Bronze statuettes played a vital role in the
dissemination of the sinuous line and swirling drapery
of Art Nouveau. Although principally a graphic
and ornamental style, around the end of the 19th century
it was adapted to statuettes, especially of sensuous
female figures; Alphonse Mucha turned to the medium
of bronze.
Raoul Larche and Pierre Roche depicted the celebrated
fin-de-siècle dancer Loïe Fuller, swathed in diaphanous
robes that provocatively revealed her shapely body
beneath and then swirled centrifugally above her head
from her outflung arms; bronze was the ideal sculptural
material for this flying drapery, and the wax used
for preliminary modelling was perfect for rendering
its billowing movements.
Modern mass-production techniques permitted
large editions of such statuettes, which were especially
popular in France and the USA. They were also frequently
employed in such domestic artefacts as lamp standards
and inkwells.
Several of Rodin's compositions of nude figures in
flowing, abandoned movement also conform to Art Nouveau
principles of design and are preserved in bronze statuettes.
In the first quarter of the 20th century Rodin's follower
Alfredo Pina (b 1883) and in Italy the excellent, dilettante
sculptor Paolo Troubetzkoy adopted Rodin's free modelling
technique for their 'finished' work.
Troubetzkoy exploited the effect of elegance conveyed
by the elongation of human bodies and limbs far beyond
what is natural, and these highly mannered figures
may have inspired Alberto Giacometti later in the 20th
century to create his idiosyncratic and amazingly etiolated
bronze statuettes.
Ivory was also a favourite material for Art
Nouveau sculptors, especially in Belgium;
the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) furnished larger tusks
than had previously been available. In France Louis-Ernest
Barrias and Carrier-Belleuse frequently inserted ivory
flesh parts into their bronze statuettes, to heighten
their contrasts of colour and texture and to add to
their sumptousness.
