CLODION

This is a characteristic terracotta sculpture by Clodion.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Francesco Gasparini: The Meddlesome Cupid, aria

This relief and its companion (Music) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art are pared-down versions of two of the terracotta reliefs Clodion exhibited at the Salon of 1779 representing Music, Architecture, Astronomy, and Painting (believed to be the set of four in the Mus�e Henry, Cherbourg). These reliefs appear to have served as the models for architectural reliefs for the H�tel d’Osmond, Paris.

This fine group, a scene from a bacchanal, celebrates Bacchus, the god of wine and fertility. It reveals Clodion’s fundamental influences, the classical sculpture he studied in Rome and the work of his compatriot Poussin.

The relatively constricted movement of the figures suggests the canon of Directoire taste.

The statue in fact represents a Greco-Roman, not an Egyptian figure. It was inspired by a black marble statue of Isis originating from the Villa Hadrian.

Clodion spent nine years in Italy (1762–71), where he attended the French Academy in Rome and studied important collections of antiquities. Instructed by Charles-Joseph Natoire, director of the French Academy, to study sculpture by making clay copies instead of drawing, Clodion soon perfected a type of highly finished small terracotta sculpture popular with eighteenth-century collectors.

Minerva combines the features of several ancient marbles, most importantly the Minerva Giustiniani in the Vatican. Clodion depicts the goddess of wisdom and the arts wearing a helmet, Greek chiton and mantle draped over her left shoulder and wrapped around her waist. Her raised right hand once held a spear (now lost). Her lowered left hand steadies a shield with quilted padding and arm straps on the inside; a delicately incised head of Medusa appears on the other side, probably added to the damp clay before finishing, along with Clodion’s signature at the base.

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), more commonly known as Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, taken for granted in modern discussions of government and implemented in many constitutions throughout the world.

In 1778, Angiviller, the Directeur des Bâtiments, initiated a scheme of the great men of France, nearly all chosen from the seventeenth century. Clodion received the most recent personage in the series, Montesquieu. The seated statues in the series are more successful than the standing figures, but among them all Clodion’s is the finest achievement. The plaster model was presented at the Salon of 1779, the finished marble at the Salon of 1783. The statue was a great success, however, Clodion did not receive the commission for another great man.

Although the life-size Montesquieu is sufficient indication of Clodion’s ability to handle marble, his name is rightly associated with terracotta - the medium with potentialities for small-scale decorative works.

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), more commonly known as Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, taken for granted in modern discussions of government and implemented in many constitutions throughout the world.

In 1778, Angiviller, the Directeur des Bâtiments, initiated a scheme of the great men of France, nearly all chosen from the seventeenth century. Clodion received the most recent personage in the series, Montesquieu. The seated statues in the series are more successful than the standing figures, but among them all Clodion’s is the finest achievement. The plaster model was presented at the Salon of 1779, the finished marble at the Salon of 1783. The statue was a great success, however, Clodion did not receive the commission for another great man.

Although the life-size Montesquieu is sufficient indication of Clodion’s ability to handle marble, his name is rightly associated with terracotta - the medium with potentialities for small-scale decorative works.

Clodion executed two terracotta statuettes in Italy, probably for a tomb which was never realized.

This relief and its companion (Architecture) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art are pared-down versions of two of the terracotta reliefs Clodion exhibited at the Salon of 1779 representing Music, Architecture, Astronomy, and Painting (believed to be the set of four in the Mus�e Henry, Cherbourg). These reliefs appear to have served as the models for architectural reliefs for the H�tel d’Osmond, Paris.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Gioacchino Rossini: La Danza

In the centre a Nymph is holding hands with an infant faun, who dances on her left foot. Two other small fauns stand at a pedestal on which burns a fire. At the bottom of the plaque a basket of fruit can be seen.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 11 minutes):

Claude Debussy: Pr�lude à l’apr�s-midi d’un faune

In Clodion’s groups sometimes it is violent impetuosity that hurls the bodies along, with flying hair and breathless faces; but at other times the tempo is gentle, even wistful: the figures are an enchanted, eternally youthful, family moving amid the scattered grapes, coming as if from some ‘vendange,’ sated with autumnal fullness.

