Alexandre Falguière
Encyclopedia
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
- 20 April 1900, Paris) was a French sculptor and painter.
He was born in Toulouse. A pupil of the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
, he won the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
in 1859; he was awarded the medal of honor at the Paris Salon
Paris Salon
The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
in 1868 and was appointed Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1878.
His first bronze statue
Bronze sculpture
Bronze is the most popular metal for cast metal sculptures; a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply a "bronze".Common bronze alloys have the unusual and desirable property of expanding slightly just before they set, thus filling the finest details of a mold. Then, as the bronze cools, it...
of importance was Le Vainqueur au Combat de Coqs (Victor of the Cockfight
Cockfight
A cockfight is a blood sport between two roosters , held in a ring called a cockpit. Cockfighting is now illegal throughout all states in the United States, Brazil, Australia and in most of Europe. It is still legal in several U.S. territories....
) (1864), and Tarcisus the Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
Boy-Martyr followed in 1867; both were exhibited in the Luxembourg Museum and are now in the Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
http://www.insecula.com/oeuvre/photo_ME0000049612.html. His more important monuments are those to Admiral Courbet (1890) at Abbeville
Abbeville
Abbeville is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France.-Location:Abbeville is located on the Somme River, from its modern mouth in the English Channel, and northwest of Amiens...
and the famous Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
. Among more ideal work are Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
(1880), Diana (1882 and 1891), Woman and Peacock (a. k. a. Juno
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
and The Peacock), and The Poet, astride his Pegasus
Pegasus
Pegasus is one of the best known fantastical as well as mythological creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine horse, usually white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa. He was the brother of Chrysaor, born at a single birthing...
spreading wings for flight. He sculpted The Dancer, based on Cléo de Mérode
Cléo de Mérode
Cléo de Mérode was a French dancer of the Belle Époque.-Biography:Cléopatra Diane de Mérode was born in Paris, France, the daughter of the Austrian landscape painter, Karl von Merode . The painter belonged to a famous Belgian noble family 'de Mérode'...
which today is also in the Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
.
His Triumph of the Republic (1881–1886), a vast quadriga
Quadriga
A quadriga is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast . It was raced in the Ancient Olympic Games and other contests. It is represented in profile as the chariot of gods and heroes on Greek vases and in bas-relief. The quadriga was adopted in ancient Roman chariot racing...
for the Arc de Triomphe
Arc de Triomphe
-The design:The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin , in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture . Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Jean-Pierre Cortot; François Rude; Antoine Étex; James Pradier and Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire...
, Paris, is perhaps more amazingly full of life than others of his works, all of which reveal this quality of vitality in superlative degree.
To these works should be added his monuments to Cardinal Lavigerie and to General de La Fayette (in Washington, DC), and his statues of Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine was a French writer, poet and politician who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic.-Career:...
(1876) and St Vincent de Paul
Vincent de Paul
Vincent de Paul was a priest of the Catholic Church who became dedicated to serving the poor. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. He was canonized in 1737....
(1879), as well as the Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
, which he executed for the Société des gens de lettres
Société des gens de lettres
The Sociéte des gens de lettres de France is a writers' association founded in 1838 by the notable French authors Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and George Sand...
on their rejection of that by Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
; and the busts of Carolus-Duran
Carolus-Duran
Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran , was a French painter and art instructor. He is noted for his stylish depictions of members of high society in Third Republic France.-Biography:...
and Ernest Alexandre Honoré Coquelin
Ernest Alexandre Honoré Coquelin
Ernest Alexandre Honoré Coquelin was a French actor. Also called Coquelin cadet, to distinguish him from his brother, he was born at Boulogne, and entered the Conservatoire in 1864....
(1896).
Falguière was a painter as well as a sculptor, but somewhat inferior in merit. He displays a fine sense of colour and tone, added to the qualities of life and vigour that he instils into his plastic work. His Wrestlers (1875) and Fan and Dagger (1882; a defiant Spanish woman) were in the Luxembourg, and other pictures of importance are The Beheading of St John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
(1877), The Sphinx
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
(1883), Acis and Galatea (1885), Old Woman and Child (1886) and In the Bull Slaughter-House.
He also taught; among his students were Francis Edwin Elwell
Francis Edwin Elwell
Francis Edwin Elwell was an American sculptor.-Life:Born in Concord, Massachusetts, Elwell was orphaned at age four and, according to various sources, was adopted by author Louisa May Alcott or grew up under the care of his grandfather, a Mr...
, Laurent Marqueste
Laurent Marqueste
Laurent-Honoré Marqueste was a French sculptor in the neo-Baroque Beaux-Arts tradition. He was a pupil of François Jouffroy and of Alexandre Falguière and won the Prix de Rome in 1871. On his return he made his official debut at the Paris salon of 1874 . In 1893 he became a professor at the École...
, Henri Crenier
Henri Crenier
Henri Crenier was an American sculptor born in France.Crenier was born in Paris, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with Alexandre Falguière, worked in Asnières-sur-Seine, and exhibited at the Paris Salon...
and Théophile Barrau
Théophile Barrau
Théophile Barrau was a French sculptor.Barrau was born in Carcassonne. He was a student of Alexandre Falguière and started at the Salon in 1874. He received awards in 1879, 1880, 1889, and became a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1892...
.
He became a member of the Institut de France
Institut de France
The Institut de France is a French learned society, grouping five académies, the most famous of which is the Académie française.The institute, located in Paris, manages approximately 1,000 foundations, as well as museums and chateaux open for visit. It also awards prizes and subsidies, which...
(Académie des Beaux-Arts
Académie des beaux-arts
The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...
) in 1882.
Falguière died in Paris in 1900 and was interred there in the Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
, where his monument is by his pupil Marqueste.
External links
Insecula: index to pages displaying Falguière's work (it may be necessary to close an advertising window to view this page)----