ETHNOGRAPHY AND BEAUTY: A CLOSER LOOK AT CHARLES CORDIER’S POLYCHROME BUSTS

by TAYLOR JEAN DAY

Bachelor of Arts, 2013 Southwestern University Georgetown, Texas

Submitted to the Faculty Graduate Division of Fine Arts Texas Christian University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

May 2015

Copyright © 2015 by Taylor Jean Day All rights reserved

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude toward my thesis committee members

Dr. Mark Thistlethwaite, Dr. Amy Freund, and Laure de Margerie for taking the time to guide me through the research and writing process for my thesis. Each of my committee members offered valuable expertise and helped me to keep pushing my thesis to the next level. Dr. Thistlethwaite pushed me to become a better writer so that my thesis could reach its fullest potential. Dr. Freund encouraged me to keep pushing my argument further and to never stop thinking of ways to make it stronger. Laure de Margerie offered her expertise not only on French sculpture, but also on Charles Cordier, and was always willing to answer my questions and share her insight.

I would also like to thank the rest of the art history faculty at Texas Christian

University for all of their support over the past two years. The pursuit of my master’s degree has been a journey, and each of these faculty members has helped me greatly along the way.

Thank you to my graduate school classmates and close friends—Katherine

Aune, Alejo Benedetti, Auriel Garza, Dawn Hewitt, and Megan Sander—for all of the fond memories and support throughout graduate school. Lastly, I would also like to thank my family for their continuous support throughout my time at TCU.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations...... v

Ethnography and Beauty: A Closer Look at Charles Cordier’s Polychrome Busts….....1

Images...... 48

Bibliography...... 61

Vita...... 64

Abstract...... 65

iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. Negre du Soudan, 1856, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Figure 2. Mulâtresse, Prêtresse à la fête des fèves, 1856, Musée de l’Homme, Paris

Figure 3. Khafre, 2520-2494 BCE, Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Figure 4. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Grande Odalisque, 1814, Musée du Louvre, Paris

Figure 5. Chinois and Chinoise (Chinese Man and Chinese Woman), 1853, Art Gallery of Hamilton (l), Ontario, and Musée de l’Homme (r), Paris

Figure 6. Greek Warrior, 460 BCE, Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia, Reggio Calabria, Italy

Figure 7. Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Les Quatre Parties du Monde (The Four Parts of the World), 1872, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Figure 8. Honoré Daumier, Sad Countenance of Sculpture in the midst of Painting, 1857, Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge

Figure 9. Unknown, Seïd Enkess, 1847, Musée de l’Homme, Paris

Figure 10. Leon de Wailly and Jacques Christophe Werner Hottentot Venus (Femme de Race Bochismanne), 1824

Figure 11. Henri Sicard, The Hottentot Venus (Cover for a Musical Score), 1888

Figure 12. Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist, Portrait d’une Negresse (Portrait of a Black Woman), 1800, Musée du Louvre, Paris

Figure 13. Arabe d’El Aghouat (Arab of El Aghouat), 1856, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

v Introduction

Works of sculpture from nineteenth-century France are often difficult to classify. Whereas nineteenth-century French painting typically is identified with specific movements such as Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, and Post-

Impressionism, the sculptures from this century are less easily categorized. French painting dominated the art world in the nineteenth century, and sculpture received less attention from the viewers and Salon goers.1 Sculptors at this time tended to work as individuals rather than adopting a collective way of thinking and creating, and sculpture did not develop movements in the same way that painting did.

Sculpture was also time consuming and expensive. The sculptural works of Charles

Cordier (1827-1905) are not exempt from these problems. Cordier’s choice materials were bronze and marble: two heavy, expensive commodities. Although he used similar materials as his contemporaries like marble and bronze, Cordier’s choices regarding style and subject matter render his works unique.

The subject matter of Cordier’s oeuvre covers a wide range of races and ethnicities. Most intriguing are his works modeled after the Algerian body, a subject that appealed to a diversity of artists in nineteenth-century France. This interest in representing this subject resulted from two distinct events in French history: the conquest of Algeria, a country in northern Africa that became a colony of France in

1830, and a fascination with ethnography, a field of study to anthropology.2 The emergence of ethnography resulted in the necessity for ethnographic sculptures of

1 Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, Nineteenth-Century European Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003), 232-34. 2 Alice L. Conklin, In the Museum of Man: Race, Anthropology and Empire in France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 1-5.

1 different races to study the features of varied ethnicities. Because of representing

Algerian types, Cordier’s art has prompted many scholars to identify it as primarily ethnographic. I find this perspective problematic. Through a case study of two of

Cordier’s images of North African individuals, Negre du Soudan (1856) (Fig. 1), and

Mulâtresse, prêtress à la fête des fèves, henceforth identified as Prêtress (1856) (Fig.

2), I will demonstrate that Cordier’s art goes beyond ethnographic study, and that his busts are objects that crave aesthetic attention.

There is no doubt that science and ethnography influenced Cordier. However, various concepts of beauty with regard to other races, also intrigued Cordier, and he discussed beauty in ways that differed from usual Western conceptions. Cordier displayed his works in both artistic and scientific environments, and critics often commended his skill with intricate sculptural techniques. In addition, Marc

Trapadoux’s catalogue discusses many of Cordier’s busts and describes them as works of art. Therefore, Cordier’s oeuvre should be thought of as a fusion of both artistic and scientific influence, rather than just ethnographic study. I will support this argument by taking a closer look at Cordier’s stylistic decisions with specific regard to polychromy and the skill level that Cordier demonstrated in his busts. I will also situate Cordier’s polychrome works among other sculptures that were created in nineteenth-century France as well as other representations of the black body during this time period. I will analyze what other scholars have said about

Cordier and his works and contend with the classification of Cordier’s busts as ethnographic or works of Orientalism.

2 How should scholars classify Cordier? Categorizing Cordier as an

ethnographic sculptor is insufficient because it limits the busts to scientific purposes

and overlooks their artistic character and intention. To properly categorize and

analyze Cordier’s works, it is necessary to focus less on his scientific interests and

influences and more on his travels to North Africa, his choice in polychrome

techniques and materials, and his ideas about what constitutes aesthetic beauty.

Visual Analyses of Busts

Negre du Soudan and Prêtress exemplify Cordier’s interest in both

ethnography and concepts of beauty.3 Negre du Soudan4 and Prêtress are classified

as polychrome sculpture because of their color variation. For Negre du Soudan,

Cordier fashioned both bronze and Algerian onyx-marble as well as different metal

plating techniques to create a cohesive sculptural composition. The deep folds that

Cordier has cut into the marble add an element of shadow to this bust, which

3 There are several versions of each of the two busts discussed in this thesis. Thirteen known versions of Negre du Soudan exist, and three known versions of Prêtress. In some cases, Cordier used different materials and techniques on versions of the same bust. For the sake of consistency, I have chosen one specific version of each bust to discuss. However, all of the techniques that Cordier employed while creating sculptures will be discussed in great detail in this thesis. In the case of Negre du Soudan, I will be referring to the bust that was purchased by the State at the Salon of 1857, for 3,000 francs. It was displayed at the Musée du Luxembourg until 1874, and was then passed between the Musée du Louvre and the Musée du Luxembourg until 1986, when it was added to the collection of the Musée d’Orsay, where it is now located. Prêtress refers to the black marble bust that was purchased in 1858 by the State for 3,000 francs. It was installed in the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, and since 1939 has been part of the collection of the Musée de l’Homme in Paris. 4 Jeannine Durand-Révillon and Laure de Margerie, “Catalogue Raisonné,” in Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905), Ethnographic Sculptor, ed. Laure de Margerie et al. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004), 143-222.

3 contributes a sense of drama to the piece. Negre du Soudan’s head and neck are cast from bronze while his chest, arms and hat are carved from Algerian onyx-marble.

The variation of color, translucence, and striation of the marble add to the detail and visual intrigue of the work. Though several editions of this sculpture exist, no two renditions are the same due to variations in the onyx-marble. In each version of the bust, the face of the figure is stern and his gaze looks outward, looking past the viewer. Cordier has included hints of a moustache, eyebrows, and a hairline on the figure. The bust’s shoulders are squared, but slightly relaxed. Negre du Soudan’s gaze and posture possess a tone that suggests gravity and purpose.

Two important details are worth noting in the clothing of Negre du Soudan.

In the fabric, Cordier has incised intricate patterning in the buttons, seams, and hat.

A comparison of these details to those found in nineteenth-century photographs of

Algerian men indicates that these patterns were found in Algerian dress.5 This authenticity of dress reveals Cordier’s attention to detail when fashioning this bust.

In addition to its intricacy, Cordier’s decision to carve the Negre du Soudan’s clothing in marble quarried in Algeria is significant. Cordier would have had to have the marble shipped to France, which was costly. He did so because the use of this specific marble from Algeria was important to his overall composition. Through this choice of stone, he has literally clothed Negre du Soudan in materials from Algeria.

5 Christine Barthe, “Models and Norms: The Relationship Between Ethnographic Photographs and Sculptures,” in Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905), Ethnographic Sculptor, ed. Laure de Margerie et al. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004), 93-96. In June of 1851 a group of Algerian people rode into Paris on horseback with plans to perform a show in town. Étienne-René-Augustin Serres (director of the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle’s laboratory of human anatomy), paid eight of these individuals to sit for both photographing and casting. I have based my analysis of Algerian clothing by comparing these photographs to Cordier’s busts.

4 Prêtresse represents a different method in Cordier’s polychrome sculpture technique.6 Prêtresse is carved from black marble with details of jasper added in her necklace. The highly polished black marble enables light to play a part in this piece.

