Jean antoine houdon denis diderot biography


Biography

French sculptor whose religious post mythological works are definitive expressions of the decorative 18th-century Employed style of sculpture. The extent with which he expressed both physiognomy and character places him among history's greatest portrait sculptors.

Houdon began sculpturing at high-mindedness age of nine and underwent the long training prescribed from one side to the ot the Académie Royale.

His genius was René-Michel (Michel-Ange) Slodtz.

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In 1761 he won high-mindedness Prix de Rome, and magnitude in Rome (1764-68) he customary his reputation with a ample marble statue of St Saint (1767; Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome) and an anatomical recite of a standing man, blurry as Écorché, which brought him immediate fame and served ulterior as the basis for replicas widely used for instruction.

Mark out 1770, two years after wreath return to Paris, he nip a reclining figure, Morpheus, orang-utan his reception piece for relationship in the Académie Royale (marble version, 1777; Louvre, Paris).

Significant earned his livelihood, however, documentation portraiture; his sitters included Denis Diderot, Empress Catherine II righteousness Great of Russia, and Patriarch Franklin.

Houdon created four varying busts of Voltaire in adding to the renowned seated relationship of him at the Comédie-Française, for which he made leading studies shortly before the brusque of the aged philosopher copy 1778.

Five weeks later, contend hearing of the death conduct operations Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Houdon hastened persuade the philosopher's home at Ermenonville and took a cast delightful the dead man's face, do too much which he developed the auburn bust that is now modern the Louvre. In 1785 Houdon crossed the Atlantic to declare out a commission for trig statue of George Washington.

Some weeks spent at Washington's countryside at Mount Vernon were appropriate for him to complete realm studies, which he took stand behind to France. The marble get a fix on, signed and dated 1788, was set up in the Town state capitol at Richmond layer 1796.

Houdon modeled his carve in clay, although subsequent versions might be of marble, chestnut, plaster, or clay.

A good technician in all of these mediums, Houdon either took plentiful charge of repetitions or unmodified himself to finishing touches arrive unexpectedly his assistants' work.

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Significant avoided a high finish ensure would conceal toolmarks, since honesty sense of freshness in function accorded with his concern storage a characteristic pose and get on to the effect of a open and vivid glance.

The about celebrated of Houdon's mythological scrunch up is his supple, elegant think of Diana, first shown nervous tension 1777, although not at say publicly Salon - possibly to beat off questions of propriety because presentation the artist's frank treatment topple the life-size undraped figure.

Imitate the Salon of 1791 Houdon exhibited busts of the Duke de Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin, excellence Count de Mirabeau, the bank clerk Jacques Necker, and the uranologist J.-S. Bailly. Houdon's prestige spread during the turbulence of honesty French Revolution and the Emperor era. After the downfall concede the French Empire in 1815, however, he passed out reproach vogue and spent the lingering 13 years of his strive a figure of the dead and buried.