schrödinger wave is no longer an ordinary wave since, in-
stead of propagating in normal space, it propagates in the so-called “configuration
space” of the system, a space that has 3N dimensions for a system made of N
particles! For instance, already for the simplest of all atoms, the hydrogen atom,
the wave propagates in six dimensions6 . For a collection of atoms, the dimension
grows rapidly, and becomes an astronomical number for the ensemble of atoms
contained in a macroscopic sample. Clearly, the new wave was not at all similar to
6 This is true if spins are ignored; if they are taken into account, four such waves propagate in six dimensions.
classical waves, which propagate in ordinary space; this deep difference will be a
sort of Leitmotiv in this text7 , reappearing under various aspects here and there8 .
In passing, it is interesting to notice that the recent observation of the phe-
nomenon of Bose–Einstein condensation in dilute gases [35] can be seen, in a
sense, as a sort of realization of the initial hope of Schrödinger: this condensa-
tion provides a case where a many-particle matter wave does propagate in ordinary
space. Before condensation takes place, we have the usual situation: the gas has to
be described by wave functions defined in a huge configuration space. But, when
the atoms are completely condensed into a single-particle wave function, they are
restricted to a much simpler many-particle state built with the same ordinary wave
function, as for a single particle. The matter wave then becomes similar to a clas-
sical field with two components (the real part and the imaginary part of the wave
function), resembling for instance an ordinary sound wave. This illustrates why,
somewhat paradoxically, the “exciting new states of matter” provided by Bose–
Einstein condensates are not an example of an extreme quantum situation; in a
sense, they are actually more classical than the gases from which they originate
(in terms of quantum description, interparticle correlations, etc.). Conceptually, of
course, this remains a very special case and does not solve the general problem
associated with a naive view of the Schrödinger waves as real waves.
The purely undulatory description of particles has now disappeared from modern
quantum mechanics in its standard form9 . In addition to Born and Bohr, Heisen-
berg [36], Jordan [37, 38], Dirac [39], and others played an essential role in the
appearance of a new formulation of quantum mechanics [23], where probabilistic
and undulatory notions are incorporated in a single complex logical edifice. The
probabilistic component of the theory is that, when a system undergoes a measure-
ment, the result is fundamentally random; the theory provides only the probabilities
of the different possible outcomes. The wave component of the theory is that, when
no measurements are performed, the Schrödinger equation is valid. The wave func-
tion is no longer considered as a direct physical description of the system itself; it is
only a mathematical object that provides the probabilities of the different results10
– we come back to this point in more detail in §1.2.3.
The first version of the Copenhagen interpretation was completed around 1927,
7 For instance, the nonlocality effects occurring with two correlated particles can be seen as a consequence of
the fact that the wave function propagates locally, but in a six-dimensional space, while the usual definition of
locality refers to ordinary space which has three dimensions.
8 Quantum mechanics can also be formulated in a way that does not involve the configuration space, but just the
ordinary space: using the formalism of field operators (sometimes called second quantization, for historical
reasons) - cf. §1.3. One can write these operators in a form that is similar to a wave function. Nevertheless,
since they are quantum operators, their analogy with a classical field is even less valid.
9 See also §11.10 for the discussion of a nonstandard quantum theory based on such a description.
10 In the literature, one often finds the word “ontological” to describe Schrödinger’s initial point of view on the
wave function, as opposed to “epistemological” to describe the probabilistic interpretation.
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CHAPTER I
MRS. PATIENCE WRIGHT SPEAKS THE
PROLOGUE
I
What a pity that Thackeray, surveying our pre-Revolutionary
American world in the interest of his Esmond and his Virginians, had
not chanced to espy the valiant figure of our first American sculptor,
Mrs. Patience Lovell Wright of New Jersey,—Quaker, wax-image-
maker, traveler, keen Republican observer of the moods of British
royalty and the movements of British troops! Had his mind’s eye but
once seen her in her eagerly-frequented rooms on Pall Mall, with the
notables of the town literally under her thumb, in wax, and over her
shoulder, in the flesh, we might have had from his pen a portrait
worthy to live beside that of Beatrix, or of Madam Esmond, or of the
Fotheringay herself. Similarly, if Lytton Strachey, building his Books
and Characters, had followed out a line or two of Horace Walpole’s
concerning the “artistess,” he might have given us a Mrs. Wright fully
as engaging as his Madame du Deffand, perhaps almost as
“inexplicable, grand, preposterous” as his Lady Hester. Such joys
were not to be ours. Some of the traits that Thackeray and Strachey
might have dwelt on for our delight have been well sketched by.
