Does anyone know about this statue?

[gmattson]

While cleaning out my basement, I came across this very old statue I picked up at an auction years ago. Susan hates it, but I thought it was interesting. Made of a plaster like substance. Has the name Rousseau etched around the bottom. . . perhaps the artist. Anyway, if anyone has any ideas, please post them here. The stazue is about 3 feet tall. Thanks:






[This message has been edited by gmattson (edited 02-28-99).]

[Lori]

Hi Sensei,

The closest I can think of is some type of reference to the writer Jean Jacques Rousseau - the influential writer of French revolutionary times (if I recall correctly) - at that time in the arts, there was an abrupt move from the frivolity of Rococo to the Romanticism of the 19th century - and Rousseau put out a call for more "sincere expression of sympathetic and tender emotions" (according to Gardner). Rousseau exalted peasant life, (rebelling against all that fancy court stuff) calling it a more "natural" way of life and these examples of supposedly uncorrupted "natural" people started showing up in all forms of art about then; painting, sculpture etc. The only other Rousseau I know of was a painter in a more modern era, and his art was nothing along those lines. I don't know that J.J. Rousseau did any sculpture, but perhaps the artist of your sculpture was an admirer of his writing. Anyway - just some ideas FWIW.

Peace,
Lori