Around 1770 Clodion began specializing in subjects that might be called Anacreonitic or Ovidian - that is amatory - and executed a cycle based on Ovid Metamorphoses.

Pan in Greek mythology is the god of woods and fields, flocks and herds. In Renaissance allegory he personifies Lust; he charmed the nymphs with the music of his pipes. The story of Pan and Syrinx is described by Ovid (Metamorphoses 1:689-713). Pan was pursuing a nymph of Arcadia named Syrinx when they reached the River Ladon which blocked her escape. To avoid the god’s clutches she prayed to be transformed, and Pan unexpectedly found himself holding an armful of tall reeds. The sound of the wind blowing through them so pleased him that he cut some and made a set of pipes which are named after the nymph.

Once Clodion had established his style it was to evolve very little in the years of his popularity extending up to the Revolution. Immediately recognizable and immediately appealing, his work managed to remain marvellously inventive. Whatever variations of scale and treatment he was capable of, it is in the small terracotta groups that his energy and delicacy and variety are best displayed. Sometimes chasing each other, sometimes embracing, often accompanied by a mischievous child, these groups of men and women, or satyrs and nymphs, seem like graceful opposing forces from whom a spark is always struck. Even when not actually in contact, their bodies seem to betray on their sensuous surfaces awareness of each other’s sex. Man is often the satyr, a little grotesque, a little clumsy, but only to set off the piquant contrast of some slim, naked nymph, herself by no means repelled by a rustic lover.

This group represents a Satyr carrying a Bacchante playing a tambour.

This is one of a group of stucco reliefs from the court of the H�tel de Bourbon-Cond�, Paris. It was built by the architect Alexandre-Th�odore Brongniart in 1781 for the princess Louise Ad�laide de Bourbon-Cond�. The reliefs remained there until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Although Clodion executed commissions for large-scale works, he had his greatest success with his terracottas for private collectors. The Intoxication of Wine is one of his finest in this genre. Racing into the arms of a satyr, a bacchante raises a cup to pour wine into his open mouth. Clodion did not invent the genre of terracotta nymphs and satyrs, but he perfected it. The pose of the nymph became part of the repertoire that Clodion turned to, varying it slightly, throughout his career.

In 1783 there were a number of pioneering events in and around Paris to do with man’s dream of flying. The Montgolfier brothers got their first hot-air balloon off the ground on July 5, after which came the first manned flight of a ‘montgolfier’ on November 21. In the same year, the French physicist Jacques Alexandre C�sar Charles (1746-1823) undertook several experiments with hydrogen-filled balloons, which were therefore called ‘charliers’. On December 1 Charles went up in a charlier, which induced the Directeur des Bâtiments de Roi to set up a competition for a memorial for the new technical achievement. Among other sculptors invited were Houdon, Pajou, and Clodion. However, the designs were never shown publicly because the project was abandoned in 1785.

Clodion designed a round, altar-like base with a fire burning on it, to maintain which a bevy of putti scattered straw. Above the fire hovers the balloon, likewise surrounded by putti, but also flanked by Fama and the wind of AEolus. The fussiness of the design makes it appear inappropriate for a monument and more suited to a drawing room. Even the imagery itself, which seeks to honour the invention with the traditional resources of allegory, scarcely convince. This is because the allegorical meaning of the renewal of cult and life at a higher level despite being inherent in fire, the image here is partially false. On the plinth is a montgolfier supported by fire and hot air. A charlier filled with hydrogen would explode under such circumstances.

The orthodox classical shape is relieved by the fleshy young Bacchanals; antiquity blends with the ‘ancien r�gime’. Clodion produced many versions of this basic design between 1763 an 1785.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 19 minutes):

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme