Who Hasn't Been Tempted to Play Hooky on a Wintry Day?

Randolph Rogers' mischievous skater is one of the artworks that is featured in our traveling exhibition Young America, opening on March 1, 2000 at the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina.

A young boy clothed in a hooded cloak steps tentatively onto the ice with a pointed skate. One hand clutches a tree trunk, while the fur-lined boot tests the strength of the surface. Drawn by the glistening ice, he has thrown his books by the side of the tree. He is ready to launch himself onto the frozen pond and forget about school.

This charming truant must have appealed to Rogers' patrons, who certainly remembered similar temptations of their youth. The populace at this time was more forgiving of youthful folly and were more attuned to learning from the "book of nature." As Mark Twain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer says, "The elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time." The sculptor's ability to convincingly render the various textures of ice, snow, and wood in polished marble make this an accomplished work, full of mischief, movement, and bravado.

Source: Amy Pastan. Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000).

Pictured: Randolph Rogers (1825 USA–1892 Italy), The Truant,1853, marble, 40 1/2 x 15 x 25 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase.