Marshal de Saxe was, of course, the victor at Fontenoy, and Pigalle
depicts Death welcoming the hero while France vainly attempts to stay
Death’s hand. The scattered trophies, as well as the Austrian eagle,
the Belgian lion, and the English leopard, speak of the Marshal’s
success as a soldier. The work is clearly a national memorial, and, had
it been the work of a great national sculptor, would have suggested
national feeling and pride in every line and mass. In point of fact
it is evident that it does nothing of the kind. The sculptor, finding
himself unable to feel the design as a whole, has been content with
“building up” the memorial. Being a competent craftsman he naturally
produced a satisfactory, if uninspired, work.
There is a quaint little story concerning the inception of the Saxe
Memorial which happily illustrates the mood in which Pigalle designed
the work. The Marshal’s reputation for gallantry was by no means
confined to military affairs. He was, perhaps, the only commander who
ever entered into a campaign accompanied by a first-rate opera company.
Pigalle was well aware of this. That no side of the dead commander’s
character might be unrepresented, he added the figure of Love with
torch reversed. “The Marshal cared equally for love and war. Love
must figure among the mourners,” he explained. The Marshal’s friend
objected, and finally Louis XV. was asked to intervene. To satisfy
all parties, the King decreed that Cupid should wear a helmet—“the
insignia of the genius of war,” as he explained. But Pigalle was not
to be moved, “Aujourd’hui,” he said; “je plie, mais je me redresserai
bientot.”
It will be seen that Pigalle proved right. To this day Love is without
his helmet. Moreover, the tiny god is perhaps the most charming
figure in the great monument, a lasting reminder that the genius of
the eighteenth-century sculptor dealt more naturally with the dainty
and the graceful than with the great and the sublime. Pigalle’s own
reputation depends much more upon his charming “Mercury putting on his
Sandal” (The Louvre) than it does upon the far more ambitious memorial
at Strasbourg. This is equivalent to saying that Pigalle was at his
best when he was most interested. The same remark applies to his fellow
sculptors. Seeing that men’s interests had moved in the direction of
the boudoir, a boudoir art naturally followed.
The demand for smaller works increased as the eighteenth century went
on. No sculptor reached the height attained by Watteau and Fragonard in
the sister art of painting, but an immense amount of fine sculpture was
produced.
The typical Louis Quinze and Louis Seize style is well represented
by the work of the Parisian sculptor, Etienne Maurice Falconet
(1716-1791), a pupil of Lemoyne. His “L’amour Menaçant” is a charming
instance of the skill with which the eighteenth-century sculptors
adapted themselves to the wider range of subjects created by the new
demand.
[Illustration: HOUDON DIANA (BRONZE) Louvre, Paris]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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