Abigail Adams, incorruptible eye-witness and letter-writer.
Mrs. Adams, though taken aback by the “hearty buss” with which
the sculptress greeted ladies and gentlemen alike, observed that
“there was an old clergyman sitting reading a paper in the middle of
the room, and though I went prepared to see strong representations
of real life, I was effectually deceived in this figure for ten minutes,
and was finally told that it was only wax.” And Elkanah Watson,
meeting Mrs. Wright in Paris, where she was living in her dual
capacity as artist and patriot, notes that “the wild flights of her
powerful mind stamped originality on all her acts and language.” He
tells us that the British king and queen often visited her in her
London rooms, where they would induce her to work on her heads
regardless of their presence, and where, at times, as if forgetting
mundane deferences in the swirl of her inspiration, she would
address them offhand as George and Charlotte.
The intrepid if somewhat incongruous figure of this Quaker artist
abroad will serve very well as herald or prologue to the drama of
American sculpture. Nor can I think that either Mr. Greenough or Mr.
Powers, Mr. Ward or Mr. Saint-Gaudens, Mr. French or the very
youngest sculptor newly laureled by our American Academy in Rome
would object to that assignment of rôle. Surely in any play, it is
allowed that the herald may seem somewhat more fantastic and
legendary than the kings and counselors that come after. Mrs. Wright
and her wax-works are important to us, but not because anyone now
accounts her the “Promethean modeller” her enthusiastic
contemporaries charged her with being. She is important because
her vogue reveals the artless taste of her time, its awe in the
presence of perfect imitations of nature. Not that such awe is
unknown to-day in the world of art. Indeed, our herald brings
vigorously upon the scene one of the major problems that still
perplex the American sculptor in his work. I mean the problem of
likenesses, those “strong representations of real life,” as Abigail
Adams would say.
II
A strong representation of real life was exactly what Thomas
Jefferson wanted for the State Capitol of Virginia when he induced
the great French sculptor Houdon to “leave the statues of Kings
unfinished,” and to cross the Atlantic to take casts, measurements,
and artistic cognizance of the person of George Washington, in order
to create that marble portrait statue still holding its own in the good
top light of the Rotunda at Richmond. To cross the Atlantic, what an
adventure for a home-keeping Frenchman in the eighteenth century!
Yet in the year 1785, there must have been uneasiness at home as
well as abroad for Monsieur Houdon, so soon to become le citoyen
Houdon. In the midst of our early Republican simplicities, there had
been talk of an equestrian statue also. Justified in the hope of
obtaining the commission equestrian as well as the commission
pedestrian, Houdon accordingly spends a fortnight at Mount Vernon,
taking casts, and “forming the General’s bust in plaister.” Later,
however, the project of the equestrian statue is dropped, to Houdon’s
natural regret.
STATUE OF WASHINGTON
BY JEAN ANTOINE HOUDON
“We shall regulate the article of expense as œconomically as we

can with justice to the wishes of the world,” writes Jefferson to
Governor Harrison, concerning the standing statue. “We are agreed
in one circumstance, that the size shall be precisely that of life.”
