RUDE, François

Rude’s relief on the right socle of the east side of the monument facing the city, shows the army of volunteers that marched out of Marseille on July 5 1792 to defend the revolution against counter-revolutionary forces. As they marched through France, they sang the song composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg on April 26. They called it the Marseillaise, and in 1879 it became the French national anthem. Under the same label, Rude’s relief gained worldwide fame.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 2 minutes):

Claude-Joseph Rouget de L’Isle: Marsellaise, French national anthem

Rude takes his place in the tradition of the Burgundian school. He was one of the masters of Romantic sculpture. Along with other sculptors, he worked on the decoration of the Arc de Triomphe at the �toile in Paris; for the east face of the arch he carved the stone relief representing the March of the Volunteers of 1792, also known as La Marseillaise. In this epic work rooted in popular sentiment and patriotism, the shouting figure of the Marseillaise is incomparable for its passion and movement; Rude used his wife as a model, crying to her “Louder! Louder!”

Michel Ney, 1st Duc d’Elchingen, 1st Prince de la Moskowa (1769-1815), known as Le Rougeaud (“red faced” or “ruddy”) by his men and le Brave des Braves (“the bravest of the brave”) was a French soldier and military commander during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was one of the original 18 Marshals of France created by Napoleon I.

Among the main works of Rude’s ultimately Romantically-oriented late work is this astonishing monument. It shows a rejuvenated Napoleon, ‘waking to immortality’ from his death-bed on St Helena, with eyes closed and laurel wreath on his head rising out of the funeral pall. Commissioned by Captain Noisot of the small corps of grenadiers Napoleon had been allowed to retain during his first period of exile on Elba in 1814, this was finished in 1847.

Already in 1840 Louis-Philippe had consented to the return of Napoleon’s body for a state burial in Les Invalides, thus officially incorporating him into French history. With its laurel wreath and epaulettes, and its expiring eagle breaking its chains, Rude’s conception is heroic, like the apotheoses by which Girodet or Ingres had immortalized the emperor’s dead soldiers.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 51 minutes):

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) in E Flat major op. 55 (1803)

This piece was exhibited at the Salon of 1831.