Auguste Clésinger
Jean-Baptiste Auguste Clésinger (born October 22, 1814 in Besançon , † January 5, 1883 in Paris ) was a French sculptor .
Life
Auguste Clésinger was born in 1814 as the son of the sculptor Georges-Philippe Clésinger . The father taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Besançon, where the young Clésinger also studied. Auguste was also a student of Bertel Thorwaldsen . He had his first exhibition in the Paris Salon in 1843 with a bust of Jules de Valdahon .
But his work in the Salon of 1847, a sculpture of a young woman who was bitten by a snake, caused a stir. The work caused an artistic and public scandal. The artist had made a plaster cast of his model Apollonie Sabatier (1822–1890) and then worked this in marble. The work depicts a woman writhing in pain who was bitten by a snake. The sculpture is so lifelike that even the cellulite of the thigh is visible. The cast made directly on the body was artistically controversial in the 19th century, as the sculptors who worked with this technique were accused of a lack of artistic work and integrity. Eugène Delacroix saw Clésinger's statue only as a “daguerreotype of sculpture”. The exuberant female forms, the realism of which shocked the salon audience, are, however, mixed with more traditional elements: the idealized face and the flower-covered base make the marble statue a "perfect example of eclecticism in sculpture".
In the 1840s, Clésinger met George Sand and Frédéric Chopin and began an intense friendship with them. Clésinger was allowed to make a death mask and an impression of the hands of Chopin on the musician's deathbed. He also created a sculpture of Euterpe for Chopin's grave in the Père Lachaise cemetery .
In 1847 Clésinger Sands daughter married Solange Dudevant. But the marriage was not a lucky star. In 1849 the couple had a daughter who, however, died in 1855. Shortly before, Auguste and Solange Clésinger had split up.
In 1864 Clésinger became a member of the Société Générale de Photosculpture and in 1867 its director. The Société was an association of artists who worked with lifelike representations.
Clésinger died in Paris in 1883 and was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
Honors
In 1849 Clésinger was made a knight of the Legion of Honor , and in 1864 an officer.
literature
- Alexander Estignard: Clésinger, sa vie, ses oeuvres . H. Floury, Paris, 1900
- Henri Baudoin: Catalog des sculptures provenant de l'atelier de Jean-Baptiste-Auguste Clésinger (1814-1883), bronzes, marbres, terres cuites, platres, desisns et peintures par J.-B.-A. Clésinger . Drouot, Paris, 1923
- June Ellen Hargrove: Carrier-Belleuse, Clésinger, and Dalou: French nineteenth-century sculptors . In: The Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, No. 61, 1974, pp. 29-44
- Wendy Nolan-Joyce: Sculpting the Modern Muse: Auguste Clésinger's Femme piquée par un serpent . Nintenth-Century French Studies, Fall 2006, pp. 166–188
- Hans Körner: Pain - Pleasure - Knowledge: Auguste Clésinger's 'Femme piquée par un serpent' and Gustave Courbet's 'Femme au perroquet' as allegories of the sense of touch . In: Andrea Gottdang, Regina Wohlfarth: With all senses . 2010, pp. 85-104
Web links
- Works by Auguste Clésinger in the Musée d'Orsay , Paris
Individual evidence
- ↑ The woman bitten by a snake , Musée d'Orsay , Paris
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Clésinger, Auguste |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Clésinger, Jean-Baptiste Auguste (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 22, 1814 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Besançon |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 5, 1883 |
| Place of death | Paris |