The light reflects on and animates the features of what would otherwise be an expressionless face. Prêtresse is a rare example of Cordier not using any bronze in a sculpture, but he uses color in different ways, as seen in his choice of red jasper to add color to her necklace. Prêtresse stares straight ahead, with shoulders squared.

This posture gives her a sense of timeless authority, which the dense, compact black marble accentuates. The dark stone and stiff posture of Prêtresse are reminiscent of the Egyptian sculpture of Kafre from the 2500s BCE (Fig. 3). Khafre is a sculpture of an Egyptian ruler used for funerary purposes. The rigid style of this sculpture is typical of portraits of rulers from this time. The similarities between these two sculptures solidify the sense of authority that emanates from Prêtresse. It is likely that Cordier would have been familiar with Egyptian sculpture, through collections in France and reproductions available to him.

Cordier traveled to Algeria in 1856, and would probably have seen a priestess in Algeria first hand. His sculpted figure wears a striped headdress that covers her chest. Like Negre, her facial features are stoic, which reinforce her sense of authority. Instead of creating a separate base for this bust, Cordier has carved the base from the stone that forms her chest. This is an advantageous choice made by the artist, as he allows the sculpture to support itself rather than requiring a base.

This is another detail that adds to the unity of the piece.

6 Durand and de Margerie, “Catalogue Raisonné,” 143-222.

5

Cordier’s Biography

To understand fully his polychrome busts, it is necessary to explore Charles

Cordier’s career, which began at an art school in Cambrai, before he moved to Paris to study at the École de Beaux-Arts in April 1846.7 Soon after, he entered the workshop of François Rude, a sculptor who won the Prix de Rome in 1812, and exhibited his works at the Salon for the first time in 1848.8 By the time Cordier came to his studio, Rude had already been sculpting for many years and had established himself as a well-known sculptor. Rude’s emphasis of movement and naturalism in his work classifies him as a Romantic sculptor. His works include two reliefs commissioned for the Arc de Triomphe, which he completed in 1836.9 Although the art of Rude and Cordier differs greatly in subject matter, visible influence from Rude can be discerned in Cordier’s work. Rude’s overall style is naturalistic, yet classically influenced, which also characterizes Cordier’s busts.

The same year—1848—that he began studying under Rude, Cordier met SeÏd

Enkess, a black model from Sudan who was living and working in Paris.10 Cordier executed a portrait of this man, which he exhibited at the Salon the same year.11 As i

Cordier’s first sculpture of a person of color, this portrait marks the beginning of

Cordier’s artistic focus for the remainder of his career. This portrait inspired

7 Peter Fusco and H. W. Janson, The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North American Collections (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1980), 180. 8 Ibid., 351. 9 Ibid. 10 Christine Barthe, “Models and Norms,” 99. 11 De Margerie, “Chronology,” in Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905), Ethnographic Sculptor (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004), 129.

6 Cordier’s fascination with race and ethnicity, and likely inspired his travels to

Algeria.

With the nineteenth century came two tools that would help Cordier in his career: photography and the discovery of polychrome sculpture and architecture from antiquity.12 The invention of photography greatly changed the way that artists could produce art. The appearance of photography in 1839 resulted in artists and museums commissioning photographers to create albums to document their works.13 In 1857, Cordier requested that Charles Marville photograph his sculptures and produce an album including nineteen plates.14 Marville and Cordier organized the album by ethnographic types, which they labeled as Caucasian, Mongolian,

Ethiopian, and Mixed-Race. By means of this album Cordier could circulate images of his works; in 1859 he sold twenty copies at fifty francs each. A second volume, featuring more ethnic types, failed to come to fruition.15 Cordier’s photography album indicates his goal to market his art. Because sculptures cost so much to make,

Cordier would have wanted to sell as many of his works as possible, to fund future projects. The collection of plates put together by Cordier and Marville demonstrates

Cordier’s dedication to circulating his works as widely as possible.

While the photographic album helped make Cordier’s works known, he also made many reproductions of his works in materials like bronze and terracotta. As

12 Edouard Papet, “To Have the Courage of his Polychromy: Charles Cordier and the Sculpture of the Second Empire,” in Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905), Ethnographic Sculptor (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004), 51. 13 Kennell, Sarah, “Charles Marville, Hidden in Plain Sight,” in Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 22. 14 De Margerie, “Chronology,” 132. 15 Ibid.

7 with the goal of his photographic album, these copies allowed Cordier to widen the circulation of his works, which were purchased by private collectors, fellow sculptors, and the State. Further, Cordier and other French sculptors relied on commissions and funding from the State. We know, based upon archival research undertaken by Jeannine Durand-Révillon and Laure de Margerie, that Cordier sold his sculptures primarily at public sales, Salons, and exhibitions.16 The State also purchased his works for anthropological and art museums.17 Cordier was awarded a number of State commissions throughout his career, though some of them never materialized. State purchases and commissions were crucial to a sculptor’s success in the nineteenth century. There were many expenses involved in the fabrication of art production, including travel costs.18 This is especially true in the case of Cordier, as his travels had great influence on the assembly of his busts.

The second development of the nineteenth century that proved helpful to

Cordier was the discovery that antique sculpture was, in fact, polychrome. This revelation sparked debate on whether or not color belonged in sculpture. It had long been thought that ancient Greek and Roman marble and bronze sculptures were monochromatic. This resulted in an overwhelming consensus that good sculpture was monochromatic. The realization that sculptures from antiquity were actually polychrome subverted this argument, and inspired a few artists, like Cordier, to

16 Durand and de Margerie, “Catalogue Raisonné,” 143. 17 For more information on the display of Cordier’s works both in the nineteenth- century and contemporary context, see Robley Holmes, “Re-Casting Difference: Charles Cordier’s Ethnographic Sculptures” (master’s thesis, University of North Carolina, 2011). 18 Elizabeth Prettejohn, The Modernity of Ancient Sculpture: Greek Sculpture and Modern Art from Winckelmann to Picasso (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 153.

8 experiment with color in their sculptures. While Cordier exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1848, he did not exhibit a work of polychromy until 1853.19

In 1854, Cordier requested the government fund a trip to Algeria for six months.20 His stated mission of this journey was to “reproduce there the various types that are at the point of merging into one and the same people.”21 His goal was to experience different races “from the standpoint of art.”22 This reaffirmed his artistic interest in representing people of other ethnicities, which he first expressed in his 1848 sculptural portrayal of Seïd Enkess. Traveling to Algeria would give

Cordier access to models of varying backgrounds, few of which existed in nineteenth-century Paris; those available in the city spread their time among several different artists. Visiting North Africa would allow the sculptor to encounter an abundance and variety of Algerian ethnicities.

The State granted Cordier his visit to Algeria and spent six months there in

1856. Rather than stay with French colonists, Cordier chose to live among the local population.23 This decision had several ramifications. Unlike other artists who visited Algeria, Cordier chose not to observe the locals from afar, but to become totally immersed in their culture. This allowed him to have a richer experience and understanding of the indigenous environment and culture, and, presumably, the opportunity to develop closer personal relationships with locals. Cordier’s choice

19 Prettejohn, The Modernity of Ancient Sculpture, 153. 20 Fusco, The Romantics to Rodin, 180. 21 Fusco quoting Charles Cordier, The Romantics to Rodin, 180. 22 De Margerie quoting Charles Cordier, “Chronology,” 131-2. 23 Laure de Margerie, “The Most Beautiful Negro is not the one Who Looks Most Like Us,” in Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905) Ethnographic Sculptor (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004), 28-29.

9 emphasizes his commitment to attaining authenticity in his likenesses of Algerian individuals and capturing their personas.

Pleased by the artistic outcome of his travels, Cordier requested immediately another grant from the government, this time to execute in bronze and polychrome marble “in accordance with the color of the original types,” the thirteen bronze studies that he returned with.24 This request indicates that Cordier’s choice to use polychrome techniques was based upon his subject matter and rendering it authentically. Cordier was granted funding and transformed his Algerian studies into twelve polychrome busts, which he exhibited at the 1857 Salon.25

Cordier visited Egypt in 1866. In his request for governmental funding for his trip, he declared his desire “to render race as it is found in its relative beauty, in its absolute truth, with its passions, its fatalism, its proud calm, its fallen grandeur, but whose principle has existed since antiquity.”26 When Cordier wrote these words in

1865, he had already executed the busts that are the focus of this case study, nevertheless, the aim he expresses seems applicable to the earlier work, as well. A key phrase Cordier uses is “relative beauty.” This indicates that Cordier believes beauty is defined differently for each race or culture, rather than believing in the existence of one ideal notion for beauty. When Cordier, in his funding statement, follows “relative beauty” with “in its absolute truth,” he is referring to is a visual truth; he aspires to depict these individuals as he observes them in nature.

24 De Margerie, “Chronology,” 132. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid, 136.

10 Cordier also references the fatalism and fallen grandeur of race in his archived writings. He is discussing race in a romantic and poetic sense. Fatalism refers to a race’s acceptance and inevitability of its predetermined destiny. This attitude aligns well with nineteenth-century notions on the development of race and ethnicity, which followed a linear path through time. Cordier is also using the term fatalism to allude to the acceptance of a negative fate. Further, his mention of a fallen grandeur may refer to the negative things that have already happened to the

North Africans through its colonization. Perhaps the fall that Cordier speaks of is the fall of Algeria to France.

In Negre du Soudan and Prêtresse, the viewer can see the “proud calm” that

Cordier references in his letter. Their facial expressions are serene, but thoughtful, and reveal the human quality Cordier perceived in of his subjects. The funding statement also alludes to Cordier’s interests in antiquity. Polychrome sculptures from antiquity are part of what inspired Cordier to reinvigorate the technique in the nineteenth century. From this statement in his letter requesting to visit North Africa again, it is clear that Cordier was thinking about the beauty of different races and the beauty found in sculptures from antiquity.

