Modest Mussorgsky and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: Difference between pages

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[[Image:Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's marble sculpture 'Ugolino and his Sons', Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's marble sculpture 'Ugolino and his Sons', Metropolitan Museum of Art]]
[[Image:Musorgskiy.jpg|thumb|200px|Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky]]
[[Image:Jean-Baptiste_Carpeaux_La_Danse.jpg|thumb|right|400px|La Danse (The Dance), Opera Garnier in Paris]]
{{Commonscat}}


'''Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux''' ([[May 11]], [[1827]], [[Valenciennes]] –[[October 12]], [[1875]], [[Courbevoie]]) was a French sculptor and painter. His early studies were under [[François Rude]]. Carpeaux won the [[Prix de Rome]] in [[1854]], and moving to [[Rome]] to find inspiration, he there studied the works of [[Michelangelo Buonarroti|Michelangelo]], [[Donatello]] and [[Andrea del Verrocchio|Verrocchio]]. Staying in Rome from [[1854]] to [[1861]], he obtained a taste for movement and spontaneity, which he joined with the great principles of [[baroque art]]. In [[1861]] he made a bust of [[Mathilde Bonaparte|Princess Mathilde]], and this later brought him several commissions from [[Napoleon III]]. He worked at the pavilion of [[Flora (goddess)|Flora]], and the [[Opéra Garnier]]. His group La Danse (the Dance, [[1869]]), situated on the right side of the façade, was criticised as an offence to common decency.
'''Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky'''
({{lang-ru|Моде́ст Петро́вич Му́соргский}}, '''Modest Petrovič Musorgskij''', {{lang-fr|'Modeste Moussorgsky'}}) (March 9/21, [[1839]] – March 16/28, [[1881]]), one of the Russian composers known as [[the Five]], was an innovator of [[Music of Russia|Russian music]]. He strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of [[Western music]]. Many of his major [[List of works by Modest Mussorgsky|works]] were inspired by [[History of Russia|Russian history]], [[Russian folklore]], and other [[nationalism|nationalist]] themes, including the [[opera]] ''[[Boris Godunov (opera)|Boris Godunov]]'', the orchestral [[tone poem]] ''[[Night on Bald Mountain|Night on the Bald Mountain]]'', and the piano [[suite]] ''[[Pictures at an Exhibition]]''. For many years Mussorgsky's works were mainly known in versions revised or completed by other composers. Many of his most important compositions have recently come into their own in their original forms, and some of the original scores are now also available.


He never managed to finish his last work, the famous Fountain of the Four Parts of the Earth, on the Place Camille Jullian. He did finish the terrestrial globe, supported by the four figures of [[Asia]], [[Europe]], [[North America|America]] and [[Africa]], and it was [[Emmanuel Frémiet]] who completed the work by adding the eight leaping horses, the tortoises and the dolphins of the basin.
==Life==


== Sculptures by Carpeaux ==
====Youth====


* Ugolin et ses fils - [[Ugolino della Gherardesca|Ugolino]] and his Sons (1861, in the permanent collection of the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]])[[http://www.insecula.com/oeuvre/photo_ME0000009025.html]] with versions in other museums including the [[Musée d'Orsay]]
[[Image:Mussorgsky young b.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Mussorgsky as a cadet in the Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guards]]
* The Dance (commissioned for the [[Palais Garnier|Opera Garnier]])
Mussorgsky was born in [[Karevo]] in the province of [[Pskov]], 400 kilometres south-south-east of [[St Petersburg]]. His wealthy and land-owning family, the noble family of [[Mussorgsky family|Mussorgsky]], is reputedly descended from the first Ruthenian ruler, [[Rurik]], through the sovereign princes of [[Smolensk]]. At the age of six, Modest began receiving piano lessons from his mother; his progress was sufficiently rapid that he was able to perform a [[John Field (composer)|John Field]] concerto for family and friends just three years later. At ten, he and his brother were taken to St Petersburg to study at the elite [[Peterschule]]. While there, Modest studied the piano with the noted [[Anton Herke]].
* Jeune pêcheur à la coquille - [[Naples|Neapolitan]] Fisherboy - in the [[Louvre]], [[Paris]] [[http://www.insecula.com/oeuvre/photo_ME0000034255.html]]
Mussorgsky's intended career was as a military officer; and at thirteen, he entered the Cadet School of the Guards. Music remained important to him however, and at his father's expense a short (and utterly uncharacteristic) piano piece called the ''Porte-enseigne Polka'' was published in 1852, and the following year [[Alexander Borodin]] described the 17-year-old boy as an "elegant piano-playing dilettante". In 1856 Mussorgsky – who had developed a strong interest in history and studied German philosophy – successfully graduated from the Cadet School and received a commission with the Preobrazhensky Regiment of Guards, which was the foremost regiment of the Russian Imperial Guard.
* Girl with Shell
* [[Antoine Watteau]] monument, [[Valenciennes]]


