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Compte rendu par June Hargrove, University of Maryland Nombre de mots : 1960 mots Publié en ligne le 2018-10-21 Citation: Histara les comptes rendus (ISSN 2100-0700). Lien: http://histara.sorbonne.fr/cr.php?cr=3005 Lien pour commander ce livre
The Golden Age of Sculpture that flourished in the long 19th century resulted from the intersection of art and industry when opportunities for artists multiplied exponentially as technology facilitated the production and dissemination of bronzes. In the magisterial volume consecrated to the Barbedienne foundry, Florence Rionnet offers an overview of the phenomenon, establishing the historical context for the proliferation of bronze sculptures while giving a detailed account of the rise—and fall— between 1834 and 1954 of the maison Barbedienne, one of the most important bronze manufacturers in France. The topic has been rigorously researched with extensive notes, and the text is profusely illustrated with abundant color plates supplemented by archival photographs and prints. A comprehensive catalog raisonné of approximately 2000 models follows the narrative chapters.
The significance of this endeavor is defined in the preface by Catherine Chevillot, Director of the Rodin Museum, Paris, who pioneered in scholarship concerning the industry. No one is more equipped to recognize the contributions made by this book than she, and she elucidates the critical impact of this publication on the history of nineteenth-century sculpture.
In her introduction, Rionnet situates the house of Barbedienne in the forefront of the small-bronze editions that arose during the reign of Louis-Phillippe (1830–48). She places the detailed history of the factory in the larger picture of the growth of the popularity of reduced-sized casts and their role in the history of taste. Ample citations of contemporary literature throughout confirms their presence as fixtures in bourgeois homes of the era, revelatory of an individual’s status and even character. These bronzes played a central role in fostering the appreciation of sculpture in the public at large, while introducing public sculpture into private middle-class homes.
The body of the text is divided into three chapters which cover respectively the Barbedienne dynasty, the history of the foundry, and the bronze collections it edited. The biography of the family focuses largely on Ferdinand Barbedienne (1822–92), the principle protagonist of the story. It was he who recognized the potential of the machine, invented by Achille Collas (1795–1859), for mechanically reducing copies of a model. He seized upon the capacity to make reductions of large-scale works for reproduction as multiples, without which the industry would not have been feasible. The two men established their partnership in 1838. The ultimate success of the undertaking rested on Ferdinand Barbedienne’s vision: his taste, his friendships with artists, and, most of all, his dynamic role as a captain of industry, anxious to protect and promote French foundries. An indication of his prominence as a titan of the corporate arena is seen in the descriptive aphorism—"the Hercules of bronze.”
His nephew Gustave Leblanc-Barbedienne (1849–1945) proved less talented as a leader and industrial manager. Although he sought to expand the corporation, adding artists and developing new ateliers for diverse products, he was inclined to indulge more in the trappings of commercial success than in developing new strategies to advance the industrial prowess of the factory. But perhaps the demise of the company was inevitable after World War I, when taste and life-styles changed dramatically. The burden fell to Gustave’s son, Jules Leblanc-Barbedienne (1882–1961), to close the establishment in 1954. Their lives encapsulate a century of radical transformations that contributed to the social, political, and artistic shifts that occurred as France moved from an agrarian to an industrial economy, and their history is a case-study of the panorama of capitalism as it evolved during the Second Empire and the Third Republic.
The second section traces the transitions in the organization from its inception as Société A. Collas et Barbedienne through its final iteration as Leblanc-Barbedienne & Fils. Barbedienne and Collas implemented the association in 1838, casting reductions of ancient sculptures. Having exhausted the readily available antique sources, they begin to include models drawn from modern sculpture and decorative objects. But gradually the two men pulled apart. Among other reasons, Collas lost interest in the venture as he pursued new inventions, and in 1850 he withdrew from the operation entirely, leaving his former partner to develop the firm as F. Barbedienne et Cie. Free to follow his inclinations, Ferdinand incorporated a growing number of modern and contemporary works in the plant’s production. The ways in which he collaborated with arts offers compelling insights into how models were selected and the ways in which editions were developed. He also benefitted from the increasing public commissions of the state for monumental sculpture to expand into casting large-scale works.
Barbedienne maintained the sales offices and showroom for the company at 30 Boulevard Poissonnière but constructed a veritable “city” of workshops nearby on the rue de Lancry. The numerous illustrations of these ateliers enrich the impression of a vast enterprise employing a wide range of skilled workers. They reinforce the instructive descriptions of the complex series of processes in which the institution engaged. While the extensive explanations of the technical steps of bronze casting at Barbedienne are specific to that foundry, they are instructive for the processes in general and are useful to understand the detailed stages of production in the industry at large. Along with these precisions Rionnet gives the reader a sense of the personal commitments between Barbedienne and the artists whose work he produced. The example of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux is particularly informative, not only because it concerns a major artist of the Second Empire, but also because it offers a clearer notion of how these relationships functioned in the complicated realms of art and business. The chapter includes a discussion of some of Barbedienne’s major monumental accomplishments, such as the Tomb of General de Lamoricière by Paul Dubois in Nantes. Again the technical insights presented in this chapter further the broader issues of casting large public sculptures.
