James Pradier
Encyclopedia
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
-born French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
best known for his work in the neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
style.
Life and work
Born in GenevaGeneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Pradier left for Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1807 to work with his elder brother, an engraver. He won a 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...
that enabled him to study in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
from 1814 to 1818. He studied under Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in Paris. In 1827 he became a member of the 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...
and a professor at 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,...
. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Pradier oversaw the finish of his sculptures himself. He was a friend of the Romantic poets Alfred de Musset
Alfred de Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...
, Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
and Théophile Gautier
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
, and his atelier was a center, presided over by his beautiful mistress, Juliette Drouet
Juliette Drouet
Juliette Drouet, born Julienne Josephine Gauvain was a French actress. She abandoned her career on the stage after becoming the mistress of Victor Hugo, to whom she acted as a secretary and travelling companion...
, who became Hugo's mistress in 1833.
The cool neoclassical surface finish of his sculptures is charged with an eroticism that their mythological themes can barely disguise. At the 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...
of 1834, Pradier's Satyr and Bacchante created a scandalous sensation. Some claimed to recognize the features of the sculptor and his mistress, Juliette Drouet. When the prudish government of Louis-Philippe
Louis-Philippe of France
Louis Philippe I was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 in what was known as the July Monarchy. His father was a duke who supported the French Revolution but was nevertheless guillotined. Louis Philippe fled France as a young man and spent 21 years in exile, including considerable time in the...
refused to purchase it, Count Anatole Demidoff bought it and took it to his palazzo in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. (It has since come back to the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
).
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...
, decorative figures at the Madeleine
Église de la Madeleine
L'église de la Madeleine is a Roman Catholic church occupying a commanding position in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It was designed in its present form as a temple to the glory of Napoleon's army...
, and his twelve Victories inside the dome of the Invalides, all in Paris. For his native Geneva he completed the statue of the Genevan Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
erected in 1838 on the tiny Île Rousseau, where Lac Léman empties to form the Rhône. Aside from large-scale sculptures Pradier collaborated with François-Désiré Froment-Meurice
François-Désiré Froment-Meurice
François-Désiré Froment-Meurice was a French goldsmith, working in a free and naturalistic manner in the tradition of Mannerist and Baroque masters...
, designing jewelry in a 'Renaissance-Romantic' style.
He is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery. Much of the contents of his studio were bought up after his death by the city museum of Geneva.
Influence
Pradier's importance as an artist in his day is demonstrated by the fact that his portrait is included in François Joseph HeimFrançois Joseph Heim
François Joseph Heim was a French painter.He was born at Belfort. He early distinguished himself at the École Centrale of Strassburg, and in 1803 entered the studio of Vincent at Paris...
's painting Charles X Distributing Prizes to Artists as the Salon of 1824, now in the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
Museum, Paris.
Pradier has been largely forgotten in modern times. In 1846 Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
said of him, however:
- This is a great artist, a true Greek, the most antique of all the moderns; a man who is distracted by nothing, not by politics, nor socialism, and who, like a true workman, sleeves rolled up, is there to do his task morning til night with the will to do well and the love of his art.
An exhibition, Statues de chair: sculptures de James Pradier (1790–1852) at Geneva's Musée d'Art et d'Histoire
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Geneva)
The Musée d’Art et d’Histoire is the largest art museum in Geneva, Switzerland.-The building:The museum is located in Les Tranchées, in the city centre, on the site of the former fortification ring. It was built by the architect Marc Camoletti between 1903 and 1910, and financed by a bequest from...
(October 1985 - February 1986) and Paris, Musée du Luxembourg
Musée du Luxembourg
Musée du Luxembourg is a museum in Paris, France. It occupies the east wing of the Palais du Luxembourg, whose matching west wing originally housed Ruben's Marie de' Medici cycle. Since 2000 it has been run by the French Ministry of Culture and the Senate and is devoted to temporary exhibitions...
, (February - May 1986) roused some interest in Pradier's career and aesthetic.
Pradier's students included:
- Marie-Noémi CadiotMarie-Noémi CadiotMarie-Noémi Cadiot was a French sculptor of the 19th century.-Biography:She was the second wife of Alphonse Louis Constant, most known as Eliphas Levi. They were civilly married at the city hall of the 10th arrondissement of Paris on 13 July 1846 and had a daughter, Mary, who died in 1854 at the...
, 1828–1888 - Henri ChapuHenri ChapuHenri-Michel-Antoine Chapu was a French sculptor in a modified Neoclassical tradition who was known for his use of allegory in his works.-Life and career:...
, 1833–1891 - Gustave Adolphe Désiré Crauk, 1827–1905
- Antoine EtexAntoine ÉtexAntoine Étex was a French sculptor, painter and architect. He was born in Paris.He first exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1833, his work including a reproduction in marble of his "Death of Hyacinthus", and the plaster cast of his "Cain and his race cursed by God"...
, 1808–1888 - Eugène Guillaume, 1822–1905
- Henri LehmannHenri LehmannHenri Lehmann was a German-born French historical painter and portraitist.__NOEDITSECTION__-Life:Born Heinrich Salem Lehmann in Kiel, Schleswig, Germany, he received his first art tuition from his father Leo Lehmann and from other painters in Hamburg...
, 1814–1882 - Eugène-Louis LequesneEugène-Louis LequesneEugène-Louis Lequesne was a French sculptor.In 1841, he entered the École nationale des beaux-arts, in James Pradier's workshop. In 1843, he won the second Prix de Rome, and in 1844 the first prize, with a plaster bas-relief entitled Pyrrhus tuant Priam...
, 1815–1887 - Henri Le SecqHenri Le SecqHenri Jean-Louis Le Secq was a French painter and photographer. After the French government made the daguerreotype open for public in 1851, Le Secq was one of the five photographers selected to carry out a photographic survey of architecture .-Early life:Henri Le Secq was born in 1818 in Paris and...
, 1818–1882 - Jacques-Léonard MailletJacques-Léonard MailletJacques-Léonard Maillet was a French academic sculptor of modest reputation, whose themes were of neoclassical and biblical inspiration; his public commissions were in large part for the programs of decorative architectural sculpture required by the grandiose public works programs characteristic...
, 1823–1894 - Pierre-Charles SimartPierre-Charles SimartPierre-Charles Simart was a French sculptor.The son of a carpenter from Troyes in Champagne, Simart was the pupil of Antoine Desbœuf, Charles Dupaty, Jean-Pierre Cortot and James Pradier...
, 1806–1857
