#602 Paris: The menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes

Please see the previous blog for more information about this post.

The Jardin de Plantes in Paris which includes the menagerie (zoo) expanded dramatically
 in the early years of the 19th century and the definitive sculptor of animals,
 Antoine-Louis Barye was a frequent visitor.  Throughout his life it was a source of
 reference and inspiration and provided the basis for his scientific approach to sculpture.

At various times, the menagerie had exotic animals such as Asian elephants and lions.  When the animals died, he would attend their dissections, make a multitude of drawings
and spend hours taking measurements and recording detailed proportions.

He put his years of self-study at the zoo and his knowledge of anatomy to good use . . . emphasizing the musculature of animals in a bold and energetic manner.
 His idealized, stylized, and dramatized sculptures of animals are without equal.

Below, is an image of Barye's sculpture taken in the menagerie
at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris last month.

While exploring the menagerie and experiencing the animals, I was consumed
with the realization that Barye, his good friend, Delacroix, and many other great artists
such as Bugatti and Fremiet, walked the same paths and trails in years past.

 Below, are images.

Below, I'm concluding every blog about our trip to Paris last month with a glimpse of life in the beautiful city.

Christmas time in Paris is magic!  One sunny morning, Trish and I walked from the Place Concord
along the Champs Elysees to the Petit Palace Museum.  After our museum visit,
 we continued to the Arc Triomphe then back to the Tuileries.

The Champs Elysees is lined on both sides with kiosks and outdoor kitchens serving every food and drink imaginable.
We enjoyed a hot wine and a raclette, which is a sandwich served by warming the top of a large cheese wheel
with a heating device then scraping the melted cheese onto a baguette with ham and optional potatoes.
The long walk back to the metro was welcome after a late lunch!

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Blog, text, photos, drawings, and sculpture . . . © Sandy Scott and Trish

#601: Paris: Barye, Fremiet and the Natural History Museum of Paris

While in Paris last month, Trish and I spent most of the three-week stay in museums and tracking down the 

notable sculpture and monuments that the beautiful city is famous for.   While all art viewed was meaningful, 

we concentrated on Greek sculpture and art from antiquity and importantly,

 the work of the French Animaliers of the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

The focus of this blog is the Natural History Museum of Paris and two important Parisian born Animaliers:

 Antoine-Louis Barye (1796 - 1875}, and Emmanuel Fremiet ( 1824 - 1910).  Historians regard the Romantic sculptor Barye, as having the premier position as the finest and most original in the field of animal bronzes and I'll return 

to his sculpture in upcoming posts.   Additional info can be obtained by going to Post #593, Dec. 21, 2014.  

Many books have been written about his work and much can be learned about him by going online.    

Below, are sculptures by Barye.

The Jardin des Plantes or great botanical gardens of Paris
was founded in 1626 and is located on the left bank in a
complex that includes the Natural History Museum of Paris,
the zoo or menagerie of wild animals,  the Museum of Comparative Anatomy, Museums of Evolution,
of Palenontology, of Entomology, Museum of Zoology,  

and other libraries, laboratories, exhibits, and lecture rooms.
The Jardin was high on our list of places to visit and we spent several days there.  Had we spent the entire three weeks,
we would have only seen a small part of it. 

More about the zoo in next Wednesday's post.

Both Barye and Fremiet were frequent visitors to the Jardin des Plantes and the Natural History Museum of Paris 

and spent many hours, studying and modeling their sculpture from zoo animals, skeletons, and taxidermy.   

During the last years of his life, Barye was professor of animal drawing at the Natural History Museum of Paris 

and was succeeded by Fremiet in 1892, several years after Barye's death.  

Fremiet's most famous sculpture is the gilded "Joan of Arc", erected in the Place des Pyramides in Paris. 

 My personal favorite is his sculpture of an elephant in front of the Musee d'Orsay. 

Below, are images.

   

As in previous posts about last month's trip to Paris,
I'm concluding the blog with a glimpse
of life in the elegant and inspiring city.

