RECENT FRENCH SCULPTURE
the masterpiece of modern French sculpture. What of inanimate prettiness does one find in Saint Marceaux’ “Genius of Death”? Other favorites of forty years ago were the rugged “Age of Iron” by Lanson, Aubé’s dramatic “Dante,” and the sternly simple “Ancestor” by Massoule. Mercié’s “Gloria Victis” holds secure sway amid remembered enthusiasms, while one noble female form seems to float above them all—the radiant “Aurora” of Delaplanche.
You can imagine the emotions of a wistful artist returning to the scene of these early loves to find them replaced by strange gods like this foolish caricature of a woman (Fig. 51). It is a work by the notorious painter, Matisse. You see he is quite as good a sculptor as he is painter! They tell us no female is so queer that she cannot find a companion, if she tries; it is gratifying to observe that Matisse’s ideal has an affinity (Fig. 53). No, a second look discovers that they are both of the same kind. Unfortunately these nondescripts do love and propagate; here is a chaste “Kiss” by Brancusi (Fig. 62); and here is “Family Life” by Archipenko (Fig. 61). Brancusi was the author of the far-famed “Mlle Pogany” (Fig. 59), which, we are assured, is “not a servile reproduction of features,” but an interpretation of the soul. Perhaps its companion (Fig. 60) is Miss Pogany’s sister’s soul, although it has been called “The Mislaid Egg.”[1]
- ↑ The men who produced these last-mentioned curiosities are presumably aliens in France, but their so-called art was incubated and brought forth in Paris through the hospitality of a public which is ever seeking “some new thing.” The information obtainable in regard to their shadowy personalities
[27]
