Tour Montparnasse, reaching 58 floors above Paris.
It is the only skyscraper in the city center, and 2 years after it was built, the construction of skyscrapers was banned by the city. Some people maintain that the view from the top is the most beautiful in Paris because it is the only place from which the tower itself cannot be seen.
Gare Montparnasse
The Jardin Atlantique is a public park and garden ON THE ROOF of the Gare Montparnasse. There is also a war museum adjacent to the park. I visited the garden and the war museum on the same day that I went to the Musee Bourdelle--they are all in close proximity.
Musee Bourdelle
The museum was the home and workshop of Emile Antoine Bourdelle, a pioneer of 20th century monumental sculpture. (The word “monumental” here means, literally, HUGE in size.) Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929) was an assistant to Auguste Rodin, but heeding the advice of a mentor that "very little grows in the shadow of a great tree," Bourdelle left Rodin's employ to open his own workshop and studio. Bourdelle may have been a star student of Rodin, but during his lifetime, he became a renowned sculptor in his own right. Bourdelle was buried in Paris, in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, not far from his home where he had lived and worked since 1884. Before his death, Bourdelle bequeathed his home and many of his works and possessions to the City of Paris for a museum where his works could be displayed. Musee Bourdelle opened in 1949.Today the museum contains more than 500 works including marble, plaster, and bronze statues, paintings, pastels, fresco sketches, and Bourdelle's personal collection of works by artists including Delacroix, Ingres, and Rodin.
Bourdelle used the front garden as an extension of his studio.
The bushes, trees and flowers in the garden provide the sculptures with a charming setting.
Faunes et Chevres (Fauns and Goats, bronze, 1907-1909)
The sculpture is a study for a monument to Debussy. A faun is half-human, half-goat.
Grand Guerrier (The Great Warrior of Montauban, bronze, 1898) The warrior was commissioned by the village of Montaubon to commemorate the brave soldiers of the Franco-Prussian War.
La colonne a la femme rieuse (The column with the laughing woman, bronze, 1900)
Adam (bronze, 1889)
The Fruit (bronze, 1902-11)
These sculptures are huge and surround the plinth on which General Alvear and his horse are standing. At first I thought they were warriors but later found out that they are allegorical figures which represent attributes associated with the General--Freedom, Strength, Victory and Eloquence. More on this later..
Horse for the monument to General Alvear This horse is not only tall, it is massive.
A view of the garden looking down on the horse and warrior
Another view of The Archer
Sapho, the Greek poetess of Lesbos (1887-1925) is the first sculpture that meets the eye as you enter the long narrow courtyard garden.
Sapho, the Greek poetess of Lesbos (1887-1925) is the first sculpture that meets the eye as you enter the long narrow courtyard garden.
Le Centaur mourant (Dying Centaur) has a mythological motif, as do many of Bourdelle's works. Bourdelle took the centaur's tortured pose from a Greek sculpture, and as he was fond of saying, "My centaur is dying like all the gods, because no one believes in him any more."
Dying Centaur
Dying Centaur
The long narrow courtyard garden runs behind the museum.
Virgin a l’offrande (Virgin with Offering, 1922) is a monumental religious sculpture. The original, some 20 feet tall, is on a hill overlooking Alsace.
Premiere Victoire d’Hannibal (First Victory of Hannibal, bronze, 1885)
This sculpture depicts the future general when he was a child, and although he was young, he fought with an eagle until it succumbed
A scale model of the equestrian monument which depicts General Alvear, a hero from the Argentinian war of independence of 1814-1815.The monument is in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The bronze figure stands 16 feet high atop a pedestal nearly 43 feet tall, surrounded by four bronze allegorical figures, Strength, Eloquence, Freedom and Victory, representing Alvear's qualities and achievements. It took Bourdelle over a decade to produce, part of which was spent studying Argentine horses at the Longchamps racecourse. Argentines were greatly surprised that the general is depicted without a hat. Once I knew their reaction, I wondered why, too.
This figure of the General is 16 feet tall.
General Alvear
General Alvear
La France is another massive female figure. The original bronze (1925) measured almost 30 feet tall. Her right hand is holding a long spear reaching skyward, and her left hand is perpendicular to the spear, shielding her eyes as she scans the horizon. The sculpture is meant to recall the Americans’ auspicious entry into the war in 1917.
Fontaine Inachevee (Unfinished Fountain, bronze 1899)
Premiere Victoire d’Hannibal (First Victory of Hannibal, plaster, 1885) The bronze version is in the courtyard garden.
Bust of Beethoven (1888-1929)
Bourdelle made more than 28 sculptures of Beethoven.
Vielle Bacchante (Old Bacchanalian, bronze, 1902-03)
Studies of The Archer
Rodin au Travail (Rodin working, bronze, 1909)
La Douleur (Grief)
Busts of famous men, such as Gustave Eiffel, Dominique Ingress (artist), Jean Moreas (poet), Anatole France (author), and Auguste Rodin.
Along the top of the building above the arches are bas-reliefs. The Muses Running toward Apollo are on either side of Apollo and his meditation, the bas-relief in the middle. These are the bas-reliefs that Bourdelle sculpted for the exterior façade of the Theatre Champs-Elysees. Bourdelle was inspired by the dance movements of Isadora Duncan and Nijinsky and by the Muses from Greek mythology--there were nine of them, who played, sang, danced, and inspired others to do the same.
Entry to the Grand Hall.
The inscription over the door reads:
"Dans la vie des sculptures un plan superficiel est un incident mais un plan profound, constructif est une destinee"
This is a quote of Bourdelle’s, taken from a letter to Rodin. Other artists use it, but offer only a word-for-word translation, if any. I could only come up with the following:
"When creating sculpture, a plan without depth or complexity is an ordinary occurrence, but a plan that is deep and perceptive is a preordained achievement."
In 1961, on the 100th anniversary of Bourdelle's birth, the Grand Hall was added, designed to display plaster casts of some of his most famous monumental figures. You can see General Alvear’s monument on the left, the Dying Centaur under the rotunda, La France to the right of the centaur, Sapho, and The Archer.
The Grand Hall viewed from the opposite direction.
You can see the Virgin with Offering to the left of the entrance.
Telemaque recu a Pylos par Nestor (Telemachus received at Pylos by Nestor, plaster 1883) Telemachus was the son of Odysseus and Penelope who went to Pylos in search of his father.
Sapho
In the Grand Hall is the full scale model of Heracles the Archer, or The Archer.
Hercules is shooting the birds of Stymphalos, which was one of the Twelve Labors of Hercules in Greek mythology.
The Archer with a bas-relief of the Three Muses in the background
General Alvear
Under the rotunda sits Bourdelle's Dying Centaur.
Dying Centaur
Dying Centaur
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