As Cordier’s career moved forward, the public became more excited by his works, which began to be produced in larger quantities.27 He created some copies, as is the case with Negre du Soudan, that combined marble and bronze. He also experimented with polychrome techniques that included adding metal plating to

27 Papet, “To Have Courage. . .,” 72-73.

11 bronze and manipulating the color of the bronze.28 To expand his market, Cordier organized sales of his sculptures in Paris and London, where he sold many of his works.29

Recent Scholarly Work on Cordier

Cordier’s wide circulation of his busts has made it easier for scholars today to study his polychromy. In a 2014 conference in Paris, Maria Gindhart classified

Cordier’s sculptures as “ethnographic busts.”30 She considered Cordier an ethnographic sculptor because of the interest expressed by the Musée d’Histoire

Naturelle of Paris in Cordier’s work in the nineteenth century. Several of Cordier’s busts were in fact on display at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle, and Cordier was a member of the Anthropological Society in Paris, which worked closely with the museum.31 This museum’s regard for Cordier’s sculpture is important in situating it within an ethnographic context, yet it is problematic to identify his busts solely within this sphere. While Cordier’s busts reveal his concern with race and ethnography, it is important to remember that he envisioned and executed them as art works.

In a presentation at a symposium in Paris, James Smalls, like Gindhart, categorized Cordier as a proponent of ethnography and anthropology. Basing his

28 Edouard Papet, “The Polychromy Techniques of Charles Cordier,” in Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905), Ethnographic Sculptor (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004), 83-84. 29 Durand and De Margerie “Catalogue Raisonné,” 143-222. 30 Maria P. Gindhart “Between Art and Science: Sculpture at the Museum National D’Histoire Naturelle 1850-1880” (paper presented at Colloquium for the Fondation Singer-Polignac, Paris, 2014). 31 Ibid.

12 argument on an ethnographic reading of Cordier’s sculptures, Smalls contended that the busts perpetuated the ideas of hierarchy in race espoused by scientific thought in nineteenth-century France. He argued that Cordier’s approach to ethnographic sculpture served to further France’s colonizing ambitions and actions. Smalls comes to this conclusion by taking an almost exclusively ethnographic approach to

Cordier’s work. Like Gindhart’s argument, this is problematic because it is too limited in its consideration of Cordier’s art. Clearly ethnographic concerns condition

Cordier’s sculptures, but as art works they reflect and illuminate a more expanded field than that claimed by Gindhart and Smalls.

During his lecture, James Smalls referenced an exhibition organized by Laure de Margerie and Edouard Papet for the Musée d’Orsay in 2004, titled L’Autre et

L’ailleurs. This exhibition centered on Cordier’s works, and its catalogue regards

Cordier as the only sculptor in France who focused on such a wide diversity of human races.32 In the initial chapter of the exhibition’s catalogue, Laure de Margerie notes that Cordier is one of the first artists to represent the black body in nineteenth-century France.33 De Margerie also stresses the importance of Cordier’s oeuvre, as it stands out distinctly from other three-dimensional works that were produced in France by Cordier’s contemporaries.34 While I agree with much of de

Margerie’s argument, my focus is less on Cordier’s influence in ethnography, and more on his techniques and thoughts on ideal beauty in the nineteenth century. In a catalogue essay following de Margerie’s, Edouard Papet provides more detail on

32 De Margerie, “The Most Beautiful. . .,” 11. 33 Ibid., 13-15. 34 Ibid.

13 Cordier’s use of polychromy and contends that he was the only sculptor in nineteenth-century France who combined polychromy with ethnography. Yet, despite his discussion of Cordier’s technique, Papet is more concerned with ethnography, and classifies Cordier as an ethnographic sculptor.

Other scholars, including Adrienne Childs, in her 2005 dissertation, have deemed Cordier an Orientalist artist.35 But, like “ethnographic,” “Orientalism” is a problematical term because it confines Cordier’s busts to a category that their subject matter and style transcend. Orientalism existed in more than artistic representation in Europe in the nineteenth century; it was also a popular way of thinking. Orientalism was inspired by Western interest in non-Western cultures, and typically refers to European attitudes towards the Middle East and North Africa.

Edward Said has famously elucidated many of the features of Orientalism, including a desire to instruct non-western cultures in the ways of the modern West and to both observe and generalize about non-western cultures.36 In addition to this,

Orientalism circumscribes a European attitude toward the Near East and North

Africa. Said also identifies the view of non-Western peoples as both passive and sensual as a common Orientalist belief. Orientalist Europeans projected their fears and desires for the Other onto these non-Western cultures. Childs contends that although Said focuses on written works in his discussion of Orientalism, and does not offer an explanation of how Orientalism functioned in regard to North Africa,

35 Childs, Adrienne. “The Black Exotic: Tradition and Ethnography in Nineteenth- Century Orientalist Art” (PhD diss., University of Maryland, 2005), 12-13. 36 Said, Edward W. “Orientalism,” The Georgia Review 31 (Spring 1977): 162-65.

14 Orientalism can be applied to artists of the nineteenth century, including Charles

Cordier.37

Likewise, Robley Holmes, in her 2011 Master’s thesis, claims Cordier is an

Orientalist.38 Holmes also analyzes Said’s arguments to support her claim. Most

Orientalist art was created by painters who used environmental cues to represent their experience of the Other that they encountered in the Orient.39 In other words, painters would include details such as buildings and landscapes that were typical of non-Western cultures to inform the viewer of the setting of the painting. Holmes argues that painters inserted clues in the details of the painting (buildings, background, etc.) that alluded to the subject matter’s culture. She contends that although Cordier’s works are sculptural and therefore impossible to place within a specific cultural setting, he utilizes the garments of the busts to hint at the location that he is representing.40

Holmes argues that Cordier is an Orientalist, but hints at a different type of

Orient for Cordier, as he depicted the ethnicities of Europeans as well as Islamic peoples. While it appears as though Cordier may have been influenced by the overall goals of Orientalism (capturing other cultures in art and subjugating them through representation), Cordier’s art reaches beyond the confines of Orientalism. Edouard

Papet comes closest to defining Cordier’s relationship with Orientalism, when he argues that Cordier was a part of a generation that desired to research people of

37 Childs, “The Black Exotic. . .,” 12-13. 38 Robley Holmes, “Re-Casting Difference: Charles Cordier’s Ethnographic Sculptures” (master’s thesis, University of North Carolina, 2011), 9. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid., 10.

15 different ethnic types in their home environments.41 As mentioned previously in

Said’s definition of Orientalism, Europeans had a growing fascination with cultures that were considered to be Other. Papet then suggests that Cordier experienced the

Orient differently than other artists, by stating that Cordier’s Orient was not a picturesque scene. He claims that Cordier’s scientific interests prevented him from sharing these views of the Other.42 While through a twenty-first century lens

Cordier’s work may appear to possess the traits of an Orientalist artist, his busts do not fit neatly into the category of nineteenth-century Orientalism. The goal of

Orientalist art was to create an idealized, picturesque scene of the “exotic” Orient that would appeal to Europeans.43 A painting by Auguste-Dominique Ingres titled

Grande Odalisque serves as an example of the impact that Orientalism had on art

(Fig. 4). The first reference to the Orient is in the title of the painting. The French word “odalisque” is derived from the Turkish “odalik.”44 Ingres justified the blatant nudity of the woman in the painting by indicating that she was not a French woman, but an Oriental woman in a harem. Because of the connotations of promiscuity that the French associated with harems, the woman in the painting connotes a part of a world where open sexuality was acceptable. In order to place this woman culturally,

Ingres has included several exotic cues, such as fabrics, a hookah water pipe, her headdress, and the peacock feather fan in her hand. He has taken liberty with the shape of her body by elongating her back to add to her sexual appeal. The figure’s

41 Papet, “To Have the Courage. . .,” 71. 42 Ibid. 43 Roger Benjamin, Orientalist Aesthetics: Art, Colonialism and French North Africa, 1880-1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 13. 44 Chu, Nineteenth-Century European Art, 218.

16 gaze and eye contact with the viewer further accentuates the sexual nature of the composition. These details reveal the artist’s goal of creating an idealized and sexualized image of a non-Western woman in a harem.

Cordier’s busts, however, do not have this same feeling of Orientalist desire.

His busts are more modestly dressed, especially Prêtresse. Her breasts are not over- exaggerated and while the bust is still a female object of the male gaze, she is far less overtly sexualized than the works of Orientalism discussed above. Whether or not he succeeded, Cordier’s goal was to bring out the true beauty of different ethnicities, rather than creating a Westernized idealization. Prêtresse and Negre du Soudan exemplify Cordier’s busts transcending the argument that they are strictly ethnographic. Cordier has included details in these busts, including the facial hair of

Negre, that give them an individual quality. Their facial expressions and clothing, especially the festival garb of Prêtresse also make the viewer see them as individual people, rather than generic types to be studied.

Marc Trapadoux on Cordier’s Art

Cordier’s ideas about beauty and the ways in which he instilled individuality within his busts are chronicled in nineteenth-century publications on the artist, including Marc Trapadoux’s 1860 descriptions of Cordier’s busts.45 These detailed accounts of Cordier’s busts were published as a catalogue, and Trapadoux’s words further accentuate the individual human qualities that Cordier’s busts possess. The

45 Marc Trapadoux, L’Oeuvre de M. Cordier: galerie anthropologique et ethnographique pour servir a l’histoire des Races (Paris: Imprimerie de Ch. Lahure, 1860), 26.