==Neapolitan Fisherboy==
====Maturity====


Carpeaux submitted a plaster version of ''Pêcheur napolitain à la coquille'', the Neapolitan Fisherboy, to the [[French Academy]] while a student in [[Rome]]. He carved the marble version several years later, showing it in the Salon exhibition of 1863. It was purchased for [[Napoleon III]]'s empress, [[Eugénie de Montijo|Eugènie]]. The statue of the young smiling boy was very popular, and Carpeaux created a number of reproductions and variations in marble and bronze. There is a copy, for instance, in the Samuel H. Kress Collection in the [[National Gallery of Art]] in [[Washington D.C.]]
[[Image:Musorgsky and Brother.jpg|thumb|200px|Modest (right) and brother Filaret (left) in 1858.]]
In the next two years, Mussorgsky met several figures of importance in Russia's cultural life, [[Alexander Dargomyzhsky|Dargomyzhsky]], [[César Cui|Cui]] (a fellow officer), [[Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov|Stasov]], and [[Balakirev]] among them. Having produced a few songs and piano pieces as well as a number of compositional exercises under Balakirev's tutelage, Mussorgsky resigned his commission in 1858 after suffering a painful crisis. This may have had a spiritual component (in a letter to Balakirev the young man referred to "mysticism and cynical thoughts about the Deity"), but its exact nature will probably never be known. In 1859, the 20-year-old gained valuable theatrical experience when he assisted in the preparation of a production of [[Glinka]]'s opera ''[[A Life for the Tsar]]'' on the Glebovo estate of a former singer and her wealthy husband; he also met [[Lyadov]] and enjoyed a formative visit to Moscow – after which he professed a love of "everything Russian".


Some years later, he carved the Girl with a Shell, a very similar study.
In spite of this epiphany, Mussorgsky's music still leaned more towards foreign models: with Balakirev he was mostly studying German music (including the [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] [[Symphony|symphonies]]), and a four-hand piano sonata which he produced in 1860 contains his only movement in [[sonata form]]. Nor is any 'nationalistic' impulse easily discernible in the operas ''[[Oedipus in Athens]]'', on which he worked between the ages of 19 and 22 (and then abandoned unfinished), or in the ''Intermezzo in modo classico'' for piano solo (revised and orchestrated in 1867). The latter was the only important piece he composed between December [[1860]] and August [[1863]]: the reasons for this probably lie in the painful re-emergence of his subjective crisis in 1860 and the purely objective difficulties which resulted from the '[[Emancipation of the Serfs]]' the following year – as a result of which the family was deprived of half its estate, and Mussorgsky had to spend a good deal of time in Karevo unsuccessfully attempting to stave off their looming impoverishment.


Carpeaux sought real life subjects in the streets and broke with the classical tradition. The Neapolitan Fisherboy's body is carved in intimate detail and shows an intricately balanced pose. Carpeaux claimed that he based the Neapolitan Fisherboy on a boy he had seen during a trip to [[Naples]].
By this time, Mussorgsky had freed himself from the influence of Balakirev and was largely teaching himself. In 1863 he began another opera – ''[[Salammbô (Mussorgsky)|Salammbô]]'' – on which he worked between 1863 and [[1866]] before losing interest in the project. During this period he had returned to St. Petersburg and was supporting himself as a low-grade civil-servant while living in a six-man 'commune'. In a heady artistic and intellectual atmosphere, he read and discussed a wide range of modern artistic and scientific ideas – including those of the provocative writer [[Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky|Chernyshevsky]], known for the bold assertion that, in art, "form and content are opposites". Under such influences he came more and more to embrace the ideal of artistic 'realism' and all that it entailed, whether this concerned the responsibility to depict life 'as it is truly lived'; the preoccupation with the lower strata of society; or the rejection of repeating, symmetrical musical forms as insufficiently true to the unrepeating, unpredictable course of 'real life'.


