Eustache de Saint Pierre

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Valladolid Rodin expo 2008 Eustache 04 ni.JPG

Eustache de Saint Pierre is the best known and oldest of the six citizens of Calais . He was the wealthiest resident in town and volunteered first for this difficult gang. Other members of the group, the two brothers Jacques de Wissant, Pierre de Wissant and Jehann d'Aire are cousins ​​of his.

history

In 1347, at the beginning of the Hundred Years' War , the six respected citizens, including the mayor, offered themselves at the siege of Calais as a kind of hostage or subservient supplicant to spare the city. They saved the other residents of Calais from the English who were besieging the city. Philippa von Hainaut , the pregnant wife of the aggressor and besiegers Edward III. of England dissuaded him from executing the six citizens as announced. The scholar Louis-Georges de Bréquigny almost questioned the myth: in 1766 he found evidence in the files of the Tower of London that King Edward III. of England returned property to Eustache de Saint Pierre.

After the surrender of Calais , the city became English. A large part of the population has been displaced. This begs the question of whether Eustache de Saint Pierre and his companions were traitors , collaborators, or heroes . This question has been settled today, because historians know that surrender was a ritual in the Middle Ages : first the conquered humbly surrender, then the forgiveness by the victor follows. However, this archival discovery does not call into question the process of myth-making, which aims to legitimize a fundamental paradigm of thinking about the nation in the 19th century: the distinction between the small homeland (local patriotism) and the large homeland (national patriotism) .

The plastic

execution

First, Rodin made nude studies of Eustache de Saint Pierre. Then he draped the figure with canvas to realistically indicate the robe. He also designed different versions of the single head. The model for this was Jean-Charles Cazin, a friend of Rodin's.

gallery

finished plastic

  • Nude study

  • hand

  • foot

Locations of the casts

There are 12 versions of the group in bronze, u. a. on Belfry Square in Calais, in Victoria Tower Gardens next to Parliament in London at Stanford University and in the Rodin Museum in Paris. A version of the single figure figure is u. a. at the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City .

See also

literature

  • Roland Bothner: Auguste Rodin, The citizens of Calais : an art monograph (= Insel-Taschenbuch 1483), Inselverlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 1993, ISBN 3-458-33183-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gabriela Walde: The cheeks hollow, the eyes empty, barefoot. Welt, May 27, 2007, accessed March 22, 2020 .
  2. ^ A b August Rodin's "Citizens of Calais" - A work and form analysis. In: hausarbeiten.de. 2005, accessed March 25, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Rodin's Citizens of Calais: A Manifesto of Human Sacrifice. In: Wissen.de. Retrieved March 23, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Clay Model of Eustache de Saint Pierre. In: musee-rodin.fr. 1886, accessed March 25, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Eustache de Saint-Pierre, tête définitive, avec corde autour de cou. In: brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved March 25, 2020 (English).

Web links

Commons : Eustache de Saint Pierre by Auguste Rodin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files