As I said earlier, during the Covid-19 stay-at-home orders in Illinois, we were lucky as we were still able to leave the house and walk in nearby local parks. One of those parks is the Robert Allerton Park (which I wrote about here https://viviennemackie.wordpress.com/2020/06/04/allerton-park-a-jewel-in-central-illinois/ ), and we visited a number of times, as there is so much to see and do there.
One visit we walked the Orange Trail that connects the main parking lot with the Fu Dog Gardenthrough the woods and were surprised and delighted to find two really interesting outdoor bronze sculptures that we’d not seen before. The inscription on one is “Denicheur d’Oursons” by Fremiet, the other is also by Fremiet but we couldn’t find a title on it. It’s a gorilla carrying off a woman. So, we were inspired to do a little investigating.
Turns out that these sculptures have a long and fascinating history. In October 2016 these two famous sculptures were returned to Allerton after a 30-year absence. They were mistakenly included as part of the transaction when the University of Illinois bought the Lorado Taft studio in 1937 (Lorado Taft is well-known local sculptor). Now I need to find out how Taft got the statues. After years of being kept in storage, and following years of negotiations, they were donated to the University in 1959 by the heir of the original owner. They were then installed on the Orange Trail at Allerton, mounted only on the dirt beneath them, and stayed there until the 1980s when they were moved to the Krannert Art Museum.
They are now back to delight—or shock—trail walkers, now mounted on concrete pedestals.
Both the large bronzes were cast by French sculptor Emmanuel Frémiet (1824-1910). “Denicheur d’Oursons” (1885) translates as “Hunter of Bear Cubs” or “Bear Cub Thief”. “Denicher” means to pluck from the nest. It’s a rather graphic depiction of an enraged mother bear stabbed by the hunter, who has a dead baby bear hanging from his belt. The man is also badly injured by the bear and will soon die, so it seems there are no winners in this encounter. When he first showed his Bear and Man of the Stone Age (listed as “Ours et Homme de l’age de pierre”) at the Paris Salon in 1885 it was made of plaster. Then he cast two bronzes of the statue, when it was renamed Denicheur d’Oursons: one is here in Illinois, the other is in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, where children enjoy climbing on it. They are not dated or numbered, but at that time it was not common for works to be dated or numbered. The foundry was Thiebaut Frères, Paris
“Gorilla Carrying off a Woman” (1887) is just what it says, but one wonders why the woman is wearing only a loin cloth. There is a slithering snake at the statue’s base, which might be a symbol of evil. It was also in plaster when first shown, and won a gold medal at the Paris salon in 1887. There are three other bronzes of this piece; one at the Menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris; and two in museums in Nantes (France) and Melbourne (Australia).
Both of these powerful pieces have caused a lot of controversy over the years—artists saying they are sexist, racist, examples of nature clashing with humans. They do indeed elicit emotion, which to my mind is one thing that art should do. The setting for these pieces at Allerton is great, on the quiet trail, deep in the woods. They represent a standard of late 19th century academic and popular taste, favoring works that contrast bestial force with human figures of grace and vulnerability. They are angry beasts acting according to their natural instincts, victims as well as perpetrators of violence.
Frémiet became famous because of the anatomical accuracy of his works and his ability to produce life-size animal groups. He worked mainly with animal studies, but did produce some other famous works. Two that we have seen are the gilt-bronze Joan of Arc in the Place Pyramides, Paris, and the huge elephant in the plaza outside the Musée d’Orsay, called “Jeune Éléphant pris au piège”.
Emmanuel Frémiet (1824-1910) was born in Paris into an artistic family. He was nephew and pupil of Sophie Frémiet and later a pupil of her husband Francois Rude (who did a lot of work in Dijon and has a museum of his works there) and trained in art from a very young age. As a student he spent much of his time at the Jardin des Plantes studying the live animals and participating in the dissection of the ones that had died. Along with Antoine Louis Barye, people consider him to be the best and most well-known French animalier sculptors, who also made collecting animal sculptures fashionable.
See more about Frémiet here http://www.bronze-gallery.com/sculptors/artist.cfm?sculptorID=22
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