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Burns Statue Paisley
The London sculptor Frederick William Pomeroy (1856-1924) sculpted the most original of all the Burns statues ever produced.
Proceeds from the concerts given by the Tannahill Choir were used to defray the costs of erecting statues in Paisley to Robert Tannahill and Robert Burns.
The latter statue was unveiled by Lord Rosebery on 26th September 1896. The bronze figure, ten feet high, is mounted on a twelve foot pedestal of Red Kemnay granite and stands in Fountain Gardens.
Burns is shown in tail coat, knee breeches and a broad Kilmarnock bonnet, leaning languidly against a plough and holding a pencil and notebook in contemplative mood.
Pinnington commended Pomeroy for abandoning precedent and convention without roughly defying prevailing views of physical likeness. Burns looks every inch a man; somewhat ponderous, perhaps, across the loins for agility, but muscular, broad and strong. An ample plaid lends the burly peasant all the grace he needs, and, falling over the plough at the back, partly hides a thistle. The emblem is not obtruded, because the sculptor wishes the poet to be seen as the Poet of Humanity first, and as that of Scotland afterwards.
Mr Pomeroy tried for something original and he succeeded. In his Burns he has portrayed the thinker and poet of boundless potentiality, without neglecting the toil-bent worker or the athlete. Capable as a work of art, the statue is endowed with a life-like vigour and picturesque grace which ensure its acceptance.
A bronze bas-relief of Tam being pursued by witches adorns the pedestal.
Copies of the Pomeroy statue were unveiled in the Domains of Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand in January 1905 and November 1921 respectively, on colossal pedestals without the bronze bas-relief.
Burns Statue Paisley2
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