17 phraseology used in this publication has suggested to some that Cordier may have helped Trapadoux write these accounts. Trapadoux’s commentary is far from scientific; instead, it is romanticized and focused on beauty. For example, he describes the joy and emotion that the viewer can sense in the face and eyes of the busts.46

In this catalogue, Trapadoux specifically mentions and describes Cordier’s

Negre du Soudan. Trapadoux describes the bust as possessing “une noblesse native qui lui donne cet air d’empereur romain.”47 This not only references Cordier’s influence from antiquity, but Trapadoux is also referencing the noble quality that

Negre du Soudan himself possesses. In regard to Prêtresse Trapadoux explains that she is dressed for a religious festival that precedes Ramadan. He then expresses that

“. . . qui semblait figédans la contemplation des divins mystères.”48 Trapadoux’s reading of Prêtresse is poetic. His fascination with her contemplative gaze reflects the skill with which Cordier has represented her. The artist has carved the bust in such a way that Trapadoux, as the viewer, is able to form an emotional connection with the marble figure. The black marble from which Prêtresse has been carved amplifies the aura of mystery that surrounds the bust and captivates Trapadoux.

Trapadoux proposes that the busts reflect animated souls. For him, the artist has instilled the spirit of human nature into his busts. This argument was uncommon in the nineteenth century, as most argued that any representation of a

46 Trapadoux, L’Oeuvre de M. Cordier. . ., 11. 47 Ibid., 14. Translation: “a native nobility which gives him [Negre] the appearance of a Roman emperor.”47 48 Ibid., 16. Translation: “. . . who seems frozen in the contemplation of divine mysteries.”

18 non-Western individual was savage. He also discusses Cordier’s finesse as a sculptor.49 Trapadoux celebrates the skill with which Cordier has delineated these individuals and has enlivened them with a human presence. The language that

Trapadoux uses throughout his commentary emphasizes the individualism that

Cordier expresses in the busts, which further sets them apart from works of ethnography. Trapadoux’s emphasis on the lifelike bearing and unique persona expressed in Cordier’s sculptures persuades the viewer that these busts are more about artful than ethnographic. Trapadoux’s attitude towards busts that depict non-

Western peoples would have been uncommon at this moment in history. Many of

Cordier’s critics would not have agreed with Trapadoux’s words.

Critical Reception of Cordier’s Busts

Despite Trapadoux’s positive commentary, the critical reception of accorded

Cordier’s polychrome busts exhibited at the Paris Salons was mixed. Negative criticism attacked Cordier’s choice of technique and subject matter. Critics argued that his use of polychromy to depict North Africans made these works curiosities rather than art.50 One critic contended that “The work of M. Cordier [should not be taken] for polychrome statuary; it is an association of motley materials, not a system of coloration based on laws.”51 He judges Cordier’s work as unworthy of being called art. He finds Cordier’s busts to be chaotic, unbalanced, and a random arrangement of color.

49 Trapadoux, L’Oeuvre de M. Cordier . . ., 9. 50 Papet, “To Have the Courage. . .,” 63. 51 Papet “To Have the Courage. . .,” 63.

19 The declaration that Cordier’s busts were curiosities ties to attitudes of the

French toward non-western people in the nineteenth century. The black body generated great interest in nineteenth-century Paris, which resulted in the exhibition of Africans as curiosities.52 Cordier’s critics strongly contended that his images of the black body did not belong in the fine arts. Claude Vignon contended that “what is even less art, and what appears to us supremely out of place at the

Salon of 1852, are these busts of M. Cordier . . . “53 She makes this argument based upon Cordier’s choice to represent non-Western subject matter. Critics who argued against the inclusion of these works in the Salon considered them more scientific than artistic and better suited for anthropological museums.54 At the Salon of 1857,

Maxime Du Camp stated that “The Algerian busts of M. Cordier are interesting, especially from an ethnographic point of view,” and Théophile Gautier claimed that the busts “would admirably adorn a museum of natural history.”55 Despite these opinions, most critics, including Claude Vignon at the Salon of 1853, commended

Cordier for his technical ability. In regard to an earlier Cordier sculpture, La Vierge des Eaux (Virgin/Nymph of the Waters), Vignon praised the work as very naturalistic and expertly executed. She observes that Cordier exhibits an obvious talent as a sculptor, but that he has yet to learn how to use it and that his choice in subject matter often spoils his abilities.56 Vignon also explicitly states that Cordier’s Chinese

52 Pascal Blanchard et al., Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage (Paris: Actes Sud, 2011). 53 Papet quoting Vignon, “To Have the Courage. . .,58. 54 Papet, “To Have the Courage. . .,” 63. 55 Papet quoting Gautier and du Camp “To Have the Courage. . .,” 65. 56 Claude Vignon. Salon de 1853, par Claude Vignon (Paris: Palais-Royal, galerie d’Orleans, 1853), 23-4.

20 Couple, (Fig. 5), which was exhibited the same year is simply not to be considered art because of the racial subject matter of the busts. The way that Vignon discusses

La Vierge des Eaux versus the Chinese Couple reveals a bias of critics at the Salon.

Cordier’s talents were praised when works were not explicitly racial in subject matter. Conversely, he was strongly criticized for his choice to display his sculptures of different ethnicities at the Salon.

At the Salon, Cordier was criticized for both his subject matter (non-Western peoples) and use of color in sculpture. These were two things that critics were not accustomed to seeing at the Salon, especially in the same work. Because critics had never encountered busts like Cordier’s at the Salon before, the resulting shock caused them to consider only the surface of Cordier’s busts, rather than thinking about them on a deeper level. The unique quality of Cordier’s works so quickly sparked criticism that it prevented critics from taking more time to consider what the artist’s purpose and goal was when creating objects like Negre du Soudan and

Prêtresse. Cordier intended to provoke reflection on beauty and race, but all his critics could see were colorful studies more suited a museum of natural history.

After his trip to Algeria, Cordier exhibited at the Salon of 1857.57 His works were described as well executed, but were also labeled as curiosities and savage types.58 In addition to being attacked for his choice of subject matter, Cordier was also loudly criticized for his utilization of polychromy. Although polychromy existed

57 Louis Auvray, Exposition des Beaux-Arts: Salon de 1857 (Paris: Bureau de l’Europe Artiste, 1857), 98, and Edmond About, Nos Artistes au Salon de 1857 (Paris: Librarie de L. Hachette, 1858), 242. 58 Ibid.

21 before Cordier, it had only been used in sculpture occasionally before 1859.59

Cordier began experimenting with polychromy in the early 1850s, and probably received most of his criticism due to this unpopular technique. When Sault [?] stated that Cordier’s works were more curiosity than art, he was reacting to both Cordier’s choice in subject matter and polychrome techniques.60 The term “curiosity” implies that Cordier’s sculptures were oddities, with no aesthetic quality or meaning.

Though some critics attacked Cordier for his choices of style and subject matter, others defended him, including Philippe Burty and Théophile Gautier.61

Gautier praised Cordier for style of his sculptures and commended his reference to antiquity.62 This similarity to Cordier’s busts and works from antiquity can be seen in Negre du Soudan and a Greek bronze sculpture of a warrior from the Early Classic period (Fig. 6). Both works are bronze, and have a naturalistic posture, facial features, and turn of the head. Thus, Cordier’s work in the 1850s and 1860s faced mixed critical commentary, although even some of his harsh critics did appreciate his skill in working marble and bronze.

Nineteenth-Century French Sculpture

The mixed critical reception of Cordier’s busts also resulted, in part, from how different Cordier’s busts were from other sculptural works in nineteenth- century France. For example, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was a prominent French

59 Andreas Blühm, “In Living Colour: A Short History of Colour in Sculpture in the 19th Century,” in The Color of Sculpture, ed. Andreas Blühm et al, (Zwolle: Waanders, 1996), 11. 60 Papet, “To Have the Courage. . .,” 63. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid.

22 sculptor and contemporary of Cordier’s. It is important to consider Carpeaux’s work in conjunction with Cordier’s, not only because they were contemporaries, but because Carpeaux also represented the black body. Carpeaux employs the nude black female body in Les Quatre Parties du Monde (The Four Parts of the World), a bronze fountain, (Fig. 7) as an allegorical representation of Africa. However, unlike

Cordier’s individualization of his busts like Prêtresse and Negre du Soudan,

Carpeaux’s generic African body represents Africa as a whole, which draws on a long history of allegories of the four continents. Despite the wide variety of ethnicities that were known by the French through their conquest of Algeria,

Carpeaux has represented the entire continent of Africa with a generalized black woman. Conversely, Cordier’s collection of Algerian-based busts depict a variety of ethnicities that he encountered in Algeria.

Throughout the nineteenth century, sculpture was usually exhibited separately from painting in museums, in galleries that were often dark and less organized.63 Critics often commented on the tendency for visitors to museums and

Salons to ignore sculptures on display in favor of viewing the paintings, which were often more excitingly installed and in the more brightly lit galleries.64 The lack of attention paid to sculpture in the early to mid-nineteenth century is illustrated in

Honoré Daumier’s caricature Sad Countenance of Sculpture in the Midst of Painting from 1857 (Fig. 8). This drawing is a satirical illustration of museum visitors ignoring the sculptures on view, which reflects the attitude of the majority in the

63 Alex Potts. The Sculptural Imagination: Formalist, Modernist, Minimalist (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 62. 64 Ibid.

