Aristide Maillol (1861-1944). The quest for harmony

April 12, 2022 August 21, 2022 Exhibition has ended

Since the Tribute to Maillol organised in 1961 at the Musée National d'Art Moderne for the centenary of his birth, Aristide Maillol has not had a proper monograph in a Parisian museum. The Musée d'Orsay is finally devoting a major retrospective to him. Thanks to the timelessness of his work, Maillol fully belongs at the beginning of the XXᵉ century, at the birth of modernity.

French Art

Statuette Woman sitting on her heels by Aristide Maillol

RF006525

Hand-patinated resin reproduction of a bronze original in the Musée d'Orsay.

Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), ca. 1900
Maillol devoted himself to sculpture from 1895 onwards, after having devoted himself to painting and the decorative arts. This graceful figure is one of his first works modelled in clay. He would have several bronzes made of it a few years later.
At first, Maillol produced small-scale works. From 1902 onwards, he began to work on larger sculptures, such as Méditerranée, which made him famous.
Even if we already perceive in this small figure all the monumentality and classicism that characterise his style, we still find in it the spirit of the art of the Nabis that the artist practised in painting, in the simplified and purified lines. Finally, it heralds the "return to order" that broke out after the First World War. An artistic movement inspired by ancient art with a taste for smooth, taut surfaces, in contrast to the tormented expression of Rodin's works. Art Deco was coming into its own.

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