Jefferson gives patriotic reasons for that decision as to size; he adds
with excellent artistic judgment, “We are sensible that the eye alone
considered will not be quite as well satisfied.” A generation later,
writing from Monticello in regard to the statue of Washington that the
legislature of North Carolina desires to order, he declares that this
work should be somewhat larger than life. A strict realism no longer
delights him. With true Jeffersonian divination of popular currents, he
leans now toward the pseudo-classic ideal already dominant in
European studios. As to the costume chosen, he finds that “every
person of taste in Europe would be for the Roman.... Our boots and
regimentals have a very puny effect.” In short, “Old Canova of
Rome” is the artist North Carolina should employ. It is pleasant to
note that just as Houdon, having “solemnly and feelingly protested
against the inadequacy of the price, evidently undertook the work
from motives of reputation alone,” so too Canova is “animated with
ardent zeal to prove himself worthy of so great a subject.” Thus
happily are begun those steadfastly continued artistic relations
between the United States and the two European countries in which
art prospers as the light and livelihood of the people.
Washington himself, when the Houdon portrait statue is
projected, plays an admirably discreet part in the art criticism of the
moment. He writes to Jefferson, on August 1, 1786:
“In answer to your obliging enquiries respecting the dress,
attitude, etc., which I would wish to have given to the statue in
question, I have only to observe that, not having sufficient knowledge
in the art of sculpture to oppose my judgment to the taste of
Connoisseurs, I do not desire to dictate in the matter.”
How unlike the home life of William Hohenzollern! And how often
the thoughtful sculptor of to-day has wished that Washington’s
simple dignity in admitting an insufficiency of “knowledge in the art of
sculpture” might be pondered and taken to heart by those of us who
are not qualified “to dictate in the matter”! In this our free country of
the self-elected critic, the temple of art is at all hours invaded by
those who cheerily announce that “they do not know much,” but who
nevertheless follow the example of William II rather than of our first
President.
All the Jefferson correspondence respecting these two statues of
Washington is of vital interest to the student of our art history. Our
young Republic, in its early strivings toward art, was fortunate in
having an adviser as well-advised as the master of Monticello. It was
Thomas Jefferson who guided inquiring state legislatures, now
toward Houdon, the powerful French realist, and again toward
Canova, the distinguished Italian idealist. Through Jefferson’s hands,
our American sculpture first received those rich streams of influence,
realism and idealism, both so necessary in any living national art.
For realism and idealism, however often misnamed or over-praised
or discredited, each after the other, will continue to shape the artist’s
interpretation of his vision of life. Today, when in our literature books
as fundamentally unlike as Maria Chapdelaine and Babbitt run their
race side by side as popular favorites, we cannot doubt the hold of
either classicism or naturalism on our lives and times. Gilbert Murray,
in his notes on the Hippolytus, writes that its matchless closing
scene “proves the ultimate falseness of the distinction between
classical and romantic. The highest poetry has the beauty of both.”
III
Returning to the Quaker lady who speaks our prologue, and
conning once more the tale of her works in all their brisk naïveté, the
sympathetic student will easily evoke the difficult conditions under
which sculpture first reared its head in our country. Sculpture, though
an art manifestly answering one of the earliest religious needs of
primitive man, (and indeed the very first of all the arts to fall under
the ban of the censor) is an art much hindered and abridged during
large pioneer movements. Thus the Mayflower, that greatly
accommodating vessel, may have brought over Elder Brewster’s
chest or some fair Priscilla’s spinning-wheel, but we may be sure
that never a statue came out of her hold. Neither architecture nor
painting suffered quite as much as sculpture in that historic sea-
change of the early seventeenth century. As the turtle carries his
house on his back, so the architect, in a sense, may carry his home
in his pocket. The drawings and inherited traditions of cabinet-
makers, carpenters, and architects supplied our colonists with
excellent models for furniture, for mansions, for churches, for state-
houses. Such models were not slavishly followed. They were
adapted, often with great originality and skill, sometimes with
creative genius.
