Houdon. Sensual sculpture

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non-political star XVIII Century

Exhibition "Houdon. Sensual sculpture "in Frankfurt allows us to see the unexpected sculptor

Alex Mokrousov
For Gazette

25/02/2010, 32 (2550)

In Paris to the Place Pigalle adjacent street Houdon. Both were sculptors. Toponymy today is at odds with the history, the hierarchy of art changed radically. Pigalle long been associated with non-artistic phenomena, and the name of Houdon's worth, it would be a quarter.

If in the XVIII century. there megastar in the art, they belonged to, and Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828). He was famous already in 30 years. Orders for portraits came from Germany, Russia and even America. By the end of life Houdon could boast that he knew all the elite of the world, and knew inside out. He sculpted the monarchs and democrats, aristocrats, and composers from Catherine II to the founding fathers of America, Franklin - Washington - Jefferson, from the Marquis de Mirabeau to Gluck, he portrayed and Louis XVI, and Napoleon. He was lucky with the times. In 1792, just three gudonovskih bust, Lafayette, King and Necker, remove from the assembly hall of the Paris city hall, and then destroyed. Simultaneously, his plaster mask of Robespierre was cast in bronze, and made a version in marble.

Authorities valued regardless of his political views, perhaps because he simply did not have them, was an artist, and nothing more. But how! The exhibition at Frankfurt Libighause Houdon's works and his contemporaries almost equally: 19 to 21. Of course, Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, Augustin Pazhu and Jean-Jacques Kaffieri different authors. But as you look at gudonovskogo Voltaire in his chair, just fall off questions about the artistic leader of the era (one version of Voltaire - the Hermitage, the other - in the Fabre Museum in Montpellier, where the exhibition of Houdon go in the spring). Rodin, for example, just came from that of Voltaire, appreciating it, as it may seem, the eyes. Rodin believed that they are transparent and light, the sculptor will handicap any painter and pastel: "He is extraordinarily thin trim pupils of his articles. They drilled, polished, with the rifling and some witty and strange roughness, which is illuminating, then fading, surprisingly pass play of light in those eyes. "

Exhibition in Libighause timed to coincide with the centennial of the museum of sculpture and works collected from all over the world, from the Metropolitan to the Louvre. Libighaus - not the most famous museum in Frankfurt, but his collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, as well as the Renaissance can admire. Since the museum was headed by Max Hollein, managing both the Frankfurt and Shtedelem Schirn-Kunsthalle, Libighaus alive, vibrant projects come here one after another.

In the center gudonovskoy exposure - two versions of "Winter" ( "chilled"). Beautiful naked girl covered with a handkerchief. Her suffering is not only sympathy, compassion is fraught with eroticism. There are two versions of "Winter", in marble and bronze. Houdon was a few of the artists of XVIII century. Who actually poured the bronze. He worked in terracotta, and plaster. In the cast at the Paris Salon model showed the future of the marbles, out of it, make copies of busts for gifts. Collecting the same terracotta figurines was fashionable, and Houdon, as a professional, always respected the client. Orders he received before the end of life, but sometimes gave their students. Such a gesture hardly imagine today, when the concept of the brand makes celebrities to fight for the market until the last breath. Well, that megastar of the past could afford to relax.

Exhibition in Frankfurt last until 28 February


http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/ar...0/02/25/226533

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Houdon in Russian

In addition to Catherine II in Houdon had other customers in Russia. For example, its headstones for the graves of princes Golitsyn as the paragon of the burial culture. And last exhibited his work at the Salon was the portrait of Alexander I. Emperor ordered him during a visit to Houdon's studio in 1814, after the capture of Paris by Russian troops.

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Houdon in Russian

In addition to Catherine II in Houdon had other customers in Russia. For example, its headstones for the graves of princes Golitsyn as the paragon of funerary culture (Museum of Architecture. Schuseva Moscow). And last exhibited his work at the Salon was the portrait of Alexander I. Emperor ordered him during a visit to Houdon's studio in 1814, after the capture of Paris by Russian troops.

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sculptural portrait of George Washington put up for auction

03/07/2009, 16:39:09

Terracotta bust of the first U.S. president, George Washington, executed by the French painter and sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon in 1787, exhibited at the July auction house Sotheby's in London. Agency The Associated Press reports that the portrait is estimated at 300 thousand pounds (490 thousand dollars).
Houdon came specially from France to America to meet with Washington and write a series of sketches for a future equestrian statue of the commander and hero of the War of Independence (Washington was elected president in 1789-m). Houdon Assembly of Virginia, ordered the statue, shared Thomas Jefferson, acquainted with the sculptor and his works in Paris. By this time the account Houdon was already several well-known portraits - Rousseau, Voltaire, Moliere, Diderot, Benjamin Franklin.

By sketches and lifetime mask Houdon carved several small sculptural portraits, statues of the draft horse was buried because of its high cost.

Lifetime portraits of Washington are very much appreciated. Absolute value of the record was set in 2006 at Christie's auction in New York: written in 1779 painting by Charles Wilson Saw gone under the hammer for 21.3 million dollars.

http://lenta.ru/news/2009/07/03/bust/