1st Edition
French Sculpture Following the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–80 Realist Allegories and the Commemoration of Defeat
By Michael Dorsch
Copyright 2010
220 Pages
by
Routledge
French Sculpture Following the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-80 investigates the role played by the trope of the 'strong woman, fallen man' in re-establishing morale among the French people following the Franco-Prussian War. The study explores how certain French sculptors - including Falguière, Mercié, Barrias, and Rodin - presented this recent history of defeat in commemorative monuments that... Read more
Contents: Introduction; The hermaphroditic power of Jean-Alexandre-Joseph Falguière's Allegory of Resistance; The Emperor's furrowed brow and the prostitute's imperious gaze: social degeneracy writ large; Antonin Mercié's Gloria Victis and the mollification of the French psyche; The soldier's bandaged foot: state sponsorship of the image of defeat in the 1879 concours for the monument to La Défense de Paris; Auguste Rodin's The Age of Bronze: commemoration stripped bare; Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
Michael Dorsch is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art History at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, USA.
'Dorsch's book does a great deal to shed light on the complexity of late-nineteenth-century French sculpture and its contexts, deepening the ways in which the significance of sculptors such as Mercié and Falguière should be understood.' David Getsy, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA
