14 AUGUST 1953, Page 6

Peronitis The model for the memorial to Eva Perlin which

is to be raised in the heart of Buenos Aires has just been shown to the public. Designed on lines suggested by the deceased, the monument proves that whatever other virtues she possessed humility was not numbered among them. The base, in which Seilora Peron's pure silver tomb will reside, is 250 feet high and crowned with a magnificent statue of an Argentine worker, some 195 feet tall, in fact the largest statue in the world. In this country the statues erected in memory of our heroes and heroines are plentiful but, owing perhaps to their not being designed by the people involved, small. It is true that their supporting columns are liable to soar, but the figures upon these are modestly proportioned, usually indeed unidentifiable from the ground. There was once a scheme to erect a giant statue of Sir Winston Churchill on the cliffs of Dover, his cigar to be lighted on stormy nights to lead the ' Calais packet into harbour, but this, as is obvious, came to nothing. My belief is that although we dutifully commemorate our V.I.P.'s in bronze, because it seems the right thing to do, our hearts are not really in it: as a nation we do not appreciate, sculpture as an art form. Save for a few admirers of Jagger's Royal Artillery Memorial and Le Sueur's Charles I, I have never met an Englishman who liked a statue of anyone erected anywhere. His secret idea for the perfect memorial is a 445 feet high cricket pavilion.