The colonists’ sense of form gratified itself in these directions,
since the time was not ripe for sculpture. Diligent in fostering both
foreign importations and local industry, the more prosperous of our
forefathers had good houses, good furniture, good silver, good
clothes, and even good paintings long before they had any good
sculpture. Statues, unlike chocolate-pots and meeting-houses,
cannot, even when all materials are given, be magically called into
existence from a sheaf of plans and specifications placed in the
hands of competent artisans. A considerable body of sculpture in
permanent form implies a background of orderly civilization, well
developed on its industrial side. The marble quarry and the bronze
foundry do not spring up over-night in mushroom growth. They are
the foster-children of slow time. We are called an inventive,
craftsmanlike people, but it was not until the year 1847 that the first
casting of a bronze statue was accomplished in our country. The
statue was of the Boston astronomer, Dr. Bowditch, and by the
English sculptor, Ball Hughes. The original bronze cast was not a
wholly successful piece of work; it was long ago replaced by a
bronze from a French foundry. But those familiar with the difficulties
of the situation will recall Dr. Johnson’s observation about the dog
walking on his hind legs. “It is not done well, but you are surprised to
find it done at all.”
IV
However, we need not harp too long and too mournfully on the
physical impediments in our sculptural start. Enormous as these
were, they were less mighty than the spiritual obstacles set up by
time and place. First of all, it is to be remembered that the European
world of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was moving on in
a mild, manifest, not necessarily permanent decline in creative
power as shown through the graphic arts. The waves of that decline
reached even our own stern coast. It is safe to say that had the
American colonists’ hour coincided with an hour of large renascence
in art throughout Europe, our forefathers, whether Cavalier or
Roundhead, would earlier have found room for art as a need and a
natural expression of the freer life they sought. As for the distinctively
Puritan view, that view too often (though perhaps not as often as we
now think) denied and persecuted beauty in the fierce Puritan
concentration upon holiness. It is true that art, in its blither and more
genial guise, slips away from the society of the sour-visaged. But it is
also true that a great tragic expression in art sometimes bursts
uncontrollably from peoples or persons with minds exacerbated by
long fortitudes. We learn this from the Belgian sculptor Meunier
brooding over his brothers of the Black Country, from the Serbian
sculptor Mestrovic immortalizing in stone his country’s stern legends,
from the poet Dante treading his Inferno. But the Florentine and the
Serbian and the Belgian produced their art under their native skies.
They were not torn up by the roots to live in a strange land.
Yes, the main impediment in early American art was spiritual
rather than material. When we see to-day in some lonely, half-
forgotten New England village a spacious, nobly-designed,
admirably-built meeting-house, capping the very crest of a high rock-
ribbed hill of exceeding difficulty, (the church at Acworth will serve as
an example) we uncover our heads before the efforts of our fathers
to erect a house of prayer. The spirit moved them. Nothing less
would have sufficed in what they did and suffered. The obstacles in
their path were many and great, but being material, were
surmounted. In our early strivings toward sculpture, the obstacles
were both spiritual and material, and generally speaking, the
obstacles won the day. We had no noteworthy early native sculpture,
largely because we lacked the passion to create it. That passion was
not dead, but it lay dormant during the long wintry season that
preceded the spring of our national consciousness.
In the mean time, men and women died, and had their humble
carved slate headstones; ships put out to sea, glorying in their robust
wooden figure-heads of American make. Benjamin West’s legendary
adventure with his cat’s-fur brushes and his Amerind colors and his
baby sister’s likeness no doubt had its sculptural counterpart in the
creative endeavor of many an unknown fire-side whittler. These
obscure dramas of artistic effort counted; though meagre and lowly,
they were not in vain; they made for craftsmanship, art’s helper.
Referring to more important matters, we do not forget William Rush’s
full-length statue of Washington, hewn from wood, or his soldierly
self-portrait, carved from a pine log; or the early efforts, in portraiture,
of Dixey, in New Jersey, of Augur in Connecticut; of John Frazee,
that young stone-cutter to whom we owe the first marble portrait bust
chiseled in the United States, as late as the year 1824. We
remember also the Browere life-masks, created by a secret process,
and useful still as historic data.
Interesting and emphatic as are the personalities of all these
early workers, that of William Rush is by far the most significant. In
literal truth, Patience Wright was merely our first sculptress, whose
work must bear the implications of frailty lent by that name. But
William Rush was our first sculptor. In his youth he was a soldier of
the Revolution, and in later life he was long a member of the Council
of Philadelphia; his career as artist and as citizen won respect for the
early art life of our country. Born in Philadelphia in 1756, he was
twenty-nine when Houdon sojourned in that town. Having been
apprenticed when very young, Rush was already well-known as a
carver of ships’ figure-heads, work in which he continued to be
successful throughout his long and busy life. His theory and practice
in wood-carving conformed to Michelangelo’s Gothic creed,
somewhat outworn among sculptors, but of late restored to respect.