23 nineteenth century. In his review of the Salon of 1846, Charles Baudelaire, the prominent French poet, essayist, and art critic, included a short critique on modern sculpture titled provocatively Pourquoi la sculture est ennuyeuse, (Why sculpture is boring).65 His assertions continued the centuries-old paragone, the debate as to which art form—sculpture or painting— is superior to the other. Baudelaire makes it clear that he prefers painting to sculpture. He proclaims that while sculpture is closer to nature in its three-dimensionality, painting is more beautiful and pleasing to the eye.66 Because of its three-dimensionality, it is impossible for the sculptor to portray an exact, unique point of view, as the viewer can observe a sculpture in the round from a variety of different angles and vantage points. Baudelaire claims that if the viewer chooses the incorrect point of view and forms an interpretation of the work from there, it would be humiliating for the artist. No solution to this problem is offered, Baudelaire only presents it as a reason that sculpture is inferior to painting.

What he fails to point out is that sculpture’s three-dimensional quality offers the sculptor more opportunity to manipulate a composition in space, while painting exists on a two-dimensional plane. Although the painter can manipulate the viewer’s perception by using pigment to give the illusion of three-dimensionality, the painting remains a flat object. Sculpture allows the artist to execute work in three dimensions, and the viewer to experience the composition in space.

65 Charles Baudelaire, “Pourquoi la Sculture est Ennuyeuse,” in Varietes Critiques, Charles Baudelaire (Paris: Biblioteque Dionysienne, 1924), 65. 66 Ibid.

24 Baudelaire also argues that sculpture came out of a savage era, and therefore can be nothing more than a savage art.67 He deems sculpture a fetish. Baudelaire is making a claim that while painting is something provocative that the viewer can behold and contemplate, sculpture is merely something to be taken at face value. He denies sculpture any deep, profound purpose, and by associating it with savagery and fetishism, Baudelaire rejects its status as fine art. Baudelaire uses the term fetish to evoke ideas about primitive lifestyles in non-Western cultures. By making the connection between sculpture and fetish, Baudelaire is also connecting sculpture and the primitive. This is interesting, considering Cordier’s choice of subject matter. He is depicting a subject that Baudelaire would deem fetishized and primitive, and using a medium that Baudelaire has explicitly called a fetish.

However, rather than showing his subject in this manner, Cordier has turned to classical techniques. Cordier rejects, and counters Baudelaire’s arguments.

Baudelaire’s denigration of sculpture would have been widely read. His bias towards painting reflects, if not affects, the production and reception of later nineteenth-century French art, in which painting dominated sculpture. The preeminence of painting resulted in less cohesive sculptural movements, and is one reason for the difficulty that scholars often have in classifying sculptors from this period. Also, Baudelaire’s scathing words about sculpture being boring may have sparked a challenge for sculptors to reconsider the subject matter and techniques.

The turn to ethnography, with its inclusion of the “exotic” non-Western body, could be interpreted as a response to Baudelaire’s negative view. Baudelaire’s ideas were

67 Baudelaire, Pourquoi la Sculture est Ennuyeuse, 66.

25 influential in the art world of nineteenth-century France, and sculptors would have been aware of his distaste for their medium. Baudelaire’s malignant perspective on sculpture may have inspired them to branch out and create more eye-catching and unusual work. While Prêtresse and Negre du Soudan are representations of different ethnicities found in Algeria and are therefore examples of an artist depicting the exotic subject matter, Cordier has also employed polychrome techniques, which set his art apart from other sculptors.

To sustain their careers, many sculptors, including Cordier, relied on jobs related to the construction and decoration of buildings and to commissions from the

French government.68 In the early 1850s, Napoleon III gave Baron Haussmann the project of renovating and expanding the streets of Paris.69 Haussmann’s project, known as Haussmannization, lasted through the 1860s. This resulted in tearing down of many buildings and homes, and replacing them with new edifices. Because of this, sculptors received jobs creating exterior and interior decorative architectural sculpture. The Paris Opéra was one of the biggest additions to the city during its renovation. The erection of this building engaged many sculptors, including Cordier, for both the exterior and interior. The renovation of Paris was a boon to sculptors. However, with the dismissal of Haussmann in 1870, followed closely by the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, a dramatic drop in State funding occurred, which ultimately contributed to the demise of Cordier’s career. The fluctuation of and decline in State funding and jobs, resulted in intense rivalry

68 De Margerie, “Chronology,” 129-138. 69 Nigel Blake et al., “Modern Practices of Art and Modernity,” in Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 95-6.

26 among sculptors. In addition to this, artists also struggled to find a solid footing as to what modern sculpture should be and represent. This led to sculptors attempting a variety of subjects, including race, in search of an audience.

Cordier’s polychrome sculpture differed greatly from other sculptors depicting varied ethnicities in nineteenth-century France. For example, ethnographic sculptors often executed casts of live models to function as scientific objects, not works of art (Fig. 9). They were not exhibited at Salons and were not displayed at art museums. Cordier criticized this method of sculpting by asserting that it caused the flesh to sag and eliminated facial detail. Further, Cordier demeaned life casting for being simply copying and as removing the skilled hand of the sculptor from the process. His view follows Honoré de Balzac’s (the celebrated

French novelist and playwright from the first half of the nineteenth century) earlier proclamation that “the mission of art is not to copy nature, but to express it . . . otherwise a sculptor would abandon his work and merely cast women.”70

Ethnographic sculpture, as I have been using the term, can be defined as sculpture cast from life with the primary goal of cataloguing the different ethnicities that exist in humanity and their general physical characteristics. This includes the previously mentioned life casts. Many argued that the employment of life casts was only suitable for documentation, and was not considered to be a fine art.71 The cast of Seïd Enkess reproduced here differs greatly from Cordier’s busts. Cordier intended his works as art, where life casts such as that of Enkess were created for documentary purposes. Cordier’s busts differ from these ethnographic life casts in

70 Papet Quoting Balzac, “Ethnographic Life Casts. . .,” 127. 71 Kim, “Malvina Hoffmann’s Races of Mankind. . .,” 65.

27 more than just style and composition. Where Cordier’s busts express an aura of humanity, these life casts typically have closed eyes and expressionless faces. The casts intend to elicit an objectivity that confirms their documentary purpose.

Cordier’s busts possess aesthetic qualities and purposes, which makes them more than documentary and sets them apart from other ethnographic sculptures and life casts. The life cast of Enkess has closed eyes, an expressionless face, and no clothing.

There is minimal detail in the cast and he faces straight ahead with shoulders squared. There are no turns or curves in the body that suggest life or individuality.

Cordier has done the opposite with his busts like Prêtresse and Negre du Soudan, as they are clearly animated, living human beings capable of contemplation.

Cordier also insisted on working as closely with the live models rather than utilized preexisting forms and images.72 Cordier’s belief that art must express nature rather than copy it argues against those who consider his works as primarily ethnographic studies. His sculpture was generated not only by a concern with rendering ethnic types, but also by the goal of crafting an expressive art object based upon his artistic interpretation of direct observation.

The relationship between Cordier’s busts and ethnography is not as simple as some scholars have asserted. Many who study Cordier place his work within the category of ethnographic sculpture, when his busts go beyond this allegation. Much of the absorption in depicting black individuals in art was sparked by growing fascination in ethnography and different races. While this influenced Cordier’s

72 Linda Kim, “Malvina Hoffmann’s Races of Mankind and the Materiality of Race in Early Twentieth-Century Sculpture and Photography” (Phd diss., University of California, 1999), 65.

28 choice in subject matter, it does not necessarily prompt a classification of his works as ethnographic sculpture. Despite depicting people of other races, Cordier’s masterful technique, attention to detail, and individualization of his sculptures take his busts beyond ethnographic study.

France, Race, Colonialism

Complex social and racial relations marked nineteenth-century France and influenced the sculpture that was being created. As the nation moved out of the revolutionary period, social classes were obscured and often overlapped.73 The

French government underwent major changes and reforms no fewer than three times during the period in which Cordier was alive and working.74 In addition to upheavals in government, France was expanding through the establishment of colonies. This introduced both new places and people into French society. As with other Western countries, colonization brought about issues of slavery that continued into the nineteenth century in France.

Slavery in France was originally abolished in 1794.75 However, like other governmental changes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the banning of slavery did not last long. When Napoleon rose to power, he re-established slavery in

France and its colonies in 1802. Slavery was finally officially abolished in all French colonies and territories in 1848, the same year that Cordier first exhibited at the

73 Gordon Wright, France in modern times: 1760 to the present. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1960), 159. 74 D.L.L. Parry et al., France Since 1800: Squaring the Hexagon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 55-61. 75 De Margerie, “The Most Beautiful. . .,” 15.

29 Salon, as well as the year of a major revolution in France. These political situations would have been apparent to Cordier as he worked, and it is likely that the abolition of slavery influenced Cordier’s later works. Perhaps this is why he chose to depict his North African busts with a heightened spirit. Despite the abolition of slavery, issues of race persisted76. Despite the abolishment of slavery, white Europeans continued to view themselves as superior to blacks, and racism—which was often justified through scientific thought at the time—persisted.

Along with new forms of government and social reform, the nineteenth century saw the birth of several scientific fields. Anthropology and ethnography helped shape the opinions that white Europeans formed about non-Western people of color. Anthropology can be defined as the study of humanity with regard to physical, social, and cultural developments.77 At the same time that Cordier was working as an artist, Paul Broca helped to establish the Anthropological Society in

France, which gained great popularity by the 1860s and 1870s. The goal of this society was to study and categorize the different physical and cultural differences between people of different races and ethnicities. Life casts like that of Seïd Enkess were fabricated to help make this categorization and study of race more scientific.78

Broca proposed the popular theory that a connection existed between physical features of the brain and intelligence that correlated to race. This idea resulted in the development of ethnography and physiognomy.79 Broca also argued that anthropology was interdisciplinary in origin and connected with art history and

76 France since 1800, 55-60. 77 Conklin, In the Museum of Man, 19. 78 Ibid., 22. 79 Ibid., 26.

30 other scientific fields.80 He stressed the importance of studying anatomy in differing races. In support of this argument Broca notes that when studying animals, scientists look at differences between breeds.81 Much of this anthropological research revolved around studying the human head. This included looking at size, shape, volume, and density. This indicates why ethnographic life casts were important to the study of different races.

