and 13th centuries—to the tradition of Flanders and of
Burgundy, which was smothered in the 16th century by Italian
art–to the Christian and naturalistic art of the North, which
renounced the canons of antiquity, and expressed itself by
methods essentially human and mutable, living and suffering appeals
to all mankind. The immediate result of this antagonism
was no doubt a period of agitation. The outcome, on the whole,
is confusion. Still, however vexatious the chaos of form and
movement may be, it is Life, a true reflection of the tumult
of modern thought in its complexity and bewilderment; it is
the reawakening of sculpture.
Monumental and decorative statuary found an extended sphere through the founding or restoration of public buildings after the events of 1870. Memorial sculpture obtained constant employment on patriotic or republican monuments erected in various parts of France, and not yet complete. Illustrious masters have done themselves honour in such work. Dalou, Mercie, Barrias, Falguiére, and many others less famous executed monuments to the glory of the Republic or in memory of the national defence, and figures of loan of Arc as a symbol of patriotism, &c., as well as numberless statues erected in the market-places of humble towns, or even of villages, in commemoration of national or local celebrities: politicians, soldiers, savants and artists—Thiers, Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Carnot, Pasteur, Claude Bernard, Delacroix, Ingres, Corot, Millet, Victor Hugo, Lamartine and many more. The garden of the Luxembourg alone has become a sort of Elysian Fields, where almost every day some fresh statue rises up in memory of contemporary French poets. The funereal style of monument, in which French art was at all times conspicuously distinguished, was also revived in sympathy with that general sentiment which regards reverence for the dead as a religion, and gave rise, as we have seen, to some splendid work by Chapu (the monuments to Regnault, to Daniel Stern, of Mgr Dupanloup); by Paul Dubois (the monument to General Lamoriciére); by Mercie (the tombs of Baudry, of Cabanel, of King Louis Philippe and his queen Marie Amelie); by Dalou (the monuments to Victor Noir, to Floquet and Blanqui); and by many more, with Bartholome at their head. The cemetery of Pere Lachaise is indeed one of the best spots to visit for a review of contemporary sculpture.
While man has been diligently studied in every class of sculpture, more particularly in portrait sculpture, which finds a more practical adaptation to daily uses by a bust or small statue, such as Theodore Riviere was the first to produce, by medallions, or by medals, closely related to statuary, nature now holds a place in the sculpture of animals-a place created, so to say, by Barye and carried on by Fremiet, Mene, Cain, and, with even greater vigour and a closer study of character, by Gardet (“Panthers,” in the Luxembourg, “Lions” and “Dogs,” at Chantilly, &c.); Peter, Valton, Le Duc, Isidore Bonheur, Peyrol, Cordier, Surand, Virion, Mérite and others. Finally, the class of la petite sculpture—the statuette and small group—after long hesitation in the hands of the two men who first cultivated it, Fremiet and the painter Gerome, made a sudden start into life, due in no small measure to the success attending the charming and pathetic statuettes of Theodore Riviére (“Salammbo and Maltho,” “Ultimum feriens,” “Charles VI. and Odette,” “The Vow,” “Fra Angelico,” “The Shunammite Woman,” &c.). Riviere was wont to use—as Gérôme did in his “Bellona,” and subsequently in his small “Tamerlane”—materials of various colours, and even precious stones and metals, which he employed with great effect. A whole class of art was not, indeed, originated, but strongly vivified by this method of treatment. Claudius Marioton and Dampt, who always affected small and precious work, Agathon Leonard (e.g. a table decoration of “Dancers” in Sèvres china), Laporte Blairsy, Ferrary, Levasseur, Belloc, E. Lafont, &c., utilized every process and every kind of material—marble and metal, wood and ivory, enchanced by the most costly goldsmiths’ work and gems.
It would seem now that sculpture, thus endowed with new ideas and the most various means of expression, and adapted to every comprehension and every situation, was fully on a level with the other graphic arts. What it had chiefly to fear was, in fact, the wealth of means at its disposal, and its competition or collaboration with other arts. And this the later generations seem to have understood-the men who were the outcome of the two conflicting traditions: order and moderation on one side; character, life, and emotion on the other. Though very variously inspired by the facts or ideals of contemporary life, such young artists as Jean Boucher (“Evening,” “The Antique and the Modern”), Roger Bloche (“Childhood,” “Cold”), Derré, Boverie, Hippolyte Lefebvre, Desruelles, Gaston Schnegg, Pierre Roche, Fix-Masseau, Couteil has, and others seem to show that French sculpture is about to assume a solid position on a sound foundation, while not ceasing to keep in touch with the tastes, aspects and needs—in short, the ideal—of the day. Thus, while painting -engaged the attention of the public by, its new departures, its daring, and its very extravagance, sculpture, which by the conditions of its technique is less exposed to transient influences, has, since the close of the 19th century, developed normally but with renewed vigour. If the brilliancy of the school was not so conspicuous and its works gave rise to little discussion or speculation, it is not the less certain that at the beginning of the 20th century the younger generation offered the encouraging prospect of a compact group of sculptors who would probably leave works of permanent merit. Yet sculpture too had gone through a crisis, and been deeply stirred by the currents which so violently agitated all modern thought. We have already spoken of its “state of mind,” torn between the noble traditions of a glorious past which link it to the antique, and the craving to render in its own medium, with greater freedom and fuller force of expression, all those unuttered meanings of the universe and of contemporary thought which the other arts-painting, literature, the drama, and even music-have striven to identify and to record. But the acute stage of tentative and incoherent effort seemed in 1910 to be past; inspiration had returned# to its normal channel and purely plastic expression.
The powerful individuality which had the most vital influence on modern sculpture in France, and, it may be added, on many foreign schools, is that of Rodin. During the ten years which followed the Great Exhibition in Paris (1900) and the special display of his works, his reputation spread throughout the countries of the world and his fame was fully established. The state liberally contributed to his triumph by commissions and purchases, and in the Luxembourg Gallery may be seen about five and twenty of his finest works. His productiveness was unbroken, but it was chiefly evolved in relation to his first great conception, “The Gate of Hell”; its leading features were taken up again, modified, expanded, and added to by their creator. But besides the numberless embodiments of voluptuous, impassioned, or pathetic ideas—of which there is need to name only “Les ombres” (the Shades) and “Le penseur” (the Thinker), now placed in front of the steps of the Pantheon; several monuments, as for instance to Victor Hugo, to Whistler, and to Puvis de Chavannes; besides a large number of portrait busts. Enthusiastic literary men, and the critics of the day who upheld Rodin in his struggles, more from an instinct of pugnacity and a love of paradox than from conviction and real comprehension of his prodigious and fertile genius, have tended to give him a poetic and prophetic aspect, and make him appear as a sort of Dante in sculpture. Though his art is vehement in expression, and he has revelled in the presentment of agonized suffering and the poignant melancholy of passion, it is by the methods of Michelangelo and essentially plastic treatment than power of modelling. His modelling is indeed the most wonderful that modern sculpture has to show, the most purely plastic technique, and this characteristic is always evident in his work, combined with reverence for the antique. Rodin made his home in the midst of Greek statues, a museum of the antique which he collected at Meudon; and some of his own late work, such as the male torsos which he exhibited at the Salon, has a direct relationship to the marbles of the Parthenon—the Ilyssus and the Theseus. It is the fuller understanding of these
