the essential
More than forty sculptures by Antoine Bourdelle and contemporary artists can be discovered in the city.
Antoine Bourdelle, a sculptor of genius, is very well represented in the city where he was born with a dozen statues including the “Last Centaur”, the beautiful “Penelope” and “Sapho”. These bronze jewels clearly show the evolution of this great artist, whom his master Rodin called “a scout of the future”. A “Focus Bourdelle” trail, available at the Grand Montauban tourist office, allows you to discover them all at your own pace and according to your desires.
Thus, we learn that “La Victoire” was ordered to watch over the 2,500 soldiers who lost their lives in 1915 at Hartmannswillerkopf, in the Vosges. Opposite the theater, Place Lefranc-de-Pompignan, “Sapho”, a Greek poet from the 7th and 6th centuries BC watches over her neighbor Olympe de Gouges. Sitting on a rock, she seems to seek inspiration through solitary meditation. Like “Pénélope”, the choice of “Sapho” reflects Antoine Bourdelle’s interest in the female figure and Antiquity, joined here by poetry. Bourdelle began working on this work in 1887. He returned to it for nearly forty years.
We also don’t forget the imposing monument to the dead of the First World War installed on the Cours Foucault. Bourdelle imagined a sculpture in front of a columned temple containing the altar of the dead. Uniting the ancient Minerva with the emblematic figure of Victory, triumphant France scans the horizon, symbol of the future.
In nearly fifty years of creation, Antoine Bourdelle has produced few self-portraits. The Montalban collections, however, retain some executed in pen, watercolor or gouache. The example installed in Square Picquart was designed by the artist in 1925 for the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts. This representation of Bourdelle’s face was originally a mask designed to serve as a keystone to the Book Pavilion. The sculpture, presented on a granite stele, was inaugurated in 1954 on the occasion of the opening of a room dedicated to Bourdelle at the Ingres museum which now bears his name.
