The Sculptor's Funeral

Jason's on vacation this week! Enjoy this rebroadcast of the Benvenuto Cellini episode of The Sculptor's Funeral.

The Free Style. The New Sculpture. The French Manner. Call it what you want - one thing is certain, the marriage of Victorian English sensibilities and French modelling technique conspired to produce sculpture of a variety and style that England had never seen.

A new Renaissance, a Golden Age - Whatever you call it, Paris in the second half of the 19th century saw a greater number of master sculptors doing work in more unprecedented ways than the world had seen since the early Florentine Renaissance. This episode takes a look as several sculptors and highlights their individual originalities as well as their relation to each other.

"Those who have seen it have not forgotten the magnificent tipsy laugh of the figures in the dancing group on the front of the Opera; you seem to hear it, as you pass, above the uproar of the street." Is this remark from Henry James praising Carpeaux's masterpiece The Dance, or damning it? Yes. But whether a person loved or hated the sensual rhythms of The Dance, it and its creator could not be ig...

The crude and arrogant son of a mason, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux became the exuberant sculptural voice of the Second Empire and is the greatest sculptor of the period between Canova and Rodin. Funny how 20 years of art school can change a person... This episode charts the education of Carpeaux in all its twists and turns, revealing that the greatest influence on Carpeaux's work was his own stubborn a...

What was life like for a sculpture student of the Ecole Des Beaux-Arts in the 19th century? What did it take to win the coveted Prix de Rome? Jason examines some firsthand accounts of students and critics of the Ecole, highlighting the similarities with - and differences from - contemporary art training in academies and ateliers.

Francois Rude is likely the most important sculptor you've never heard of... Known today as 'the father of naturalism is sculpture', during his own lifetime he was exiled, denied official recognition, and relegated to a corner of the Parisian sculptural scene - and despite everyone's best efforts, changed the course of art history anyway. Find out what debt we all owe to Francois Rude in this epis...

Frankenstein's Monster, scenes of disaster and shipwreck, Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Raven'... what could be more Romantic? in this episode, Jason explores the Romantic movement in art, a direct competitor to Neoclassicism, and answers your burning questions as to what flowers and chocolates on St. Valentine's Day have to do with 1st century Greek literature.

The Three Graces. Cupid and Psyche. Napoleon. Everyone knows Antonio Canova, and you either love him or hate him. But - love him or hate him - do you understand him? The Sculptor's Funeral explores Canova's work in the context of the Enlightenment and French Revolution, and finds there is more to Canova than just a sculptor of ideal nudes.

News Flash! Art historians claim to have identified two bronze statuettes as by the hand of Michelangelo! in this current events episode, Jason attempts to examine the hard evidence for this claim, but discovers there isn't any...

Jean Antoine Houdon was the greatest portrait sculptor in European history. The fidelity to nature he maintained in his work was an inspiration for the Realists of the 19th century and each generation which came after - all the more amazing when we consider that Houdon was a product of the Rococo and the Old Regime!

The idea of looking towards Greek art for inspiration wasn't exactly new in the late 18th Century with artists such as Canova and David. Artists had been doing it constantly, and for centuries. And yet, the name we give the dominant style of that period - Neoclassicism - seems to imply there was. What was so 'Neo' about Neoclassicism? Listen to the podcast and join the Enlightened.

Exactly how and when did the focus of European art move from Florence and Rome, to Paris? This episode explores the rise of the French academic system and the forerunners of the Ecole Des Beaux-Arts and the Paris Salon under the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV.

Bernini Part Two! We discuss how Bernini sought to combine color, sculpture light and architecture into a single, unified, and total work of art. But Bernini went beyond even that, by creating what can be described as 'layered realities' within several of his works resulting in some of the richest and most complex sculptures ever created.

Apollo and Daphne, Pluto and Persephone, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa... Never has a single sculptor produced as many absolute masterpieces as Gianlorenzo Bernini. In this first of a two-part episode, Jason discusses Bernini's biography and his important early works which initiated the Baroque Era of sculpture.

Following up on the Elgin Marbles debate, Jason explores the nature of public art, and whether or if a work of art can cease to be. How fragmented, altered, abused, displaced, and appropriated can a sculpture be before it is a relic, rather than a sculpture?

Taking a break over the holidays, Jason gives a reading of Oscar Wilde's classic short story. Happy Holidays Everyone!

News and Notes! Current events covered in this episode include the lastest chapter in the 2 century old controversy surrounding the elgin marbles, a group of statuary taken from the Parthenon in Greece and brought to England. Also, information on TRAC, or The Representaional Art Conference, taking place in 2015.

Whether it's at a university degree program or in a small private atelier, most figurative sculptors today train at schools, rather than as apprentices to professional sculptors. But what was the first art school in Europe? why was it created? Your host Jason Arkles details the history of the rise of the academy as a way to train artists in a more varied, eclectic, and intellectually challenging p...

Giambologna's remarkable and prolific career is the missing link between the Renaissance and the Baroque, between Michelangelo and Bernini, and between medieval and modern conceptions of how a sculptor's career is conducted. So many elements which Giambologna pioneered in his work - casting works in editions, jobbing out technical aspects of sculpture to specialists, and the decorative, small scal...

The sculptor of the famous Perseus and Medusa, Benvenuto Cellini, might have been a one-hit wonder if it were not for his other masterpiece, his Autobiography - the first from an artist. In his book, Cellini details the construction and casting of his Perseus - a precious firsthand account of a Renaissance sculptor at work - as well as his exploits as a nasty, brutish, jealous, pandering thug who...

In this Episode, Jason provides a forum for current events in the world of figurative sculpture. Notable exhibitions in museums around the world, exhibition opportunities for sculptors, and listener mail.

The Divine Michelangelo - The man could do no wrong. ...At least, according to Michelangelo. One of his lasting legacies, apart from his art, is the mythology about his life and work that he himself perpetuated through the commissioning of a biography. But legends aside, Michelangelo still is one of the gresatest artists ever to have lived. This episode discusses his early years as an artist, his...

The history of canons of proportions and their use by sculptors is discussed in this week's episode. From the Egyptians up to the present day, artists have sought the key to caputring an ideal, or a norm, in human form. As it happens, notions of ideals - and of what we consider normal - change over time, which has given rise to dozens of canons practiced by different artists at different times. Ho...

If you sculpt, you probably have a small library of how-to sculpture manuals. Sculptors writing about sculpture goes way back - but how far back? In this episode, Host Jason Arkles discusses the f sculpture manual that was written during the early renaissance by the original Renaissance Man, Leon Battista Alberti. A personal friend of Donatello, Brunelleschi, and Ghiberti, Alberti's treatise on th...