==External links==
'Real life' impacted particularly painfully on Mussorgsky in [[1865]], when his mother died; it was at this point that the composer had his first serious bout of [[alcoholism]]. The 26-year-old was, however, on the point of writing his first 'realistic' songs (including 'Hopak' and 'Darling Savishna', both of them composed in [[1866]] and among his first 'real' publications the following year). [[1867]] was also the year in which he finished the original orchestral version of his ''[[Night on Bald Mountain|A Night on the Bare Mountain]]'' (which, however, Balakirev criticised and refused to conduct, with the result that it was never performed during Mussorgsky's lifetime).


*[http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=rs_display_res&critere=jean+baptiste+carpeaux&operator=AND&nbToDisplay=5&langue=fr A page on the official Louvre site giving access to some of Carpeaux's works (French language only)]
====Peak====
*[http://www.insecula.com/contact/A005511_oeuvre_1.html A page from insecula.com listing more views of Carpeaux's works (also in French;] it may be necessary to close an advertising window to view this page)
*[http://www.studiolo.org/MMA-Ugolino/Ugolino.htm A page analysing Carpeaux's ''Ugolino'', with numerous illustrations]


[[Category:French sculptors|Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste]]
Mussorgsky's career as a civil servant was by no means stable or secure: though he was assigned to various posts and even received a promotion in these early years, in [[1867]] he was declared 'supernumerary' – remaining 'in service' but receiving no wages. Decisive developments were occurring in his artistic life, however. Although it was in 1867 that Stasov first referred to the '[[The Five|kučka]]' of Russian composers loosely grouped around Balakirev, Mussorgsky was by then ceasing to seek Balakirev's approval and was moving closer to the older Dargomïzhsky. Since [[1866]] [[Alexander Dargomyzhsky]] had been working on his opera ''[[The Stone Guest]]'', a version of the ''[[Don Juan]]'' story with a [[Pushkin]] text that he declared would be set "just as it stands, so that the inner truth of the text should not be distorted", and in a manner that abolished the 'unrealistic' division between [[aria]] and [[recitative]] in favour of a continuous mode of syllabic but lyrically heightened declamation somewhere between the two. Under the influence of this work (and the ideas of [[Georg Gottfried Gervinus]], according to whom "the highest natural object of musical imitation is emotion, and the method of imitating emotion is to mimic speech"), Mussorgsky in [[1868]] rapidly set the first eleven scenes of [[Gogol]]'s ''[[Zhenitba]]'' (''The Marriage''), with his priority being to render into music the natural accents and patterns of the play's naturalistic and deliberately humdrum dialogue. This work marked an extreme position in Mussorgsky's pursuit of naturalistic word-setting: he abandoned it unorchestrated after reaching the end of his 'Act 1', and though its characteristically 'Mussorgskyian' declamation is to be heard in all his later vocal music, the naturalistic mode of vocal writing more and more became merely one expressive element among many.
[[Category:1827 births|Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste]]
[[Category:1875 deaths|Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste]]


[[de:Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux]]
A few months after abandoning ''[[Zhenitba]]'', the 29-year-old Mussorgsky was encouraged to write an opera on the story of [[Boris Godunov]]. This he did, assembling and shaping a text from Pushkin's play and [[Karamzin]]'s history, completing the large-scale score the following year while living with friends and working for the Forestry Department. In [[1871]], however, the finished opera was rejected for theatrical performance, apparently because of its lack of any '[[prima donna]]' role; Mussorgsky set to work producing a revised and enlarged 'second version' and, during the year that he spent sharing rooms with [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov|Rimsky-Korsakov]], made changes that actually went far beyond those requested by the theatre. In this version the opera was accepted, probably in May 1872, and three excerpts were staged at the [[Mariinsky Theatre]] in 1873. (It is often asserted that in 1872 the opera was rejected a second time, but no specific evidence for this exists.)
[[fr:Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux]]

