Article
Newsletter: Winter 2004
Given by Meredith Knowlton, the sculptures portray her aunt, Adelaide McLaughlin Moise-who at the age of twenty-two was an American expatriate in Paris- in two guises: as a modern woman with bobbed hair, and as a woman of ancient Greece with abundant curls. Both sculptures privilege the sitter's Greek profile, which was much admired by Mme. Bourdelle (according to the subject's own account of sitting for Bourdelle, which accompanies the gift)
Deeply influenced by Rodin in his youth, Bourdelle turned to the art of ancient Greece to liberate himself from the overpowering influence of that titanic mas ter. His debt to classical art was particularly evident in his method for making portraits; he worked first from nature, and then, referring to ancient heads, transformed the image into an approximation of a classical head. The two portraits of Adelaide Moise are textbook examples of Bourdelle's working process and have great didactic value. They also evoke the world of American expatriates in 1920s Paris and their encounter with a modernism that sought renewal in the spirit of Greek antiquity.
Deeply influenced by Rodin in his youth, Bourdelle turned to the art of ancient Greece to liberate himself from the overpowering influence of that titanic mas ter. His debt to classical art was particularly evident in his method for making portraits; he worked first from nature, and then, referring to ancient heads, transformed the image into an approximation of a classical head. The two portraits of Adelaide Moise are textbook examples of Bourdelle's working process and have great didactic value. They also evoke the world of American expatriates in 1920s Paris and their encounter with a modernism that sought renewal in the spirit of Greek antiquity.