From anthropological ideas came the concept of ethnography, as well as museums that showcased people of different races. While anthropology is the overall study of humankind, ethnography more specifically focuses on the varied human races. The Museum d’Histoire Naturelle was founded during the French

Revolution, and represented “official science.”82 Originally focused on the study of plants and animals, the museum incorporated the study of humankind and its variety of races in 1822. This is the same museum that housed some of Cordier’s busts in the 1860s.83 Prêtresse was among those shown at the Museum d’Histoire

Naturelle, and became a part of its collection in 1869. Included in the museum was the laboratory of Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages (Broca’s rival), where plaster could be modeled and cast. As mentioned, ethnographic life casts served an important function in the scientific documentation and study of physical differences between races. Ethnographic life casts and busts like those of Cordier were to be found in places like Armand de Quatrefages’ laboratory and the Museum d’Histoire

80 Paul Broca, “Report of the Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Paris during 1865-1867,” Anthropological Review 6 (1868), 227. 81 Broca “Report of the Transactions. . .,” 232. 82 Conklin, In the Museum of Man, 30. 83 Durand and de Margerie, “Catalogue Raisonné,” 143-222.

31 Naturelle. This is why viewers and scholars tend to classify Cordier as an ethnographic sculptor. While the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle’s interest in Cordier’s work is significant and helped him to fund his work, this should not be the only criterion that identifies his busts. While creating his works, Cordier was carefully walking the line between science and art. Cordier’s busts stand out from other objects that would have been found in these collections, and despite the seemingly ethnographic character of Negre du Soudan and Prêtresse, they were intended, and should be interpreted, as primarily works of art.

The development of the fields of anthropology and ethnography engendered several new ideas about race, including the idea that a hierarchy of races. The renewal of colonialism in 1830 when Charles X invaded and conquered Algeria amplified curiosities about non-white races.84 In nineteenth-century France, it was thought that the North African people could be traced back to antiquity, which added to the intrigue of this region.85 This was a popular idea because the races that existed in North Africa were considered to be “pure,” or unmixed. Because of this, they were seen as more antiquated, less developed, and primitive. The primitive nature of the North African races tied them more closely to antiquity.

As France’s first colony in the nineteenth century, Algeria served as both an experiment and model for future colonial missions.86 In The Predicament of Culture,

James Clifford examines the human tendency to create collections. He says that the

84 Conklin, In the Museum of Man, 34. 85 Peter Benson Miller, “Des Couleurs Primitives: Miscegenation and French Painting of Algeria,” in Imaging Blackness in the Long Nineteenth Century, ed. Maria P. Gindhart (London: Routledge, 2008), 275. 86 Patricia Lorcin, Imperial identities: stereotyping, prejudice and race in colonial Algeria (London: I.B. Tauris, 1995), 1.

32 act of collecting is a means by which people take ownership of the world.87 This can easily be applied to France’s colonization of Algeria, whereby the colony’s land and people enter into the French “collection.” Like most collectors, French artists and scientists examined closely their “collection,” which consisted of the different races of Algeria. Clifford also references the act of cutting something out of its cultural context and making it stand for an abstract whole.88Anthropology and ethnography in France did exactly this by collecting the various physical and non-physical aspects of the races that French scientists encountered. They then placed them within the context of nineteenth-century French culture and that of the Museum d’Histoire

Naturelle. Museums were not the only collectors of other cultures. Individuals who collected busts of Cordier’s build their own menageries of objects that were from or alluded to exotic cultures. Thus, Cordier’s busts entered museum collections and private collections attempting to understand other countries.

Ethnography became a primary mode for the French in comprehending

Algerians and establishing authority over them.89 Ethnographic study supported the idea that Algerians lagged behind the white race developmentally, which served to justify colonization. A variety of races and ethnicities populated Algeria upon the arrival of the French. However, the colonizers ignored diversity in favor of perceiving Algerians as primarily Arabs and Berbers. Within Algerian culture the

French imposed a hierarchy of races, with the Berbers regarded as more culturally

87 James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 218. 88 Ibid., 220. 89 George . Trumbull V, An Empire of Facts: Colonial Power, Cultural Knowledge, and Islam in Algeria 1870-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 13.

33 and socially advanced than the Arabs. This point of view was established as the

French observed the varied races in Algeria.90

While the French did not set out to separate races in Algeria into categories of good and bad, it happened nonetheless. The Frenchmen who observed and recorded data on the peoples in Algeria imposed their own prejudices onto the

Algerian locals, and the groups who were most like the French were considered to be more suitable for assimilation.91 Whatever the make up of the native population,

Napoleon III enforced the doctrine of assimilation: the political, economic, and judicial constitutions of the colony must emulate that of the mother country.92 The goal was to transform Algerian natives into Frenchmen.

As the fascination with ethnography grew, scholars wanted to acquire an easy means of studying the physiognomy and other features of individuals of different races. They resorted to drawings and life casts like those on display at museums like the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle. By the end of the nineteenth century, France was actually bringing Africans into Paris to put on display in enclosures in zoos.93 Ideas on races and what distinguished them from one another shifted and developed throughout the nineteenth century. Early in the century,

Julien-Joseph Virey argued that there were two distinct human species.94 He argued that black people were closer to animals than white people, as they had a posterior

90 Lorcin, Imperial Identities, 3. 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid., 7. 93 Schneider, William H. “The Jardin d’Acclimatation, Zoos, and Naturalization,” in Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage. Ed. Pascal Blanchard et al., (Actes Sud: Musée du Quai Branly, 2011), 130. 94 Martin S. Staum, Labeling People: French Scholars on Society, Race, and Empire, 1815-1848 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 41.

34 occipital cavity (meaning that their eyes were set deeper in their sockets). He also claimed that black individuals possessed larger nerves, which drained the brain of its energy.95 This implied that blacks’ lower mental capacity fell below that of whites. This view held sway throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. In the mid-nineteenth century, Etienne-Renaud-Augustin Serres determined that non-whites were imperfect and animal-like, hence inferior to whites.96 Although specific rationale on why and how exactly races differed from one another changed throughout the nineteenth century, one idea almost never faltered: the scientific insistence of exotic non-Western people’s inferiority to white

Westerners. This contention often influenced artists in their representation of non-

Western races, and these people were often represented as savage beings. Cordier’s busts however, differ greatly from this popular choice of representation.

Other Visual Representations of African Bodies in France

Artists in nineteenth-century France represented the black body through more than just in sculpture. Africans were also the subjects of prints, drawings, and paintings. Eugène Delacroix’s paintings, such as The Women of Algiers (1834), depicted people from North Africa. Delacroix’s composition features four women that he encountered in a harem in Algiers.97 The French viewed harem women as sexually promiscuous. The black woman in Delacroix’s composition is shown from behind, her back arched, hips swaying backward, and backside exaggerated. This

95 Staum, Labeling People, 41. 96 Ibid., 125. 97 Chu, Nineteenth-Century European Art, 232-4.

35 setting fetishizes and sexualizes the North African female body. Such fetishization of the black female body was common among other artists who were classified as

Orientalist artists. This sexualization of the black female body does not exist in

Cordier’s work. There is not the same appeal to the male gaze or eye of fetishization.

Cordier’s Prêtresse is completely covered, with no suggestion of sexualization in the bust. Western art, especially Orientalist art, almost exclusively depicted the exotic female body as highly sexualized. While some of Cordier’s busts accentuate female breasts and clothes with plunging necklines, other, like Prêtresse, are more modestly dressed. While almost any female form could arguably be sexy from the point of view of any viewer, Cordier’s generally are not.

Fetishization and sexualization of the exotic female (and sometimes male) body extended beyond the fine arts of the nineteenth century. Throughout history,

Western art has tended to represent non-Western individuals as uncivilized, savage and exotic.98It is human nature to attempt to fit everything that one encounters into a category, including oneself. In order for Western people to comprehend themselves as a group, a contrast—the “Other”—needs to exist.99 Non-Western people became this Other for Western individuals. Because exotic men, women, and children were considered to be the Other, they became displayed as curiosities in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.100

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries people also began encountering images of the Other. Perhaps the best-known example of this is the Hottentot Venus,

98 Nanette Jacomijn Snoep, “Savage Imagery,” in Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage., ed. Pascal et al., (Actes Sud: Musée du Quai Branly, 2011), 102. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid., 108.

36 based upon a woman named Saartjie Baartman (Fig. 10).101 Her image, first produced in 1810, was a nude in profile view with a pipe in her mouth. Since some regarded this representation as pornographic, a second image was published in which she appears frontally, but partially clothed. The characterization of the first image of Baartman as pornographic is a testament to the sexualized view of the black female body that existed in the nineteenth century. Baartman’s image as well as her body became the quintessential example of Western culture’s fascination with the exotic.102 Her likeness appeared in advertisements for human exhibitions of

“primitive” individuals that became popular after Baartman was taken from South

Africa and put on public display in London.

Like the black figure in the Delacroix painting, her back bears an exaggerated arch. Her breasts, as well as her buttocks, are very large and seemingly defy gravity.