[[nl:Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux]]
By the time of the first production of ''[[Boris Godunov (opera)|Boris Godunov]]'' in February [[1874]], Mussorgsky had taken part in the ill-fated ''[[Mlada]]'' project (in the course of which he had made a choral version of his ''[[Night on Bald Mountain|A Night on the Bald Mountain]]'') and had begun ''[[Khovanshchina]]''. Though far from being a critical success - and in spite of receiving only a dozen or so performances - the popular reaction in favour of ''Boris'' made this the peak of Mussorgsky's career.
[[pl:Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux]]

[[pt:Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux]]
====Decline====
[[zh:让-巴蒂斯·卡尔波]]

[[Image:mussorgsky by repin.jpg|thumb|left|200px|[[Ilya Repin]]'s celebrated portrait of Mussorgsky, painted only a few days before the composer's death.]]
From this peak a pattern of decline becomes increasingly apparent. Already the Balakirev circle was disintegrating. Mussorgsky, drifting away from his old friends, had been seen to fall victim to 'fits of madness' that could well have been alcoholism-related. In addition, his friend [[Viktor Hartmann]] had died, and his relative and recent room-mate [[Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov]] (who furnished the poems for the song-cycle ''[[Sunless (song cycle)|Sunless]]'' and would go on to provide those for the ''[[Songs and Dances of Death]]'') had moved away to get married. For a time, however, Mussorgsky was able to maintain his creative output: his compositions from 1874 include ''Sunless'', the ''Khovanschina'' Prelude, and the piano suite ''[[Pictures at an Exhibition]]'' (in memory of Hartmann); he also began work on another opera based on Gogol, ''[[Sorochintsy Fair]]'' (for which he produced another choral version of ''[[Night on Bald Mountain|A Night on Bald Mountain]]'').

In the years that followed, Mussorgsky's decline became increasingly steep. Although now part of a new circle of eminent personages that included singers, medical men and actors, he was increasingly unable to resist drinking, and a succession of deaths among his closest associates caused him great pain. At times, however, his alcoholism would seem to be in check, and among the most powerful works composed during his last 6 years are the four ''Songs and Dances of Death''. His civil service career was made more precarious by his frequent 'illnesses' and absences, and he was fortunate to obtain a transfer to a post (in the Office of Government Control) where his music-loving superior treated him with great leniency – in 1879 even allowing him to spend 3 months touring 12 cities as a singer's accompanist.

[[Image:Musorgsky Grave.jpg|thumb|200px|Grave of Modest Mussorgsky in the [[Tikhvin Cemetery]] of the [[Aleksandr Nevsky Monastery]] in St. Petersburg.]]The decline could not be halted, however. In 1880 he was finally dismissed from government service. Aware of his destitution, one group of friends organised a stipend designed to support the completion of ''Khovanschina''; another group organised a similar fund to pay him to complete ''Sorochintsy Fair''. Sadly, however, neither work was completed (although ''Khovanschina'', in piano score with only two numbers uncomposed, came close to being finished). In early 1881 a desperate Mussorgsky declared to a friend that there was 'nothing left but begging', and suffered four seizures in rapid succession. Though he was found a comfortable room in a good hospital – and for several weeks even appeared to be rallying – the situation was hopeless. [[Repin]] painted the famous portrait in what were to be the last days of the composer's life: a week after his 42nd birthday, he was dead.

He was interred at the [[Tikhvin Cemetery]] of the [[Alexander Nevsky Monastery]] in [[Saint Petersburg]].

==Works==

{{main|List of works by Modest Mussorgsky}}

[[Image:Musor statue.jpg|thumb|225px|left|Statue of Mussorgsky near his native village.]]
Mussorgsky's works, while strikingly novel, are stylistically romantic and draw heavily on Russian musical themes. He has been the inspiration for many Russian composers, including most notably [[Dmitri Shostakovich]] (in his late symphonies) and [[Sergei Prokofiev]] (in his operas). In 1868/9 he composed the opera ''[[Boris Godunov (opera)|Boris Godunov]]'', about the life of the Russian [[tsar]], but it was rejected by the [[Mariinsky Theatre|Mariinsky Opera]]. Mussorgsky thus edited the work, making a final version in 1874. The early version is considered darker and more concise than the later version, but also more crude. [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]] re-orchestrated the opera in 1896 and revised it in 1908. The opera has also been revised by other composers, notably Shostakovich, who made two versions, one for film and one for stage.