At the same time, the corporation initiated a series of experiments under the rubric of utilitarian art. Indeed its production epitomizes the fusion between the fine and the decorative arts—a concept that assumed a critical place in attitudes towards the creative process in the second half of the century. The spectrum of luxury objects from furniture to lighting fixtures, vases, and mirrors, produced not only in bronze but also in silver and cloisonné enamel, would seem to be the antithesis of the democratic trends manifested in the proliferation of small-scale bronzes. The panoply of industrial arts promoted by the maison Barbedienne is documented here with a thoughtful selection of illustrations.
Moreover this chapter delves into the circumstances around the technical processes and the individuals who executed them. While too little is still known about these men and their creative input into the workings of the factory, Rionnet has made significant inroads into our perception of who they were and how critical skilled labor was to the bronze industry. The documentation of this facet of the story is a welcome addition to the account of technology and its relationship to the arts in the nineteenth century.
After Ferdinand’s death in 1892, his nephew Gustave assumed control of the organization. To his credit, he sought to strengthen the business through pursuing the casting of public statuary. He greatly expanded the facilities, renovating the ateliers on the rue de Lancry and adding others. Although the company had relied on the practice of sand casting for decades, as it lent itself to producing multiples, Gustave recognized the preference among younger sculptors for lost wax casting, and he constructed a new studio exclusively for that technique to entice artists of the caliber of Auguste Rodin to work with Barbedienne to realize their monumental works. He bought the rights to the works of Emmanuel Frémiet, whose animal sculptures remained extremely popular.
In this same chapter Rionnet outlines the various commercial strategies that the firm implemented to diffuse its wares. This mini-history of marketing shows how indispensable the new means of advertising and selling were to the success of industrial production. In addition to the foundry’s detailed catalogs, the establishment maintained an active presence in the institutional and commercial venues that proliferated after 1850. Trade fairs multiplied as the universal exhibitions became a regular feature of national displays. Cultivating positive recognition in the press was another important means of promoting a presence essential to attract buyers and creators alike. While these activities were also common to other prominent manufacturers of the day, as Rionnet demonstrates, Barbedienne strove to sustain a campaign on all of these fronts up to the Second World War. But the times had changed. The section concludes with the sad fate of the enterprise after the war inflicted the final blow to an industry already tottering from the decline of demand for bronze sculpture—large or small. The golden age was over.
The analysis of the editions constitutes the third section. Rionnet outlines the shift from reductions of ancient compositions to arrangements with contemporary artists to edit their successful salon sculptures and monuments in editions. This provided sculptors with a new access to markets, and consequently raising their prosperity to a level that could sustain large studios employing numerous skilled practitioners working for the artists themselves. To exemplify this, she delves into the case of Francois Rude, who signed a contract in 1843, authorizing Barbedienne to manufacture reductions of his popular Young Neapolitan Fisher. In addition to arrangements with living artists, Barbedienne made arrangements with artists’ estates, enabling the factory to make and diffuse countless small bronzes of the works such stars as Antoine-Louis Barye and Emmanuel Frémiet.
The exchanges between artists and the manufacturer required complicated negotiations of copyright, rights to reproduction, the size of editions, the indemnities, and so forth. Relying on a substantial quantity of archival materials, Rionnet has assembled an impressive account of the business of making art. And she points out the litigation that marred these relationships on occasion. While she does reference some comparative material, the scope of her project was already wide and demanding, she opened a door to such comparisons for the future without trying to pursue them in depth in her publication. The wealth of illustrations that are accompanied by photographs of details of works in the collection underscores the quality of the foundry’s production and the degree to which it remained true to the artist’s aesthetic. In many ways this chapter presents the history of taste in the art of sculpture over a century of bronze casts.
After concluding the historical body of the text with a thoughtful assessment, the book turns to the catalogue of edited models. This compendium reflects the remarkable commitment of time and labor that the author invested in her project. She has meticulously documented the vast output of the sculpture and the decorative arts that Barbedienne achieved over the years. The catalogue consolidates the importance of this volume as a timeless reference for scholars and collectors the world over. Wherever possible the items are illustrated, and the sources identified. Each entry offers as much detailed information as is available, and it reveals the extraordinary effort behind this publication. An impressive assortment of annexes completes the book. After a significant chronology, a list of public monuments, the foundry stamps, legal statutes, and a bibliography are among the documents that supplement the history. Henceforth anyone working in nineteenth-century sculpture will find a rich array of information at their immediate disposal. It stands as an indispensable reference tool for the study of the period. The exceptional production standards of Arthena are everywhere in evidence. The lavish color plates, the clarity of the maquette, and the high quality of the paper complement the serious scholarship contained in this tome.
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Éditeurs : Lorenz E. Baumer, Université de Genève ; Jan Blanc, Université de Genève ; Christian Heck, Université Lille III ; François Queyrel, École pratique des Hautes Études, Paris |
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