Whoever created this drawing clearly took liberties in the representation of the black female form. The Hottenhot Venus’s sensational physical attributes influenced images of the black female body throughout the nineteenth century.

The cover of a musical score designed by Henri Sicard in 1888 is a good example of how artists appropriated the Hottentot Venus to delineate the black female body (Fig. 11). Here her rear is even more inflated than in the original

Hottentot Venus, and her back is curved to the point of impossibility. She is topless, though her breasts are not exposed, as her back is facing the viewer to give a better view of her well-endowed backside. This caricature of the black female form became commonplace in nineteenth-century France.

101 Snoep, “Savage Imagery,” 120. 102 Ibid.

37 As shown in images of the Hottentot Venus Western art almost always depicts the black body, especially the female black body, as sexualized, fetishized, and as having animalistic qualities. All of these traits are relatable to the idea of the primitive or the uncivilized as promoted by anthropology and ethnology. Cordier’s busts, however, present more naturalistic qualities and not caricatures. The features that black bodies may have that differ from white bodies are not accentuated in

Cordier’s busts, as they are in other representations of African people. The care with which the artist has undertaken the design and execution of the works manifest his serious artistic intent. They were not primarily intended to be sources of documentation, and consequently, they should not be restrictively categorized as ethnographic artist or caricature.

Hugh Honour has identified another mode by which the black body was presented.103Using Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist’s Portrait d’une Négresse (Portrait of a Black Woman) (Fig. 12) as an example, he identifies a genre of paintings of the black body that he calls “studies.”104These images are more similar to what Cordier was attempting in his busts than are examples of caricature and ethnographic works. Benoist painted this portrait during the time when slavery was first abolished in France. Honour claims that Benoist achieved an objective “reciprocal equality” in her portrait.105 This claim implies that the portrait exudes equality for the subject—a black woman—which was uncommon for the period. He designates such works “studies” because they were produced as a means of acquiring skill or

103 Hugh Honour, “Studies,” in vol. 4 of The Image of the Black in Western Art, ed. David Bindman et al. (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010), 13-14. 104 Ibid., 13. 105 Ibid., 11.

38 gaining knowledge. Yet, they still exist as works of art: Benoist’s Portrait d’une

Négresse, for example, appeared at the Paris Salon of 1800. Both Benoist and Cordier rendered individuals naturalistically, with the aim of producing both a document of a person and an aesthetic object. Both artists’s works attain Honour’s notion of reciprocal equality.

While many representations of the non-Western body reflect opinions that other races, specifically those in Algeria possessed animalistic qualities, there is no trace of this attitude in Cordier’s busts. Prêtresse and Negre du Soudan are represented as people, and Cordier has not exaggerated or included any features to resemble those of animals. Nor do, Cordier’s busts read, in any way, as caricatures.

This artist’s aimed to render other races as naturalistically as possible.

Cordier’s Choices of Technique

Another way that Cordier’s representations of non-Western cultures differs from others owes to his unique choice of technique. Negre du Soudan and Prêtresse epitomize two methods of polychromy that Cordier utilized. Polychromy is a technique that has existed since antiquity, though this was not widely known until the nineteenth century.106 In the case of Negre du Soudan, as with a number of other works by Cordier, he has skillfully combined both carved polychrome marble and cast bronze. These two sculpting techniques are distinct from one another and require different skills. Because marble and bronze are dissimilar in structure,

106 Roberta Panzanelli, “Beyond the Pale: Polychromy and Western art,” in The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust, 2008), 2.

39 texture, and appearance. artists employ differring techniques, often leading to contrasting styles, when incorporating these two materials in their work. Marble is carved, while bronze is cast, often using the lost wax method.107 Therefore, it would have been challenging for Cordier to commingle these two materials into a cohesive work. Despite this inherent difficulty, Cordier seamlessly combines the two materials in his execution of Negre du Soudan. The neck of the bust fits perfectly into the opening of the garment carved from marble, as if Negre is wearing the clothing.

Similarly, the hat is affixed to the head at an angle, but the viewer never questions the security of the two materials. It is as if the bronze body is actually occupying the marble clothing.

Marble carving is a slow and tedious process, and it is often difficult to express small details in the stone.108 Cordier has clearly mastered marble carving, as demonstrated by the intricate details in the clothing and hat of Negre du Soudan. His mastery in bronze is, evident in Negre du Soudan’s facial hair and expressive eyes.

Cordier’s polychrome busts—such as Negre du Soudan—show his masterly synthesis of polychrome marble and bronze.

Cordier’s use of polychromy adds to the meaning of his work. The artist acquired the onyx-marble in Negre du Soudan from a quarry in Algeria that had been closed since antiquity, but was re-opened in 1843.109 Cordier visited this site during his trip to Algeria in 1856. The connection of this onyx-marble to antiquity further accentuates the sculptor’s loyalty to antique aesthetics. Many of his marble pieces

107 For more information on the lost wax method, see Malvina Hoffman, Sculpture Inside and Out (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1939). 108 Hoffman, Sculpture inside Out, 158. 109 Papet, “To Have Courage. . .” 83.

40 are solid marble, with bronze pieces affixed; some pieces are more complicated than others. For instance, in Cordier’s Arab from El Aghouat (Fig. 13), the head is surrounded by cloth carved from marble. In order to achieve this, the artist constructed the head cloth in two separate pieces and assembled them with plaster and glue around the bronze head.110 The onyx-marble in Cordier’s busts is not the only thing from antiquity that can be seen in this artist’s oeuvre.

Another tie Cordier’s work has to antiquity is the French nineteenth-century perception of Algeria as a new antiquity.111 An argument in the nineteenth century that contended that cultures that were less civilized were biologically closer to antiquity, which was one reason why Europeans were so captivated by non-Western cultures that were considered to be primitive. Although Cordier was working at a time when a strong enthusiasm for ethnographic study prevailed, Cordier’s art was also being connected to a technique and idea of the ancient past. This complicates the classification of Cordier’s busts. While they can be associated with works from antiquity, they are also relevant to discourse on nineteenth-century sculpture.

In light of Cordier’s connection to sculptures of antiquity through his use of color and study in Algeria, it is important to clearly define polychrome sculpture.

Though all sculpture has color, an important distinction exists between sculpture that has been intentionally colored and sculpture that is un-colored.112 Works that are intentionally colored include both naturally occurring polychrome materials

110 Papet, “To have Courage. . .” 83-84. 111 Jennifer Sessions, Making Colonial France: Culture, National Identity and the Colonization of Algeria, (1830-1851) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2005), 134-46. 112 Alex Potts, “Colors of Sculpture,” in The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust, 2008), 78.

41 (such as the onyx-marble present in Negre du Soudan) and materials that have been colored by the artist. Cordier decided consciously to include multiple colors within his compositions and often manipulated metals to reflect different colors in his busts. Most polychrome sculpture from antiquity involved adding paint to marble and metal, as well as incorporating different colored metals. For example, the Greek warrior mentioned previously was made of mostly bronze, but other metals were added to his lips, eyes, and nipples for color variation.

Until the nineteenth century, sculptures from classic antiquity were originally thought to be unpainted marble and bronze. As a result, artists, critics, and art historians throughout history have generally had a strong aversion to the use of polychrome in sculpture.113 The idea that Greek and Roman sculptures were monochromatic became widespread during the Renaissance; the Apollo Belvedere and Laocoön were cited as examples of this. The assumption that artists of antiquity did not color their sculptures resulted in many artists continuing this practice.114

Leonardo da Vinci once stated that sculptors should not concern themselves with color. It was widely thought that color was unnecessary to sculpture and that its use could take away the essence that made a sculpture “art.” It was not until the nineteenth century that it was discovered that Greek marble sculpture had actually often been painted.115 This discovery would have been known to Cordier, and it is likely that it influenced his use of polychrome techniques. Cordier’s transition to

113 Panzanelli, “Beyond the Pale. . .,” 2. 114 Potts, “Colors of Sculpture,” 78. 115 Ibid., 85.

42 polychromy occurred at the beginning of a movement embracing this technique, which gained momentum throughout the nineteenth century.116

Despite the discovery of polychrome sculpture from antiquity and a growing popularity among artists, debates on whether or not color belonged in sculpture continued. It is likely that critics of color in sculpture were uncomfortable with how close it came to appearing decorative and emphatically materialistic. The addition of color to sculpture provoked critical uneasiness, and a distaste for polychrome sculpture shadowed Cordier throughout his career, as he was a major figure in the revival of this technique.117

While other sculptors experimented with the technique, Charles Cordier was the only one to use polychromy so extensively, and the only sculptor to utilize this technique when representing people of other ethnicities.118

Cordier and Ideal Beauty

In addition his unique inclusion of polychromy, Cordier valued concepts of beauty that were uncommon in the nineteenth century. His notions about beauty are another reason that the classification of his busts as strictly ethnographic types is problematic. For example, in letters and journal entries Cordier alludes to the concept of ideal beauty. However, his conception of beauty as well as his polychrome busts contradict Winckelmann’s contention for a singular, ideal beauty.

116 Potts, “Colors of Sculpture,” 90. 117 Fusco quoting Charles Cordier, The Romantics to Rodin, 180, De Margerie quoting Charles Cordier, “Chronology,” 131-2, Papet quoting Cordier, “Ethnographic Life Casts. . .,” 127. 118 Papet, “To Have the Courage. . .,” 52.