''[[Khovanshchina]]'' a more obscure opera, was unfinished and unperformed when Mussorgsky died, but it was completed by Rimsky-Korsakov and received its premier in 1886 in [[St. Petersburg]]. This opera, too, was revised by Shostakovich. Mussorgsky left another opera, ''[[Sorochintsy Fair]]'', incomplete at his death. However, a famous dance movement, the Gopak, is drawn therefrom.

One of Mussorgsky's wildest and most barbaric pieces (as the contemporary critics put it) is the orchestral work ''[[Night on Bald Mountain|St. John's Night on the Bald Mountain]]'', which was made famous in the US by its appearance in [[Walt Disney Pictures|Disney]]'s [[Fantasia (movie)|''Fantasia'']].

His most imaginative and frequently performed work is the cycle of [[piano]] pieces describing paintings in sound called ''[[Pictures at an Exhibition]]''. This composition, best known through an orchestral arrangement by [[Maurice Ravel]], was written in commemoration of his friend, the architect [[Viktor Hartmann]]. This piece also was made famous by the British progressive rock trio ''[[Emerson, Lake & Palmer]]'' in their 1971 album of the same name, ''[[Pictures at an Exhibition (album)|Pictures at an Exhibition]]''.

Among his other works are a number of [[song]]s, including three [[song cycles]]: ''[[The Nursery (song cycle)|The Nursery]]'' ([[1872]]), ''[[Sunless (song cycle)|Sunless]]'' ([[1874]]) and ''[[Songs and Dances of Death]]'' ([[1877]]).

==Quotes==

'''''By Mussorgsky'''''

From a letter to [[Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov|Vladimir Stasov]]:

<blockquote style="font-size: 90%">

"Life, wherever it reveals itself; truth, no matter how bitter; bold, sincere speech with people&ndash;these are my leaven, these are what I want, this is where I am afraid of missing the mark."

</blockquote>

From an autobiographical sketch:

<blockquote style="font-size: 90%">

"Art is a means of communicating with people, and not an aim in itself. This guiding principle has defined the whole of his [i.e., my] creative activity. Proceeding from the conviction that human speech is strictly controlled by musical laws ([[Virchow]], [[Georg Gottfried Gervinus|Gervinus]]), he considers the function of art to be the reproduction in musical sounds not merely of feelings, but first and foremost of human speech."

</blockquote>

'''''About Mussorgsky'''''

An early (1863) opinion by Stasov, later Mussorgsky's staunchest supporter, in a letter to Balakirev:

<blockquote style="font-size: 90%">

"I have no use whatever for Mussorgsky. All in him is flabby and dull. He is, I think, a perfect idiot. Were he left to his own devices and no longer under your strict supervision, he would soon run to seed as all the others have done. There is nothing in him."

</blockquote>

Balakirev's reply to the above assessment:

<blockquote style="font-size: 90%">

"Yes, Mussorgsky is little short of an idiot."

</blockquote>

[[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]], on Mussorgsky's manuscripts:

<blockquote style="font-size: 90%">

"They were very defective, teeming with clumsy, disconnected harmonies, shocking part-writing, amazingly illogical modulations or intolerably long stretches without ever a modulation, and bad scoring. ...what is needed is an edition for practical and artistic purposes, suitable for performances and for those who wish to admire Mussorgsky's genius, not to study his idiosyncrasies and sins against art."

</blockquote>

[[Anatoly Lyadov]]:

<blockquote style="font-size: 90%">

"It is easy enough to correct Mussorgsky's irregularities. The only trouble is that when this is done, the character and originality of the music are done away with, and the composer's individuality vanishes."

</blockquote>

Edward Dannreuther, in an early edition of ''The Oxford History of Music'':

<blockquote style="font-size: 90%">

"Mussorgsky, in his vocal efforts, appears willfully eccentric. His style impresses the Western ear as barbarously ugly."

</blockquote>

Gerald Abraham, musicologist, an authority on Mussorgsky:

<blockquote style="font-size: 90%">

"As a musical translator of words and all that can be expressed in words, of psychological states, and even physical movement, he is unsurpassed; as an absolute musician he was hopelessly limited, with remarkably little ability to construct pure music or even a purely musical texture."

