Le Monument à Mickiewicz de Bourdelle et son double commentaire par l’artiste

Abstract

A notebook has recently been found at the Bourdelle Museum in Paris, a notebook kept by the sculptor between 1908 and 1929 and concerning his Monument to Mickiewicz. This document gives us the opportunity to analyse several instants and several forms of commentary by the artist on his own work. Bourdelle included in this notebook several extracts from an article he wrote about the monument and which was published in a journal in January 1923. These extracts are stuck opposite ink and wash drawings executed, so the artist says, in 1923, on re-reading his published text. He also wrote extracts from this text on the drawing pages of the notebook, and adds what seem to be titles and captions. Themes dear to the artist emerge here : the unity of the three Polands, the Poet-Pilgrim, creation as the union of calculation and emotion. Some of these themes are in close correlation with symbolist ideas. Similarly, certains motifs in the drawings are also to be found in the works of other symbolist artists, in particular Gustave Moreau and Odilon Redon. One of the most remarkable drawings in this series of six is undoubtedly the portrait of Ladislas Mickiewicz, the son of the poet, portrayed as a prophet-like figure.