2017年5月27日星期六

Charles Cordier


Charles Henri Joseph Cordier (19 October 1827 - 30 May 1905) was a French sculptor of ethnographic subjects

Son of pharmacist, he is the brother-in-law of the engraver Firmin Gillot, married in 1847 with his sister Mélanie Cordier

In 1846 he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, presented by the sculptor Jacques-Auguste Fauginet (1809-1847), but he did not stay there for a long time, for then he entered the same Year in the studio of his master François Rude (1784-1855) It was in this workshop in 1847 that he made the decisive encounter with a former Sudanese slave who had become a professional model, Seïd Enkess, whose bust he made in fifteen days This was the departure of his ethnographic work His genre had the news of a new subject, the revolt against slavery, anthropology at his birth

Cordier was born in Cambrai In 1847, a meeting with Seïd Enkess, a former black slave who had become a model, determined the course of his career

From then on he produced a large quantity of oriental statues, especially busts Thus, in the year of the abolition of slavery in 1848, he realized several series of busts of Said Abdallah, the tribe of Mayac, Kingdom of Darfur or Negro of Timbuktu or Negro Nubian; Queen Victoria acquired this bronze at the Universal Exhibition in 1851, then in 1851, a series of busts of an African Venus With his bronze busts of a Mongolian or Chinese man and woman (1853), he sought to obtain richer color effects, a tendency to which he remained faithful from then on, hence new colored African busts such as The famous Negro of the Sudan (1856), acquired by Napoleon III in 1857 for 3,000 francs3 and exhibited at the Musée d'Orsay In 1855, he was very impressed by the sending of two Chinese in gilded bronze, silver and enamel at the Universal Exhibition in Paris He used Paros marbles, onyxes cut for drapery, enamels on copper, silver, gold He dyed by various methods the Carare marbles, he used all he could, the precious stones as well, but remaining in style, for this polychrome sculpture was conventionally wanted Thanks to scholarships awarded by the government, the artist was able to study in situ to "fix the different human types that are at the moment of merging into one and the same people": he traveled to Italy, Algeria in 1856, 1858 in the archipelago of the Cyclades, 4 in Egypt in 1866 and 1868

His first success was a bust in plaster of a Sudanese man "Saïd Abdullah of the Mayac, Kingdom of the Darfur" (Sudan) This was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1848, the same year that slavery was abolished in all French colonies It is now housed at The Walters Art Museum

In 1851, Queen Victoria bought a bronze of it at the Great Exhibition of London

From 1851 to 1866, he served as the official sculptor of Paris's National History Museum, creating a series of spectacularly lifelike busts for their new ethnographic gallery (now housed in the Musee de l'Homme, Paris)

He exhibited at the Salon of 1857 eighteen busts, of which twelve are studies of Algeria, most of them in bronze His interest in color, which is found in all the above works, often led him to mix the materials; He realized many works combining marble, onyx, and bronze He went even further by sending to the Salon of 1863 the bust of an Algerian Jewish woman in enameled bronze, onyx and porphyry; In 1864 a young mulatto in bronze, enamel and onyx; In 1866 a life-size statue of an Arab woman in bronze, enamel and onyx, acquired by the Empress Eugenie for her Chinese museum at Fontainebleau; And in 1867 the bust of a bronze fellah, gold, silver, turquoise and porphyry

However, his abundant work was not limited to ethnological representations, he did more classically busts of notables such as Admiral Courbet (1885 and 1886), General Fleury (1863), or members of his relatives or acquaintances, But also religious sculptures such as a Virgin of the twelfth century (1889), or Venus and other Priestess In the great works of the second empire, Cordier participated in the Louvre, the Opera, and the Hotel de Ville

Cordier also produced the statues of Maréchal Gérard (1856, Verdun), the Triumph of Amphitrite (1861), Jean-Baptiste for the Saint-Jacques tower in Paris (around 1854), or the caryatids Harmonie et Poésie de The western chimney of the grand hearth of the Palais Garnier (1872)

In Cairo, one can see a bronze equestrian statue of Vice-King Ibrahim Pasha (1789-1848), which he made in 1872

Cordier took part in the great works commissioned by the Second French Empire (Paris Opera, Musée du Louvre, the Hôtel de Ville) or by private interests such as Baron de Rothschild He died in Algeria

In Mexico he was commissioned to make the statue of Christopher Columbus, flanked by statues of angles of Dominicans and Franciscans who had helped him in his divine mission; Bas-reliefs decorate the pedestal representing virgin forests, and the construction of a Cathedral, Monument to Christopher Columbus (circa 1872)

Charles Cordier, the author of light and realistic fancy works, showed a gift of sharp observation, and there are 617 known sculptures that are listed for this artist He was especially noted for his sculptures of blacks or orientalisantes at the time when the French colonial Empire was growing in Africa Like his namesake of the sixteenth century, Nicolas Cordier (1567-1612), he used polychrome marbles such as Onyx to dress his bronzes, which gave luxurious effects to the limit of overload, but typical of dominance in The art of the Second Empire

Works:
African Venus:
Cordier submitted a plaster cast of the bust of an African visitor to Paris to the Salon of 1848, and two years later he again entered it as a bronze (Walters 542664) A young African woman served as the model for this companion piece in 1851 Regarded as powerful expressions of nobility and dignity, these sculptures proved to be highly popular: casts were acquired by the Museum of National History in Paris and also by Queen Victoria The Walters' pair were cast by the Paris foundry Eck and Durand in 1852 These bronzes were esteemed by 19th-century viewers as expressions of human pride and dignity in the face of grave injustice

Saïd Abdullah of the Mayac, Kingdom of the Darfur (Sudan):
Cordier submitted a plaster cast of the bust of an African visitor to Paris to the Salon of 1848, and two years later he again entered it as a bronze A young African woman served as the model for the companion piece in 1851 (Walters 542665) Regarded by 19th-century viewers as powerful expressions of nobility and dignity in the face of grave injustice, these sculptures proved to be highly popular: casts were acquired by the Museum of National History in Paris and also by Queen Victoria The Walters' pair were cast by the Paris foundry Eck and Durand in 1852

Arabic of El Aghouat en burnous ", 1856, Musée d'Orsay Paris
Capresse des Colonies, 1861, Museum of Orsay Paris
Negro of Sudan
Capresse des Colonies, 1861, Museum of Orsay Paris
"Arab of El Aghouat en burnous", 1856, Museum of Orsay Paris
The Jewess of Algiers
The Coulougli
La Nubienne, 1851, Museum of Modern Art André Malraux
The Nubian, 1848, Museum of Modern Art André Malraux
https://hisour.com/artist/charles-cordier/

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