Saylor.org ARTH207: "Jean-Antoine Houdon"

This lecture is entitled, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Still Making Sculpture in the 18th and 19th Centuries? Now you might be asking yourself that question because we haven't really paid much attention to sculpture since we looked at the sculpture created in Baroque Italy and Spain. And it's true that so far in this course, painting has really stolen the show and that's what we've been spending our time looking at. But with the 18th century, we see more sculpture and this is especially gonna be true as we move into our next unit on neoclassicism. Now Houdon was a leader in French sculpture in the 18th century and he was really influential on later generations and he is known for his portraits. And we see three of his most famous portraits on the screen here and we will look at each of these in more detail in just a few minutes. Now, like a lot of French artists of this period, he traveled to Italy and Italy was very influential on his work, I'm gonna write that on here. Traveled to Italy. And as you might have assumed on his travels to Italy, he was informed by the ancient art he saw there, especially ancient sculpture. He was also influenced by Baroque sculpture, especially the sculpture of Bernini. But he was equally influenced by the styles of his native France. And think of the earlier Rococo style, that softness. And also the enlightenment interest in naturalism. So all of these combined influences made his portraits incredibly lifelike and hopefully you're getting a little bit of a hint of that as you look at these three portraits on the screen. And they don't seem to just have the physical likeness of these people, but there's also the suggestion that he's really successfully captured a sense of these people's soul. So it's not totally surprising then that he was really famous, really successful. And not just in France, but abroad as well. And we're gonna turn our attention there first. So what you're looking at right now is a life-size portrait of George Washington. You might have been able to tell that. George Washington. And this dates to 1785 to 96. And this is actually located in Richmond, Virginia in the state capital. And this is one of his most famous works created for American patrons. And the Virginia legislator wanted to commemorate George Washington, who was born in Virginia. And they actually sought Udon out for this. He was that famous that patrons in Virginia thought we want to find this man and have him do this work of art for us. And it's one of his most famous works of art because it's of a very famous man in a famous place. And also indicates his international fame. So let's take a look at his approach to George Washington here. We have a life-size image of this famous man. He's in military garb. But he's also surrounded by some other interesting symbolic figures or items. So let's take a look at those. I mean, first off, you can see, and by the way, this is just a close-up here on the left. This is a broader view so you can get a sense for where he stands in the room. So you can see he's resting his left hand on what seems to be a column or something like that. But that's actually a bundle of rods. And it's known as a facies, which is a classical emblem of authority from the classical world. So we've got a little hint of the classical world there. But it's interesting, you'll notice there are these little, I said it's a bundle of rods. So we have each rod here bundled together. And there are 13 of these, 13 rods. And when we're looking at a famous figure from American history, the number 13 is significant because the 13 original states. So this is an image of George Washington, the leader of America, the father of America, as they say. And again, he's depicted in this military dress, which reminds us of his role as a military leader. And this is actually comparable to classical sculpture of famous figures. And if you think back to sculpture from ancient Rome, the Emperor Augustus was often depicted in this way. And it's in that same idealizing tradition. It evokes that very old tradition. So here he's idealized. He looks relaxed, but confident and powerful. But importantly, he's not so idealized that he's not recognizable, right? If you look up at his face, and you've seen other images of him, you can tell that it's George Washington. So it's not just a generic depiction of this man. So let's take a look at another portrait by Houdon. And this image on the left here is a portrait of Voltaire. And this image down here on the right is not by Houdon, and we'll just discuss that in a minute. But this portrait is of Voltaire, and it dates to 1778. And I think you can see right away, it shows Houdon's ability to capture an individual even more. Now, Voltaire was a famous French philosopher, thinker, writer, and here he is depicted as an old man. And this is a man who was very revered by the French people. So I think it's interesting to look at the different way he's depicted from the George Washington we just looked at. So unlike George Washington, he's completely stripped of symbolism and those other props. And it's just a simple portrait of this man. It's not a portrait of his position or his historical role. And I think it's interesting to look at the details of his face. I mean, every last detail here is captured. We have the thin lips of his mouth, the kind of large nose. You can see little wrinkles by his eyes. And I love the details at the neck. You can see kind of the loose skin of his neck as he's an older man. So really there's no attempt here to kind of airbrush or make perfect his face. It's warts and all here. And that belongs to an old tradition from Republican Rome. And that's what this image here on the right is. This is a portrait of Cicero from Republican Rome. And there was this tradition in Republican Rome, you might remember from previous art history courses, of showing very realistic portraits of important figures. So this is definitely connected. Udon would certainly have been informed by this ancient tradition. And he's modernizing it for his contemporary audiences. And really Voltaire's so-called imperfections really add to his uniqueness and make this bust all the more special. Finally, let's finish up with a portrait, and this is it on the left, of Robert Fulton. Robert Fulton. And this dates from 1803. And this we'll get to in a minute, this image on the right. So this portrait seems to kind of combine the realism we just saw with the gracefulness and elegance of the Baroque and Rococo, as well as the contemporary Enlightenment from France. And it shows Robert Fulton, who was an American artist. So again, we have that evidence of Udon's international fame. And much like the portrait of Voltaire, we can see here this man's face is unique, it's identifiable, but he's dressed up in a sort of elegant costume here, the ruffle of his shirt sticking out through his jacket. And a little bit of that harsh realism is softened, the harsh realism we just looked at with Voltaire. And I have it up here next to, hopefully this is familiar to you, this is Labillard's portrait of Francois-André Vincent, which we looked at before. And I think it's interesting comparison because it shows the similarity between these two 18th century French portraitists. Both figures, I think, look very poised and distinguished, and both are unique portraits with these very recognizable likenesses. But more importantly, they're really frank portraits that connect with the viewer. It's almost as if they'll turn their heads at any moment and ask us a question. And I think they're both really infused with much more than physical realism or psychic drama, which are things we've seen before. But what these two portraitists do is they capture a sense of an inner life and even a soul in these figures. And really, that makes them true products of the Enlightenment.