Sculptors and Design Reform in France, 1848 to 1895: Sculpture and the Decorative Arts

Abstract

One reason I was excited to use in my classes Petra ten-Doesschate Chu’s Nineteenth-Century European Art , now in its third edition, was that the inclusion of decorative arts, albeit limited, gave a more complete picture of art production in the long nineteenth century. 1 The incorporation of the decorative arts into this mainstream college textbook also seemed to be a clear signal that the time was ripe for further integration of the decorative arts into academic discussions of sculpture, painting and architecture. Claire Jones’ Sculptors and Design Reform in France, 1848 to 1895: Sculpture and the Decorative Arts , which examines multiple facets of the relationship between sculpture and the decorative arts in the second half of the nineteenth century, is an example of the benefits of such scholarly investigations. In her Introduction, ‘The False Separation of Fine and Decorative Sculpture: Problems with the Rodin Scholarship for the Study of French Sculpture, 1848–1895’, Jones rightly underscores the central role that research on Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) has played in the contemporary interpretation of nineteenth-century sculpture. She suggests that his consecration as the ‘father of modern sculpture’ (p. 3), as well as the prevalent ‘artisan to artist’ (p. 3) narrative about his career, has undermined a more nuanced understanding of the fluid relationship between ‘decorative’ and ‘fine arts’ sculpture in that period. Jones also notes the importance of ‘financial matters and economic imperatives’ (p. 5), which led sculptors to have various vocational identities related to ‘high’ and/or ‘low’ art. In fact, the recurring discussions of pecuniary decisions made by artists are one of the book’s greatest contributions. Less consistently successful, however, is her enumeration of ‘industrial art (1848–1870), decorative art (1870–1892) and objet d’art (1892–1895)’ as ‘discrete yet interrelated and nonexclusive dominant trends in design reform’ (p. 12).