BOURDELLE, Émile-Antoine - b. 1861 Montauban, d. 1929 Le Vésinet - WGA

BOURDELLE, Émile-Antoine

(b. 1861 Montauban, d. 1929 Le Vésinet)

French sculptor, painter and draughtsman. After working with his father, a cabinetmaker, in 1876 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse. In 1884 he was admitted as a pupil of Alexandre Falguière to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but in rebellion against academic training left two years later. He then moved into a house (now the Musée Bourdelle) in the Impasse du Maine; Jules Dalou, for whom he had the greatest admiration, lived near by. From 1893 to 1905 he worked in the studio of Auguste Rodin, who had a marked influence on Bourdelle’s art.

His major works include 21 busts of Ludwig van Beethoven (executed between 1888 and 1929). As the result of his Baroque theatrical works, Bourdelle was appointed as the official memorial artist of the Third Republic.

In addition to his monumental sculptures and portraits, his oeuvre included watercolours, frescoes, and book illustrations, all of which bear testimony to the versatility of this French artist of the fin de siècle who was second only in importance to Rodin.

Hercules the Archer

This statue represents Hercules’s fifth labour of the twelve which he had to perform. It represents the hero’s fight with the Stymphalian birds. Bourdelle used an athlete as model for the figure which had a great success in the Salon of 1910.

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Large Tragic Mask of Beethoven

Bourdelle made more than 40 depictions of the great composer. For him, Beethoven became the embodiment of creative energy, which is conveyed here by the expressive painterly treatment of the material, accentuating volume by means of texture and line. The empty and strangely convex eye sockets in this face without a gaze intensify the sense of a force bursting it apart from within, which seems to originate from the mighty arch of the tightly pressed lips.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 7 minutes):

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor op. 67 (1st mvt)

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Ludwig van Beethoven

Between 1887 and 1929, Bourdelle created 45 sculptures and many drawings and watercolours of Ludwig van Beethoven. Whereas the earlier works, produced in the late 1880s, were quite traditional in appearance, those created after 1901 are rougher and more disturbing. The present version, presented at the 1903 Salon in Paris, shows Beethoven with a serious, introverted expression. The wild hair surrounding his head is the first indication of the extreme, rugged forms of the following variations.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 6 minutes):

Ludwig van Beethoven: Die Gesch�pfe des Prometheus (The Creatures of Prometheus), overture op. 43

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Night

Bourdelle gave us an allegory of the night, a figure derived from Michelangelo. It is a kind of grotesque mask with which to enter the new century, hiding its face so that we can see only the eyes.

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