By Allison J. Allen
Mount Auburn Cemetery was consecrated in 1831 by Reverend Joseph Story who, in his commemoration speech, compared the goals of the new cemetery’s landscape to such rituals as practiced by the ancients:
“The Greeks exhausted the resources of their exquisite art in adorning the habitations of the dead…[they] consigned their relics to shady groves, in the neighborhood of murmuring streams and mossy fountains, close by the favorite resorts of those who were engaged in the study of philosophy and nature, and called them, with the elegant expressiveness of their own beautiful language χοιμητρια or ‘Places of Repose’.”
(Address at the Consecration of Mount Auburn, Joseph Story 1831)
The cemetery was created as both an experimental garden of the newly formed Massachusetts Horticultural Society and as a solution to Boston’s grave and burial problem. The graveyards within the city were becoming too overpopulated, thought of to be a source of disease, and overall unpleasant. So, Mount Auburn came to be, just four miles outside of Boston, resting within the borders of both Cambridge and Watertown. It is the United States’ first rural cemetery, filled with over 170 acres of woodlands, gardens, and funerary memorials, monuments, and statuary.
The archival department at the cemetery works hard to make all aspects of Mount Auburn’s history accessible through well-researched compilations of topics for future researchers’ use, tours on a variety of subjects for visitors to engage with, and an on-going project to digitize all their records for public access. Some of their existing research/tour subjects include investigations of the Gothic and Egyptian Revival influences and architecture that are generously displayed throughout the landscape. However, prior to my arrival, the Classical architecture and influences found there had yet to be compiled or discussed in depth; perhaps it is because it was felt unnecessary considering the sheer abundance and prominence of Classical forms and influence around the cemetery. As a Classicist entering into the field of Public History, my internship this semester has allowed me to dedicate my expertise to correcting this deficit.
I’m working to accomplish this in a number of ways. First, my goal is to examine and compile all of the influences that led to Classical architecture and the way it manifests itself in the landscape that exists today. With this information, I am creating a research guide for the archival department to use for future research or help with the creation of a tour. Another aspect of my internship that I have taken upon myself is to help locate, photograph, transcribe, and translate any Latin or Ancient Greek inscribed on tombstones or monuments. The “language of the ancients” sometimes adorned the tombstones of educated or religious individuals; however, as classical education/languages have faded from mandatory education, these tombstones have since become illegible to the common visitor.
While on my excursions hunting down these examples of ancient language, I have seen many monuments display a greater than average amount of Classical influence, such as the Binney monument or Edmonia Lewis’ Hygeia monument. However, the one that stands out above the rest would have to be Robert Gould Shaw’s monument–an original bas-relief from first-century BCE Athens is placed at its center.
The bas-relief was apparently evaluated in the 1980s by the late Cornelius C. Vermeule III, a curator at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Vermuele identified the bas-relief as a depiction of the two Boread brothers, the sons of the Greek god of the North Wind, Boreas. I found this a fascinating research subject at first— why would Gould Shaw have the Boread brothers on his funerary monument? Was it a reference to the cold New England weather? Did Boreads have an association with funerary art that I was unaware of or did Gould Shaw use this bas-relief simply because he had it? To answer these questions, I once again returned to the Mount Auburn archives, where the director, Meg Winslow, kindly handed me a binder full of information about the monument.
Today the bas-relief insert of the Robert Gould Shaw monument is, like many other monuments in the cemetery, tragically worn, leaving behind only two barely-humanoid figures, so it was quite easy to trust Vermeule’s evaluation. However, within the binder I came across two photos: a photograph from when the monument was originally erected in 1948 and a sketch of the monument by its architect, Hammat Billings, including a sketch of the bas-relief. There was a glaring detail that made Vermeule’s assessment wrong — one of the figures was a woman.
Ink and graphite sketch of Robert Gould Shaw Monument by Hammat Billings (left). Photograph of Robert Gould Shaw Monument by Southworth & Hawes 1948 (right).
To verify my suspicion, I consulted two of my Classics professors at UMass Boston (Gretchen Umholtz and Chris Cochran) and, giving them no context, asked their opinions. They were of a similar sentiment, and I am now currently working on a proposal to the cemetery for a reassessment of the relief’s content as I myself am not an art historian. After discussions with my professors, I believe that the female figure is Nike, Greek goddess of victory, and that she holds in her hands a scroll that she is either writing on or consulting. The athletic male figure is either a winged depiction of a deceased individual or Eros, the Greek god of love, leaning on a pole or spear. In between the two of them is what may be a sepulchral column and a funerary urn, making this a work of funerary art where Nike is writing down the victorious deeds of the deceased (whether he be in the urn or also the male figure). This interpretation of the bas-relief, I believe, makes much more sense on a funerary monument than two playing wind gods and offers an entirely new context for the Robert Gould Shaw monument.