Travel in the winter and off-season definitely has advantages.
We took a boat ride on the Seine on a rainy day

 and were the only passengers on the boat . . .
just us and the bartender, captain, and mate! 

Below, are images taken from the railing.

Go to the BLOG INDEX on the right for more information. 

Blog, text, photos, drawings, and sculpture . . . © Sandy Scott and Trish

#599: Throw on another log . . . the influence of Bugatti

Throw on another log is a commentary and opinion about art.
It is directed toward students, artists, collectors, galleries,

museums, and those interested in the visual arts.

I welcome your comments on this blog and on Facebook.

I've learned through my association with painters over the years and by engaging in social media such as Facebook and artist's blogs that without a doubt, the two non-living painters who have had the greatest influence on representational painters are
John Singer Sargent and Joquim Sorolla.  Among the living painters, the most influential is certainly, Richard Schmid.

Among anamaliers - or sculptors of animals - one name prevails:  Rembrandt Bugatti (1884 - 1916).  

He was Italian, came from the famous Bugatti family, designers of art nouveau furniture and automobiles, 

and lived and worked in Paris and Antwerp.  He worked from zoo animals.

 Bugatti has, by far, had the most influence on today's animal sculptors . . . even more than Barye.

Bugatti was fairly obscure when I directed my attention toward sculpture in the late 1970s'

 and early 1980s'.  I had seen and remembered his work from an early trip to Paris but it 

was my friend and fellow sculptor, Ken Bunn who turned me on to his incredible work early on.  

Many sculptors were certainly aware of Bugatti's work back then and were influenced by his loose, 

juicy, thumby, and impressionistic surfaces coupled with his heightened sense of form and structure.  

The enormous amount of time he spent at the zoo facilitated his understanding of the animals he modeled

 and his great ability to find the pose and gesture, captured his subject's essence.   

Below, are images of Bugatti's sculpture.

Today, every sculptor I know is aware of Rembrandt Bugatti.  Books have been written about him and his works 

are coveted by museums and sell in the millions.  He produced over 300 works in his short life,

 before committing suicide at age 31.  Much more can be learned about him online.  

To me,  Bugatti is style, simplicity, and elegance . . . the subject, beautifully observed.

I read that he would tear down and start over if he could not complete a study in a day at the zoo.

Incredibly, some of Bugatti's works are mannered, tight, and art nouveau in concept and execution.  

His work is usually based on a perfectly flat plate like the zoo cage surfaces he knew so well.

Below, are images of Bugatti's plasters in the Musee d'Orsay.  Note the careful modeling of the lion.
Bugatti's "Pelicans" are located in the Petit Palais Museum.

   The good sculptors, like Bunn and others, developed their own statements under Bugatti's influence. 

Sadly, there are those who continue to misunderstand anatomy and structure and misinterpret what they
 are seeing when they look at spontaneous, active surfaces such as Bugattis' or Rodins' for that matter.

 Misunderstood form and sloppy, meaningless surface continues to be put out there in the name of "loose".

Below, is an image of Ken Bunn's "Drinking Lion" and "Jackie" by Richard Schmid 

from my collection.

I'm concluding each art blog about our trip to Paris last month with a glimpse of life in the beautiful city.

Below, crepes are being made in a little open- air kitchen in Montmartre.  The batter is ladled onto the
hot cooking surface and after the crepe is cooked, it is fill with Nutella, or the sweet filling of your choice.
We stayed in Monmartre and I eventually had to avoid this place.  As I emerged from the metro, the aroma filled the air . . .  they're too good and eating one meant no supper for me.
The skinny guy cooking them obviously doesn't eat them.

Go to the BLOG INDEX on the right for more information. 

Blog, text, photos, drawings, and sculpture . . . © Sandy Scott and Trish

    

#593 The Greeks, fragments, Rodin, Barye, and influence . . . con't

Please start this series of blogs with # 584 . . . posted Nov. 19, 2014

The focus of this blog is art history . . . specifically fragments, the Greeks, Rodin, Barye, and modern art.
This post concludes a series of blogs about the influence of artists of the past on a living artist.
All blogs starting with November 30 were pre-posted while Trish and I were in Paris.