</blockquote>

==Media==
{{multi-listen start}}
{{multi-listen item|filename=Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition, movement 1.ogg|title=Pictures at an Exhibition, 1st movement|description=|format=[[Ogg]]}}
{{multi-listen item|filename=Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition, movement 2.ogg|title=Pictures at an Exhibition, 2nd movement|description=|format=[[Ogg]]}}
{{multi-listen item|filename=Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition, movement 3.ogg|title=Pictures at an Exhibition, 3rd movement|description=|format=[[Ogg]]}}
{{multi-listen end}}

==Trivia==
Three movements of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" are played in the animated music film [http://www.animusic.com/clips/cathedral-pictures.html Animusic]

American Idie Rock band Modest Mouse takes its name from Mussorgsky

== External links ==
* {{IMSLP|id=Mussorgsky,_Modest_Petrovich|cname=Mussorgsky}}

[[Category:Russian composers|Mussorgsky, Modest]]
[[Category:Opera composers|Mussorgsky, Modest]]
[[Category:Romantic composers|Mussorgsky, Modest]]
[[Category:Rurikids|Mussorgsky, Modest]]
[[Category:1839 births|Mussorgsky, Modest]]
[[Category:1881 deaths|Mussorgsky, Modest]]

[[bg:Модест Мусоргски]]
[[ca:Modest Mússorgski]]
[[cs:Modest Petrovič Musorgskij]]
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[[et:Modest Mussorgski]]
[[es:Módest Mussorgski]]
[[eu:Modest Musorgski]]
[[fr:Modeste Moussorgski]]
[[ko:모데스트 무소륵스키]]
[[hr:Modest Petrovič Musorgski]]
[[it:Modest Petrovič Musorgskij]]
[[he:מודסט מוסורגסקי]]
[[hu:Mogyeszt Petrovics Muszorgszkij]]
[[nl:Modest Moessorgski]]
[[ja:モデスト・ムソルグスキー]]
[[no:Modest Musorgskij]]
[[pl:Modest Musorgski]]
[[pt:Modest Mussorgsky]]
[[ru:Мусоргский, Модест Петрович]]
[[simple:Modest Mussorgsky]]
[[sl:Modest Petrovič Musorgski]]
[[sr:Модест Мусоргски]]
[[fi:Modest Musorgski]]
[[sv:Modest Musorgskij]]
[[uk:Мусоргський Модест Петрович]]
[[zh:莫杰斯特·彼得罗维奇·穆索尔斯基]]

Revision as of 01:07, 19 June 2007

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's marble sculpture 'Ugolino and his Sons', Metropolitan Museum of Art
La Danse (The Dance), Opera Garnier in Paris
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (May 11, 1827, Valenciennes –October 12, 1875, Courbevoie) was a French sculptor and painter. His early studies were under François Rude. Carpeaux won the Prix de Rome in 1854, and moving to Rome to find inspiration, he there studied the works of Michelangelo, Donatello and Verrocchio. Staying in Rome from 1854 to 1861, he obtained a taste for movement and spontaneity, which he joined with the great principles of baroque art. In 1861 he made a bust of Princess Mathilde, and this later brought him several commissions from Napoleon III. He worked at the pavilion of Flora, and the Opéra Garnier. His group La Danse (the Dance, 1869), situated on the right side of the façade, was criticised as an offence to common decency.

He never managed to finish his last work, the famous Fountain of the Four Parts of the Earth, on the Place Camille Jullian. He did finish the terrestrial globe, supported by the four figures of Asia, Europe, America and Africa, and it was Emmanuel Frémiet who completed the work by adding the eight leaping horses, the tortoises and the dolphins of the basin.

Sculptures by Carpeaux

Neapolitan Fisherboy

Carpeaux submitted a plaster version of Pêcheur napolitain à la coquille, the Neapolitan Fisherboy, to the French Academy while a student in Rome. He carved the marble version several years later, showing it in the Salon exhibition of 1863. It was purchased for Napoleon III's empress, Eugènie. The statue of the young smiling boy was very popular, and Carpeaux created a number of reproductions and variations in marble and bronze. There is a copy, for instance, in the Samuel H. Kress Collection in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

Some years later, he carved the Girl with a Shell, a very similar study.

Carpeaux sought real life subjects in the streets and broke with the classical tradition. The Neapolitan Fisherboy's body is carved in intimate detail and shows an intricately balanced pose. Carpeaux claimed that he based the Neapolitan Fisherboy on a boy he had seen during a trip to Naples.

External links

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