Paul Bouré or Paul-Joseph Bouré (2 July 1823 – 17 December 1848) was a Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 artist. Poised to become one of the most notable sculptors

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...

 of his time, he died at the age of 25.

Education and career

Bouré studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts

Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts

The Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels is an art school, founded in 1711.The faculty and alumni of ARBA include some of the most famous names in Belgian painting, sculpture, and architecture: James Ensor, Rene Magritte, and Paul Delvaux...

 from 1837 to 1841, first under Guillaume Geefs

Guillaume Geefs

Guillaume Geefs , also Willem Geefs, was a Belgian sculptor. Although known primarily for his monumental works and public portraits of statesmen and nationalist figures, he also explored mythological subject matter, often with an erotic theme.-Life:Geefs was born at Antwerp, the eldest of six...

 in 1838 and then with Eugène Simonis

Eugène Simonis

Louis-Eugène Simonis was a Belgian sculptor.-Career:Simonis studied under François-Joseph Dewandre at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Liège and at the age of nineteen went to Italy, where he continued his studies in Bologna and Rome. When he returned to Belgium he accepted an instructor...

. In October 1841, he traveled to Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and visited 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...

, Florence and Pisa

Pisa

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...

.

His teacher Simonis wrote to him in 1842 on the value of studying in Florence:
He began studies in 1842 at the workshop

Atelier Method

Atelier is the French word for "workshop", and in English is used principally for the workshop of an artist in the fine or decorative arts, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students and apprentices worked together producing pieces that went out in the master's name...

 of Emilio Santarelli (1801-1886), rather than at the Florence academy

Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze

The Accademia di Belle Arti is an art academy in Florence, Italy and it is now the operative branch of the still existing Accademia delle Arti del Disegno that was the first academy of drawing in Europe.-History:The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno The Accademia di Belle Arti ("Academy of Fine...

, and earned the attention of Lorenzo Bartolini

Lorenzo Bartolini

Lorenzo Bartolini was an Italian sculptor who infused his neoclassicism with a strain of sentimental piety and naturalistic detail which led him furthermore in the future, while he drew inspiration from the sculpture of the Florentine Renaissance rather than the overpowering influence of Antonio...

, who was struck by his precocious talent. He remained in Florence until 1844.

Bouré returned to Belgium in 1844 and began to exhibit his works. The Italian sculptor Carlo Finelli praised his Meditating Love (1844), and his Young Faun Reclining (1843) was also much admired. Bouré's version of Prometheus Bound, called an "erudite and impressive creation," was later remembered as the most remarkable work at the Brussels exhibition of 1845. At the time, however, a reviewer characterized the work as an entirely physical treatment of the myth, admittedly modeled "with an astonishing power and vigor," but failing to capture what was then a common view of Prometheus as a Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

-like figure symbolizing the struggle of doomed human intelligence. Bouré himself was hailed as "on the way to becoming a truly distinguished artist."

In 1848, Bouré showed Enfant jouant aux billes (Child Playing with Balls) and Sauvage surpris par un serpent (Savage Surprised by a Snake), earning the gold medal. The latter work in particular locates the artist at the intersection of classicism

Classicism

Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...

 and Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

. Its serpentine struggle between human and animal has been compared to the Laocoön theme in sculpture

Laocoön and his Sons

The statue of Laocoön and His Sons , also called the Laocoön Group, is a monumental sculpture in marble now in the Vatican Museums, Rome. The statue is attributed by the Roman author Pliny the Elder to three sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus...

. Bouré departs from the classical heroic conception by portraying his human subject as "without hope, already defeated, strangled and trapped, deprived of any possibility of fighting for liberty."

Bouré also created sculpture for the façade of the Brussels Town Hall

Brussels Town Hall

The Town Hall of the City of Brussels is a Gothic building from the Middle Ages. It is located on the famous Grand Place in Brussels, Belgium....

.

Toward the end of his life, Bouré withdrew to Olloy-sur-Viroin, a small town near Namur

Namur (city)

Namur is a city and municipality in Wallonia, in southern Belgium. It is both the capital of the province of Namur and of Wallonia....

, where his maternal grandmother lived. There he took up painting. Although his paintings are not well known, a self-portrait

Self-portrait

A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...

 is mentioned in the catalogue

Exhibition catalogue

There are two types of exhibition catalogue : a printed list of exhibits at an art exhibition; and a directory of exhibitors at a trade fair or business-to-business event.-Art or museum exhibition catalogues:...

 of a retrospective exhibition in 1905. Shortly before his death, Bouré managed to complete a group of eight figures that had been commissioned for the Brussels Town Hall

Brussels Town Hall

The Town Hall of the City of Brussels is a Gothic building from the Middle Ages. It is located on the famous Grand Place in Brussels, Belgium....

: Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Mary of Burgundy

Mary of Burgundy

Mary of Burgundy ruled the Burgundian territories in Low Countries and was suo jure Duchess of Burgundy from 1477 until her death...

, Maximilian I

Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...

, Philip I of Castile

Philip I of Castile

Philip I , known as Philip the Handsome or the Fair, was the first Habsburg King of Castile...

, Charles V

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

, Margaret of Parma

Margaret of Parma

Margaret, Duchess of Parma , Governor of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567 and from 1578 to 1582, was the illegitimate daughter of Charles V and Johanna Maria van der Gheynst...

, Philip II of Spain

Philip II of Spain

Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....

. His last two works, of Christ

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 and the Virgin

Mary (mother of Jesus)

Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...

, were destined for the church at Olloy. At his father's request, the plaster casts of his statues were given to the Belgian government.

His younger brother Antoine-Félix Bouré

Antoine-Félix Bouré

Antoine-Félix Bouré , known in his own time as Félix Bouré but sometimes found in modern scholarship as Antoine Bouré, was a Belgian sculptor, best known for his monumental lions.-Life and career:...

 (1831–1883) was also a sculptor, known for his monumental lions and his statue of the Gallic leader Ambiorix

Ambiorix

Ambiorix was, together with Catuvolcus, prince of the Eburones, leader of a Belgic tribe of north-eastern Gaul , where modern Belgium is located...

 on the monumental gate of Berchem

Berchem

The 'Ring', Antwerp's circular motorway which follows the track of the former city defense walls, cuts Berchem in two parts, separating the urban inner city area of Oud-Berchem from the more residential and suburban areas Groenenhoek en Nieuw Kwartier .-Demography:Berchem's total surface is over ,...

 in Antwerp.

Sources

• "Bouré, Paul Joseph," Belgian Art Links and Tools, Kunstenaarsbiografie
• Edmond Marchal, La sculpture et les chefs-d'œuvre de l'orfèvrerie belges (Brussels, 1895), pp. 695–696 online.
• Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
  Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
  The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium , is one of the most famous museums in Belgium.-The museum:...
  
  , Fabritius online catalogue, several examples of Bouré's sculptures with images