Artists are often asked:  What has been the biggest influence in your art?

Every artist is influenced by something or someone . . . maybe an instructor, a favorite living or deceased artist or school of art, or even what is perceived as popular and selling well.  Also, throughout an artist's life, many different influences, people, and events continue to affect an artist's creative direction and work.  

On a personal note, I was and am influenced by the art that came before me.  If I had to choose only one school of art . . . it would be Greek art of the Hellenistic and Golden Age.  If I had to choose only one artist,
who early in my career and now, influences me - it is Antoine-Louis Barye [1796 - 1875] .
His knowledge and execution of anatomy is without peer.

Keep in mind, the giants throughout art history such as Rodin were influenced by someone and something.
Rodin was exclusively working for someone else until he was 30 and it was an invaluable learning experience.

Interestingly, Rodin studied briefly under Barye and while he was a powerful artist, Barye was lacking as a teacher and Rodin entered the studio of Carrier-Belleuse [1824 - 1887].

While Barye was a sculptor of animals, Rodin was a sculptor of the human figure.  Rodin had a desire to create an equestrian monument and in 1886 modeled the sculpture entitled "Maquette of General Lynch'" shown below and at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  The monument was never realized and later Rodin conjoined part of the horse to a nude female figure and created another sculptural statement.

  

Below, are photos taken at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York of "Panther Seizing a Stag" by Bayre.

I've experienced many influences over the years both in printmaking and in sculpture.  I parrot the advice of my friend,
the late Bob Kuhn when asked by my students - "How do you make it as an artist today?"   Kuhn's advice: . . .
Go to as many galleries, shows, and openings as you can; read as many art magazines as you can and
find out what's out there and what's being done . . . then do something else.   

For me, the Greeks and ancients continue to be the source of influence and inspiration.
I feel a need to go directly to the freshness of the ancients in search of their mysteries.
 I'm always learning, and while fascinated by the beauty of Rodin's surfaces . . .
my ongoing struggle continues to be refining the craft and a search for inner beauty and essence of the subject.

 This blog ends a series of ten posts regarding a portion of art history and resulting influences.
Importantly, I have found that by turning to nature - the source of all life - and not to other artists' work,
the ultimate  inspiration and influence can be experienced.

Go to the BLOG INDEX on the right for more information. 

Blog, text, photos, drawings, and sculpture . . . © Sandy Scott and Trish

#592 The Greeks, fragments, Rodin, and influence . . .

Please start this series of blogs with # 584 . . . posted Nov. 19, 2014

The focus of this blog is art history . . . specifically fragments, the Greeks, Rodin, and modern art.


The time I spent as a student at the Kansas City Art Institute in the early 1960s, was the most
far-reaching event of my life. Immersed in an academic setting, it was the awakening of my senses as I absorbed the rudiments of what would become a lifelong journey in the arts.  I enthusiastically focused upon the study of art and art history and to this day, I thrive upon the knowledge and love for the arts instilled in me by competent instructors.

Shown above, is a photo taken earlier this year at the historic art school.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Fine Art is located on the campus of KCAI and, like the other students, I spent many hours in the inspiring galleries of the museum.  Shown below is the imposing facade of the Nelson-Atkins.  Also shown, is a photo of Rodin's "The Thinker" and "Adam" taken last spring during a nostalgic trip to Kansas City.  Rodin's work and ancient Greek and Roman sculpture are my earliest influences in sculpture and they continue to inspire me.

Then,  and now as a perpetual student . . . I was and am to be found in the antique sculpture galleries.
One of my earliest recollections as a student at KCAI is the museum's marble of the Greek "Lion" - 325B.C. shown below.
All photos in this post were taken this year at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

Go to the BLOG INDEX on the right for more information. 

Blog, text, photos, drawings, and sculpture . . . © Sandy Scott and Trish