William Rush earnestly believed that the carver should see his vision
in the block, and realize its image by hewing away the superfluous
shell. He was modern enough at times to stand by while directing a
workman to chop here and cut there and slice somewhere else, so
that he himself could save his own energy for keeping his vision
clear. Of his Spirit of the Schuylkill, originally in wood but since
translated into bronze and still standing over its basin in Fairmount
Park, the chronicles of its day declared that “no greater piece of art
was to be found in all the world.” The present age will hardly
consider this draped figure the equal, say, of the Maidens of the
Erechtheum. Yet the work, with its companion pieces, the Schuylkill
in Chains and the Schuylkill Released, has its own vigorous archaic
classicism which modern students may well ponder. Rush was one
of the planners and founders of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts. After this was finally established in 1805, our first American art
organization, he was one of its directors until his death. As a many-
sided man of action and of counsel, of intelligence and of culture, he
sums up the best to be found in the varied characters of our pioneer
artists, personages worthy of our deepest respect.
We shall be too quick despairers if we brood over the fact that
most of their works show Yankee ingenuity rather than Promethean
fire. The inventive spirit is part of our pioneer heritage; it reappears
rather often in our art history. Robert Fulton, as Mr. Isham reminds
us in his story of American painting, was a promising pupil in
Benjamin West’s London studio. “From there he went to Paris, where
he remained seven years, painting easel pictures, and also the first
panorama seen there, whose memory is still preserved in the name
of the Passage des Panoramas.” Morse is yet another classic
example of American genius serving both art and science. One of
the later pupils of West, he had not only painted vigorous and
important pictures but had also played a striking part in the founding
of our National Academy of Design before he finally “wreaked his
genius” on his invention of the telegraph. Hiram Powers, sculptor of
the Greek Slave, in youth acquired merit from the clock-work devices
by which he enhanced the moving charms of the wax figures he
modeled for a museum in Cincinnati. Today, in our journalistic
canvassings of popular opinion as to contemporary American
greatness, we find that in the public mind, Edison’s name leads all
the rest. The prickly palm of greatness is awarded not to a teacher,
to a publicist, to a writer, to a political leader, or to an artist in any
guise whatever, but to an inventor. Inventive genius thus claims our
highest admiration; inventive genius may indeed be our highest
national characteristic. If so, it is worth while (and not in the least
“devastating”) to consider whether the same inventiveness that
animates the early art-forms of William Rush’s followers does not
also contribute something to the very sophisticated creations of our
gifted and fortunately well-trained young sculptors with the dernier cri
from Crete in their minds and at their finger-tips.
The story of American sculpture cannot be told under a parable
of a chain with equally strong links throughout. One thinks rather of a
slender thread, which may be fastened to a cord, which will draw up
a strong rope, which will in turn attach itself to a powerful cable. If
early Yankee ingenuity is that slender thread, let us thank God for it,
and hope for better things.
V
With the dawn of our national consciousness just after the dark
hours of the Revolution, a natural human love for the likeness,
strengthened by a generous surrender to hero-worship, is already
arousing in us a longing for an art that will express our patriotic
emotions. If achievement alone be considered, there is surely a
great gulf fixed between Patience Wright and Jean Antoine Houdon.
But the same sincere passion fires Quakeress and citoyen; their
common aim is a strong representation of real life, transfigured by
the flame of the spirit burning in the lamp of clay. It is recorded that
an overpowering sense of Washington’s greatness sometimes
actually impeded those artists who aspired to reveal him, body and
soul, to posterity. Posterity then is fortunate because our fathers
received from Houdon’s genius not only the Washington statue, but
also seven noble portrait busts, those of Franklin, Paul Jones,
Washington, Lafayette, Jefferson, Fulton, and Joel Barlow, to
mention them in the order of their creation, from 1778 to 1803.
