Reply to "SCULPTURE"

The Baroque in Sculpture
Michelangelo had shown the way to express robust power with technical excellence. In his day these attributes of art were urgently desired by both church and state--the church to bolster its prestige in the face of Protestant successes, and the state to glorify its rising power. This trend carried over into the 17th century, when the zeal that built St. Peter's in Rome expressed itself in a renewed vigor wherever Roman Catholicism prevailed.

The leader of the baroque movement was Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), architect as well as sculptor. The series of 162 figures that surmounts his imposing colonnade in front of St. Peter's in Rome is only a part of the tremendous amount of work he did for the church. His fountains of Rome, including the 'Fountain of the Four Rivers', gave the Eternal City a new and lasting splendor. Typical of Bernini's style is his 'St. Teresa', where the overactive drapery and theatrical setting are designed to show off skill rather than to convey meaning.

Sculpture in France
The Renaissance in France began about the time of Francis I (1494-1547). To his court were invited many Italian artists and architects, among them Benvenuto Cellini and Leonardo da Vinci. A little later, as the power of Italy waned and that of France rose, the ideas transplanted to the new country took deep root and blossomed into new life.

Neoclassicism in Sculpture
For all the interest in classical antiquity during and after the Renaissance there had been no systematic study of classical remains until the brilliant and inspired work of the German archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-68). His published writings on Herculaneum and Pompeii led to a new, impassioned interest in the ancient art of Greece and Rome. Artists now resolved to revive classical purity by adhering strictly to the style of original examples.

This movement, known as neoclassicism, began in the latter half of the 18th century and continued into the early 19th, when it gained political support through Napoleon's interest in Greek ideology. The leading exponent of this style in Italy was Antonio Canova (1757-1822). However correct in principle, his work remains cold in feeling, just as were the works of his followers in England, Germany, and Denmark.

The 19th Century
The formality and coldness of neoclassicism came as a reaction against the theatrical baroque and against the florid rococo, which flourished in 18th-century France. Moreover, the political atmosphere in which the new art operated was sympathetic to the reverence for the ancients. Napoleon saw himself as another Caesar. His minister of art, Jacques-Louis David, caused even furniture and dress to be designed in classical lines. Gradually, however, artists returned to the life about them. François Rude (1784-1855) broke through classical restraint to create one of the world's most stirring relief compositions--the 'Marseillaise' on the Arc de Triomphe, in Paris. Rude's pupil Jean Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-75) carried on the active, emotional themes.

Auguste Rodin, France, 1840-1917
Jeune Fille au chapeau fleuri des roses (Young woman with flower hat with roses)
Terra Cotta, approx. 1871