CARPEAUX, Jean-Baptiste

This work was exhibited at the Salon of 1873.

Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824-1895) was the son of Alexandre Dumas, p�re, who followed in his father’s footsteps becoming a celebrated writer, author and playwright. His best known work is his romantic novel, La dame aux cam�lias (The Lady of the Camellias). Adapted into a play, it was the basis for Verdi’s 1853 opera, La Traviata.

In 1860, Carpeaux had the idea of presenting his native town of Valenciennes with a monument to another of that town’s famous sons, Watteau. He worked on the monument for the rest of his life but died before it was finished. The sketch of the frail painter is modelled in delicate touches in a slightly twisted pose.

Carpeaux shared with his assistants Armand and Bernaerts the work of carving the Dance for the Op�ra from a half-sized model, now in the Mus�e d’Orsay.

When the fa�ade of the Op�ra was unveiled in July 1869, Dance caused a scandal. In the number of its figures, their powerful nudity, and their movement, Dance did indeed form a striking contrast to the other three groups, Lyric Drama by Perreaud, Instrumental Music by Guillaume, and Harmony by Jouffroy, which were all quietly organised around the dominant figure of an inspiring genius, flanked on either side by three other figures.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Gioacchino Rossini: La Danza

The work is signed and dated: JBte Carpeaux ROMA 1857.

Carpeaux was the favourite sculptor of the family Emperor Napol�on III (1808-1873). He made marble statue of Prince-Imperial Louis-Napol�on, busts of Empress Eugenie and the emperor’s cousin Princess Matilda Bonaparte. However, he did not carve a bust of the emperor until the end of Napol�on III’s life. It was completed posthumously.

Charles Gounod was a French composer famous for his operas, including Faust. The turn of the sitter’s head and the delicate modeling give the sculpture a sense of vitality and spontaneity, as if it had been made in a single session. In fact, Gounod recalled that the bust required nearly fourteen sittings to complete.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 14 minutes):

Charles Gounod: Faust, Ballet music

This work was exhibited at the Salon of 1872.

This bronze is a study for a Parisian monument of the four continents, symbolized by female figures. It is a preparatory work for Africa, presented as a bust rather than a full-length figure. In depicting Africa, Carpeaux emphasized the horrors of slavery, portrayed by a black woman whose breasts and arms are bound by a taut rope.

Carpeaux was commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III to create a lifesize sculpture of the nine-year-old prince. The prince is portrayed, wearing contemporary clothing, with his favourite dog. The dog, twisting its own body around that of the prince, lends stability to the whole piece, providing a support in the traditional style of classical marble statues, in which this function is often performed by a tree stump.

Literary subjects were held in particularly high esteem by Romantic artists. In the front rank of such subjects were those drawn from Dante. Ever since it was written in the early fourteenth century, the Divine Comedy had enjoyed extraordinary favour in the field of plastic arts. Romanticism breathed new vigour into it, delighting particularly in the association between Virgil and Dante. It saw the former as the very embodiment of the elegiac poet, in contrast to the somber, tormented genius of the latter. Conversely, Neoclassical artists favoured exclusively the Latin poet.

The admiration that the Romantic felt for Dante also extended to the characters of the Divine Comedy. The character around whom all the fantasies and fears of late Romanticism crystallized most effectively during the second half of the nineteenth century was that of Ugolino, as drawn from canto XXXIII of the Inferno. For his final work produced at the Villa Medici, Carpeaux selected from this episode the crucial moment when Ugolino, condemned to die of starvation, is about too give in to the temptation of eating his children and grandchildren as, on the point of dying themselves, they beg him to. The horror of this moment is captured in the tension of Ugolino’s body, which is all angles in contrast to the abandonment of children. Ugolino has his fingers in his mouth and one foot set nervously on the other.

Carpeaux found inspiration in Canto XXXIII of Dante’s Divine Comedy which describes the encounter in Hell between the writer, led by Virgil, and Ugolino della Gherardesca. The count recounts the punishment he has suffered. Ugolino was imprisoned in a tower, condemned to starve to death in gaol. According to legend, Ugolino died after eating his own sons and grandsons who shared his cell.

This splendid sculpture epitomizes the Romantic preoccupation with extreme physical and emotional states. The subject is taken from Dante’s Inferno, in which a suspected traitor, Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, is condemned to die imprisoned inn a tower with his sons and grandsons. Carpeaux has depicted the moment at which the count, yielding to hunger and despair, contemplates cannibalism.

The work, completed during the last year of the sculptor’s residence at the French Academy in Rome, caused a public sensation and immediately established Carpeaux as the heir of the French Romantic sculptors of the 1830s. He developed a special reverence for Michelangelo in Rome, and much of the power of the Ugolino derives from the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

This splendid sculpture epitomizes the Romantic preoccupation with extreme physical and emotional states. The subject is taken from Dante’s Inferno, in which a suspected traitor, Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, is condemned to die imprisoned inn a tower with his sons and grandsons. Carpeaux has depicted the moment at which the count, yielding to hunger and despair, contemplates cannibalism.

The work, completed during the last year of the sculptor’s residence at the French Academy in Rome, caused a public sensation and immediately established Carpeaux as the heir of the French Romantic sculptors of the 1830s. He developed a special reverence for Michelangelo in Rome, and much of the power of the Ugolino derives from the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

This splendid sculpture epitomizes the Romantic preoccupation with extreme physical and emotional states. The subject is taken from Dante’s Inferno, in which a suspected traitor, Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, is condemned to die imprisoned inn a tower with his sons and grandsons. Carpeaux has depicted the moment at which the count, yielding to hunger and despair, contemplates cannibalism.

The work, completed during the last year of the sculptor’s residence at the French Academy in Rome, caused a public sensation and immediately established Carpeaux as the heir of the French Romantic sculptors of the 1830s. He developed a special reverence for Michelangelo in Rome, and much of the power of the Ugolino derives from the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

Ugolino and His Sons was the culmination of five years of study at the Acad�mie de France in Rome, where the talented artist was enrolled after winning the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1854. The sculptural group is deeply indebted to his contemplation in Italy of ancient statuary and, above all, of the passionate marbles and frescoes of Michelangelo. The central figure of the group assumed the attitude of Michelangelo’s Lorenzo de’ Medici (Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, Florence).