These virile interpretations of character were not lost in the ins and
outs of our Atlantic coast-line. Even to this day, some one or other of
them often reappears in public view, to excite interest, admiration,
and controversy. But in the early nineteenth century, as is shown by
Jefferson’s counsel to the North Carolina legislature, Conova, rather
than Houdon, has become the name to conjure with. Even in
portraiture, realism has given way to pseudo-classicism, long before
Greenough arrives on the stage with his Washington as the
Olympian Zeus, a colossal half-draped marble figure designed for a
shrine within the Capitol.
BUST OF WASHINGTON, AT MOUNT VERNON
BY JEAN ANTOINE HOUDON
CHAPTER II
OUR BLITHE BEGINNING DAYS
I
Alive and kicking; better than we now realize, the old phrase fits our
young American art of the early nineteenth century. In Boston, Mr.
Bulfinch is packing his triangles and T-squares for a journey to
Washington, where he is to remain twelve years as Latrobe’s
successor as architect of the Capitol. In New York, morning-star
young art-students are passionately performing their historic ritual of
fighting the janitor and founding new movements; even Colonel
Trumbull is defied; hence, in 1825, our National Academy of Design.
In Philadelphia, harmony presides over the Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Arts. But in Washington, what commotion! Restorations are
to be made after the fires of the British; there are new excavations,
new aspirations. There’s sculptor’s work here for many a year.
Bronze doors must be created, in the supposed manner of Ghiberti;
pediments must be populated; and what is a dome without its
colossal figure of Freedom? Greenough and Crawford and Randolph
Rogers are the sculptors of the hour. And always Hiram Powers,
somewhat apart from the Washington bustle.
Modern imagination fails to see those early craftsmen as they
really were. Because they are dead to us now, we fall into the error
of thinking that they always were dead, anyway; the stilly sort of
sculpture they often made sustains us in that illusion. But when we
look into their lives, and hear their sayings, we learn, almost with a
shock, that these men felt deeply, even while they expressed
themselves feebly in their art.
Living amidst heaped riches of opportunity, the art-student of to-
day can scarcely imagine the bleak poverty of artistic resource that
Greenough and Crawford and Powers left behind them when they
sailed away to Rome or to Florence. Nowadays, art-schools flourish
here: casts of good sculpture abound; photographs of masterpieces
may be had at a small price. Museums freely show examples of the
arts of all nations, and intelligently arrange these displays to serve
the immediate needs of students; in short, they do a great work so
well that they have already become a target for so-called criticism
from self-styled intellectuals exposing their wits in the columns of
would-be radical journals. Things were very different in Greenough’s
time. There were indeed a few collections of casts, probably with
soiled noses; there were portfolios of steel engravings, that
sometimes bore false witness against beauty.
Knowing the leanness of those early years, we can but wonder
at the large vision of our fathers in considering our capital city; and
we can but thank our lucky Stars and Stripes for the bond of
sympathy between our young Republic and France, a sympathy
partly responsible for the happy choice of General Washington’s aid,
Major Pierre L’Enfant, as our first city planner. The spirit of L’Enfant’s
work has survived the shocks of time and senates; that plan of the
year 1792 (since extended in accordance with the principles of
design it embodied) is still regarded as “at once the finest and most
comprehensive plan ever devised for a capital city.” Those lean
years were not by any means the day of small things; it is to this
hour a blessing for sculpture and for architecture that Washington
and Jefferson and L’Enfant laid large foundations for the seat of
Government. A century ago, the continued building and re-building of
the Capitol expressed a profound national feeling; the souls of our
sculptors, as far as we had sculptors, were thrilled with desire to add
plastic beauty to its gates and gables. At least one of those great
dreams was destined to end as food for journalistic jibes.
Greenough’s colossal marble Washington as the Olympian Zeus, a
grandiose conception pored over for seven years in Italy, proved to
be too large and heavy for the indoor placing intended for it, and it
was doomed to be set up outside the Capitol for the public to
sharpen its wits upon. Unfavorably shown, it is unjustly viewed. One
recalls with pleasure Saint-Gaudens’s gentle judgments of our
pioneer sculptors and their handiwork. “Those men were greater
than we know,” he would say. He refused to join in any of our
modern merriment at the expense of the Olympian Zeus. Esprit de
corps compelled him to recognize in Greenough some large trace of
the artist as well as the craftsman.