43 The debate on beauty and the role that it plays in art was a popular subject for discourse in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1764, Johann Joachim

Winckelmann wrote The History of Ancient Art, in which he discussed the origin, progress, and change of art in regard to its respective cultures and time periods.119

Winckelmann also addressed the notion of ideal beauty and its expression in art by arguing that a singular ideal beauty is found in the representation of the human form, and this epitomized in the sculptures of the ancient Greeks.120 He also articulates that the only way to be truly great is to imitate the ancients. For

Winckelmann, Greek art renders nature at its best, but actually exceeds the greatest beauty found in nature. Winckelmann’s arguments for ideal beauty advocate that a singular form exists and it is best visualized in figurative sculpture based on the art of the ancient Greeks in sculpture.

Contrary to Winckelmann’s notion that ideal beauty should be based on the art of classical antiquity, Cordier once wrote that “the most beautiful Negro is not the one who looks most like us.” The word “us” refers to white Europeans.121

Cordier believed that each individual race had its own type of beauty distinctive from that of others.122 This view implies multiple possibilities for representing ideal beauty, and that the concept of beauty is relative and individualized, rather than based upon a singular standard. Like Baudelaire, Cordier embraced a more relative view of beauty, and he attempted to portray this idea in his polychrome busts.

Cordier’s work results from his encounters with various ethnicities who valued

119 Winckelmann, “Reflections” 27. 120 Ibid. 121 De Margerie, “The Most Beautiful. . .,” 13. 122 Ibid., 28.

44 differing aspects of beauty. Cordier’s busts propose that each race possesses its own unique characteristics that make that particular race beautiful. This is in contrast to

Winckelmann’s focus on classical art as exemplifying the ideal beauty.123 Cordier’s ideas of beauty expressed in his sculptures differed greatly from the conventional thinking of his time.

Winckelmann’s ideas were very influential throughout the Western art world and were discussed and applied to art throughout eighteenth and nineteenth- century France. Other Western writers also discussed beauty in sculpture and whether or not color belonged in sculptural compositions. For example, in 1778,

Johann Gottfried Herder argued for achromatic sculpture, saying that artists should not add color to their three-dimensional works. Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the widely known nineteenth-century philosopher, also opposed color in sculpture.124 He claimed that sculpture as it was used in antiquity was the perfect fusion of the viewer with the forms of the human body, and that sculpture had to be ideal.

Because of his admiration for sculpture from antiquity, and the fact that the use of color in sculptures of antiquity was unknown at this time, Hegel believed that the addition to color in sculpture would rob it of its ideal appearance. Similarly, in 1780,

Joshua Reynolds, President of Great Britain’s Royal Academy of Art, advocated the exclusion of color from sculpture, alleging that it would corrupt the purity that already existed in sculpture.125 The consensus view in the eighteenth and into the

123 Johann Joachim Winckelmann, “Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture,” in The Art of Art History, a Critical Anthology, ed. Donald Preziosi, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 27-30. 124 Ibid. 125 Potts “Colors of Sculpture,” 84.

45 early nineteenth century was that color should never be added to sculpture. The medium was considered to possess pure ideal beauty on its own without the addition of pigment.

The discourse on beauty in the nineteenth century affected artists; Eugène

Delacroix and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres formulated their own thoughts on how beauty in art. While Delacroix sided with a more subjective view of beauty,

Ingres favored a more classical perception.126Baudelaire, who popularly supported

Delacroix’s work, in his 1863 essay “The Painter of Modern Life,” also contended with this discourse on beauty. Baudelaire argues for a more historical theory of beauty rather than the academic theory of absolute ideal beauty that was pushed by the academies.127 Baudelaire’s call for a historical view of beauty coincides with the second, more relative view that emerged in nineteenth-century France. Cordier’s contention with differing concepts of beauty in the nineteenth century can be seen in his busts. While some artists depicted non-Western bodies in animalistic or sexualized ways, Prêtresse and Negre du Soudan have not been represented in this way. Cordier chose to find the individual beauty that each race has, and to represent this aesthetic in his busts.

Conclusion

Though scholars often categorize Charles Cordier as an ethnographic sculptor, to classify him as such is inadequate. Cordier’s techniques are elaborate and take the newly revived technique of polychromy and apply it to representing

126 Prettejohn, Beauty and Art, 84-94. 127 Ibid., 102.

46 people of other races. Likewise, to categorize Cordier as an Orientalist is only partially appropriate. Cordier’s works did more than impose Western notions upon the black body. Unlike typical Orientalist art, Cordier’s busts refrain from emphasizing the sexualization and fetishization of the black body.

Marc Trapadoux described Cordier’s Negre du Soudan as having the aura of a classical work from antiquity. Although through a twenty-first century lens, this may be seen as problematic and an attempt to force Western means of representation onto other cultures, it proves that Cordier was attempting to represent the black body in a different way than his contemporaries. Cordier’s works neither exaggerate the black body to an almost comical degree, nor simply use the black body as a way to document the features of the race. I am proposing a different way of thinking about Cordier’s works. Rather than imposing the popularity of anthropology, ethnography, and a hierarchy of races that existed in the nineteenth century onto

Cordier’s busts, it is necessary to view these works in a different light. The goal here was not to decide whether Cordier’s intentions were or were not racist. Rather my contention is that it is necessary to view Cordier’s works from the viewpoint of his search for beauty in all races, not just an ideal beauty that focused on and revered whiteness.

47

Figure 1 Negre du Soudan, 1856 Musée d’Orsay, Paris Reproduced in Laure de Margerie and Edouard Papet, eds. Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905), Ethnographic Sculptor (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004)

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Figure 2 Mulâtresse, Prêtresse à la fête des fèves, 1856 Musée de l’Homme, Paris Reproduced in Laure de Margerie and Edouard Papet, eds. Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905), Ethnographic Sculptor (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004)

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Figure 3 Khafre, 2520-2494 BCE Egyptian Museum, Cairo Reproduced in Helen Gardner, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1996)

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Figure 4 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Grande Odalisque, 1814 Musée du Louvre, Paris Reproduced in Musée du Louvre Collections, Paris, France http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/une-odalisque

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Figure 5 Chinois and Chinoise (Chinese Man and Chinese Woman), 1853 Art Gallery of Hamilton (l), Ontario, and Musée de l’Homme (r), Paris Reproduced in Laure de Margerie and Edouard Papet, eds. Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905), Ethnographic Sculptor (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004)

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Figure 6 Greek Warrior, 460 BCE Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia, Reggio Calabria, Italy Reproduced in Helen Gardner, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1996)

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Figure 7 Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux Les Quatre Parties du Monde (The Four Parts of the World), 1872 Musée d’Orsay, Paris Reproduced in Musée d’Orsay Collections, http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/resultat- collection.html?no_cache=1&zoom=1&tx_damzoom_pi1[zoom]=0&tx_damzoom_pi1 [xmlId]=015175&tx_damzoom_pi1[back]=en%2Fcollections%2Findex-of- works%2Fresultat-collection.html%3Fno_cache%3D1%26zsz%3D9

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Figure 8 Honoré Daumier Sad Countenance of Sculpture in the midst of Painting, 1857 Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge Reproduced in Harvard Art Museum Collections http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/269484?position=61

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Figure 9 Unknown Seïd Enkess, 1847 Musée de l’Homme, Paris Reproduced in Laure de Margerie and Edouard Papet, eds. Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905), Ethnographic Sculptor (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004)

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Figure 10 Leon de Wailly and Jacques Christophe Werner Hottentot Venus (Femme de Race Bochismanne), 1824 Reproduced in Artstor image database http://library.artstor.org.ezproxy.tcu.edu/library/welcome.html#3|search|6|All20C ollections3A20hottentot20venus|Filtered20Search|||type3D3626kw3Dhottentot20 venus26geoIds3D26clsIds3D26collTypes3D26id3Dall26bDate3D26eDate3D26dExa ct3D26prGeoId3D26origKW3D

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Figure 11 Henri Sicard The Hottentot Venus (Cover for a Musical Score), 1888 Reproduced in Nanette Jacomijn Snoep, “Savage Imagery,” in Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage., ed. Pascal et al., (Actes Sud: Musée du Quai Branly, 2011)

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Figure 12 Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist Portrait d’une Negresse (Portrait of a Black Woman), 1800 Musée du Louvre, Paris Reproduced in Hugh Honour, “Studies,” in vol. 4 of The Image of the Black in Western Art, ed. David Bindman et al. (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010)

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Figure 13 Arabe d’El Aghouat (Arab of El Aghouat), 1856 Musée d’Orsay, Paris Reproduced in Laure de Margerie and Edouard Papet, eds. Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905), Ethnographic Sculptor (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004)

60 Bibliography

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63 VITA

Personal Background Taylor Jean Day Born in Houston, Texas, February 20, 1991 Daughter of Lori Day and William Day

Education Bachelor of Arts, Art History Southwestern University, 2013

Master of Arts, Art History Texas Christian University, 2015

Fellowships and Awards Tuition Stipend Award Texas Christian University, 2013-2015

Kimbell Fellowship Texas Christian University, 2013-2015

Mary Jane and Robert Sunkel Art History Research Award Texas Christian University, May 2014, June 2014

Internships Registrar Department Amon Carter Museum of American Art Summer 2014

64 ABSTRACT

In 1856, Charles Cordier spent six months in Algeria in an attempt to seek aesthetic inspiration. The product of this trip was a series of bronze and marble polychrome busts inspired by the various non-Western ethnicities he encountered there. Despite the clear aesthetic qualities of these polychrome busts, many scholars have classified Cordier’s work as ethnographic sculptures. The term ethnographic in this case is problematic, and limits the sculptures to being scientifically focused.

Through an analysis of Cordier’s skillful execution of sculptural techniques, his use of polychromy, and the artist’s statements about beauty in other races, I argue that these busts should be regarded not as works of ethnography, but works of art.

65