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),