II
Consider for a moment the attractive young Irish-American
sculptor Crawford standing rapt before his splendidly blank Senate
pediment, with his theme of the Past and Present of the Republic in
his eye. Those were our blithe beginning days when a sculptor might
confront his pediment with a heart unburdened by the remembrance
of other men’s failures in pediments, and with a mind undisciplined
by any previous knowledge of the needs of pediments. He did not
dread those bitter acuities of space at right and left, those angles
which to modern discrimination often seem so grossly overstuffed
when filled, so tragically vacant when left “to let.” He had never
heard of the “orchestration of shadows,” or of “musical repetitions,”
or of “blonde modeling,” or of “keeping the masses white,” or of “the
creative spiral,” or of “mastery through the golden diagonal.” He had
never been adjured, like the young student Saint-Gaudens, to
“beware the boule de suif”; on the other hand, he had never been
advised, with students coming after Saint-Gaudens, to seek richness
of modeling by means of “fatty ends.” Sculptural color he would
probably have regarded as having something to do with paint. He of
course had his own patter, blown abroad by the writers of a too
prosaic poetry and a too poetic prose. The real writers, too, used to
lend a hand in presenting art to the public. When the genius of
Edward Everett sprang to the rescue of Greenough’s Washington,
and when Hawthorne sent out winged words about little Miss
Hosmer’s Zenobia, sculpture was receiving from scholarship a
needed sort of first aid.
To return to the Capitol pediment, Crawford’s intention and
attitude were quite uncomplicated. He had but to snatch the largest
theme in sight, and to do his best with shaping its figures one by one
inside his triangle of grandeur. The marvel is that he came so near to
success. The thing has a kind of distinction from the man’s
singleness of aim. Since then, scores of our sculptors from coast to
coast have solved the pediment problem with varying success. Many
of them bring a highly personal and interesting solution. Ward,
Bartlett, French, O’Connor, Bitter, Weinman, the Piccirillis,—these
names but begin the list. The world calls us a wasteful nation, a
nation that unbuilds as it builds. In the face of this, it is pleasant to
know that only a few months ago, Mr. Bartlett’s handsome Peace
Protecting Genius has been set up in the House pediment, to match
Crawford’s Past and Present of the Republic at the Senate wing.
Nearly a century has elapsed since the Capitol first busied itself with
pedimental decorations. Our sculpture has had time to learn in these
years.
III
Greenough came first in our line of scholarly sculptors, that class
to which W. W. Story later lent great lustre. A Latin inscription of five
lines, beginning “Simulacrum istud” and ending “Horatius Greenough
faciebat” marks the huge Washington statue. Well, if I rightly
understand this sculptor, I like his “faciebat.” It seems more
conscientious and less cocksure than the “fecit” with which our
sculptors sometimes grace their signatures, and it is certainly not so
gruff as the laconic “sc.” Between its eight letters one reads the
coming and going of those seven diligent Italian years; and we shall
deceive ourselves if we count those years wholly lost for our
American art. If only Greenough could have enjoyed some of the
surplusage of admiration given to his contemporary Powers for his
Greek Slave with her well-smoothed body, her manacled Medicean
hand, and the accurately fringed mantle at her feet! Though
expressly advertised as a nude figure, she is dressed from top to toe
in a most unfleshly hard-soft technique which our time calls
incompetent, but which 1847 styled “the spiritualization of the
marble.” The personality of the artist counted very largely in those
days; while Greenough was scholarly and Crawford attractive, and
while Randolph Rogers with his bronze doors and his Nydia was
what would now be called a good “go-getter,” Hiram Powers was
easily the main spellbinder of the early group.
