Bourdelle in the Sky

A Postcard of Herakles, by Antoine Bourdelle, printed on the reverse is Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm, Foto Riwkin.  The sculpture is in a museum in Djurgården, Stockholm, Sweden. It was formerly the home of Prince Eugen (1865-1947), a Swedish prince, painter and art collector.  One of the largest privately owned collections in Sweden with mainly Swedish art, so it is testament to the importance of this work that he chose to collect it.

I've been looking for this image, I even started to think maybe I had dreamed it, which is a whole other level of sculpture-geek but I finally found it on a postcard. I think it was on my mind because Bourdelle is back in his well-deserved spotlight with the reopening and reinvigoration of the plaster court at the Bourdelle Museum, inspiring more of his works to filter through into the auction and commercial world.

This work cemented his breakthrough, produced when he was 50, it was a departure from the romantic naturalistic period, in its flat angular planes, but still paid homage to the power of his employer Rodin.  He made the work in 1909, before the publication of the ‘Futurist Manifesto’, an artist ahead of the movements of his time but also not quite defined by them when they arrived.  In recent decades, artists that don’t entirely fit a movement are often reduced, as they are harder for larger companies to place with their collectors as they are digitally hard to ‘tag’ and therefore promote.  A work by one of these anomalous artists, enhances a collection by reflecting elements in more strongly categorised works and it is a great pity this isn’t encouraged in the modern collector.  Of course, these artists are championed by experienced specialist dealers and the rare passion experts in the larger corporations who understand them.

Bourdelle chose this labour/quest as his subject, depicting Hercules in the moment of drawing his bow to shoot the man-eating birds, because of his love of mythology but also as a structure - the pulling against the bow allows him to create a dynamic musculature and a work poised before an event is often more powerful.  It caused a stir at the Salon (the major ‘art fair’ of his time) with Charles Estienne, art critic, describing it as “the most audacious and most easily remembered sculpture of the Salon exhibitions of the past years’.

Bourdelle loved monumentality in his sculpture and had a fascination with architecture.  I love his series of plaster heads (you can see these in the Bourdelle Museum) and would love to own them and place them around a room dramatically lit for their theatre at night and pensive gentle colours in natural light, changing the tone of the room, but sadly they are quite rare (do study them at the museum if you have the chance).

Bourdelle used his friend, Captain Doyen-Parigot, an athlete and soldier, as the model for the sculpture’s body. The artist modified the head to maintain the model’s privacy at his request – in fact he made many versions which are nicknamed by the head for example 'naturalistic' or 'stylised', but my favourite works include the esoteric symbols or reliefs which depict the other labours/quests – such as the Hydra and the Nemean Lion.

To feel the full impact of this sculpture you need to visit it in its monumental form, or of course visit the Bourdelle Museum, or crouch very low next to the interior versions in a commercial gallery and hope they don’t ask you to leave.  Online to get the real feel of the work, I have linked a website below of the exhibition at Tsinghua University in 2017, where the curator and photographer have clearly understood Bourdelle.

https://www.artmuseum.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/news/dtxw/201711/t20171127_2812.shtml

Walking Points

👣  Bourdelle was a student and employee of Rodin and inspired Germaine Richier and Alberto Giacometti.

👣  Bourdelle was considered to be the next great sculptor along with Maillol after the passing of Rodin but world events impacted this beyond his control.

👣  His studio in Paris, is the location of the Bourdelle Museum, which holds over 500 sculptures in marble, plaster and bronze and 6,200 watercolours and paintings.  There is a second museum in Egreville France, with garden works created by his daughter and Michel Dufet.

👣  The image feels familiar as it comes in various sizes and versions with lithographs, drawings surrounding the work by other artists.

👣  Hercules is shooting the Stymphalian birds, his 6th quest or labour of the 12 he was asked to complete as punishment - he was driven mad by the goddess Hera and killed his entire family, Hera hated him because he was the bastard son of her husband Zeus – who of course in typical Zeus fashion had disguised himself as the husband of Hercules's mother and snuck into her bed.

👣  Monumental Versions exist in the Musee d’Orsay, Montauban, Toulouse, Lyon, Egreville, Antwerp, Prague and Stockholm.  In Asia Tokyo, Hakone and in the Americas, Buenos Aires, New Orleans, New York, Los Angeles, Syracuse University.  Some are gilded. 

👣  If you search online the model - Captain Doyen-Parigot – you can quite easily find the nude pictures of him posing for Bourdelle and see quite clearly why Bourdelle picked him as the epitome of an athlete.  This is ironic as he asked for his face to be anonymised to protect his reputation, which has always made me unconfortable that these are now shared but they are a wonderful 'insight' into the work.

👣  The captain met Bourdelle at what were known as ‘Rodin Saturdays’ which were a regular gathering for artists and the cultured.  His athleticism couldn’t be hidden and so their collaboration in this work made absolute sense – of note even the Captain couldn’t hold the pose for more than a few minutes holding a broom handle instead of the bow, so don’t show off and try. 

👣  Captain Doyen-Parigot was killed during World War 1 at the battle of Verdun, as if depicting him as a hero in bronze, meant he would come to be one by his death.