With the exception of Rodin’s Balzac of fifty years later, no statue
of the nineteenth century has ever been so famous as the Greek
Slave. It is one of the paradoxes of art that this strangely ill-assorted
pair go down the corridors of that great age together, united solely by
the bond of greatest fame. It is worth while to examine the two,
placed side by side in the museum of our minds. Both are so well
known through prints and photographs that many persons who have
never really seen either one face to face, now fancy that they have
studied both at close range. Both are sculptural anecdotes; one is
told with a leisurely abundance of detail, the other with a swift dash
for the climax. The Vermonter’s statue is surely meant to be a
conscientious rendering “from the Nudo,” as our grandparents
phrased it, but the Frenchman, in his passion to translate into
sculpture a force of literature, has gone far beyond what was to him
a daily commonplace, the study of flesh. As for the mere apparel of
the subject, one man has scheduled it to the last stitch, while the
other has piled it up vehemently into a shapeless monolith from
which emerges the triumphant head. Each sculptor doubtless threw
his whole soul into revealing the spirit of the matter in hand. Which of
the two has succeeded? If the parallel becomes deadly here, Mr.
Powers has brought it on himself by his extraordinary fame in three
countries. Everything conspired for the celebrity of the Slave,—her
creation in Italy, her fortunate début in England, her travels to
America, and, best of all, that body of clergymen deputed to pass
upon her moral status. One can but wonder whether every last one
of these took the matter seriously, or whether some one of them
winked at some other during the deliberations. The sculptor made a
modest number of copies of his masterpiece. But other sculptors
reproduced their marble visions by the baker’s dozen, by the score.
In fact, only yesterday a venerable eye-witness of those times
reported that a certain American sculptor disposed of no less than
two hundred marble copies of a life-sized ideal figure. Appalling
iteration! One asks where all the marble came from, and whither it all
went. And that sculptor apparently had no idea that in this business
of the two hundred copies he was showing himself two hundred
times as much salesman as artist. Fashions alter, in ethics as in art.
To-day, such a practitioner would hardly be persona grata in the
National Sculpture Society.
IV
Meanwhile a young modern sculptor at my elbow very civilly
inquires, “But why the devil didn’t those old boys do their home
stuff?” The obvious answer would be, that if the home is where the
heart is, then in a very real sense they did do their home stuff. They
were not at home among the Vermont mountains, or by the Great
Lakes. They felt that their birthright in art called them away from their
first birthplace to their second. Very soon, too, the all-absorbing topic
of slavery will be presented by our sculptors, in a different way and
under a more timely aspect. Long before Thomas Ball places his
Emancipation groups in Washington and in Boston, Ward has
produced his Freedman, and John Rogers the Slave Auction that in
1860 heralds his long series of popular groups. Choosing subjects
both classic and realistic, Miss Hosmer, Miss Ream and other
women sculptors have a considerable vogue. From that earlier
period remain beautiful classic works by Rinehart, founder of the
Rinehart scholarship which much later send abroad Hermon
MacNeil, one of the most distinguished of our modern sculptors, and
now President of our National Sculpture Society. Rinehart’s Clytie,
coming but a few years after the Greek Slave, shows a marked
advance over her more famous sister. And Erastus Palmer’s winning
White Captive, although not new in theme, has a great freshness, a
delicate realism of treatment. To quote from my article on the
exhibition of contemporary sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum,
“No less interesting to the student of sculpture is the kaleidoscopic
juxtaposition of Palmer and Manship, two artists of two different
generations. Only the width of a room parts the White Captive from
the Girl with Gazelles, from which we note that in aim these men are
not so different as we once had dreamed.... As to manner, much
might be said besides these two obvious truths; first, that the newest
manner is often the oldest, or at least the longest forgotten at the
time of its resuscitation, it being a thing which for some obscure
human reason or other ‘men want dug up again’; and next, that the
best manner is that which scarcely shows as a manner at all, but is
taken for granted as accompaniment of something more important,
the matter and the spirit.” It would appear that the young men of to-
day are doing much the same thing as “those old boys” my sculptor
friend speaks of: they are seeking modern inspiration from ancient
models, but they are doing it with more knowledge, more grace,
more humor, more assurance, more style. Style? Perhaps the right
word is stylization.

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