Head of Beethoven (Q60781259)

Label from: English (en)

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artist: Antoine Bourdelle (Q314350)
collection: Cleveland Museum of Art (Q657415)
location: Cleveland Museum of Art (Q657415)
depicts: Ludwig van Beethoven (Q255)
instance of: sculpture (Q860861)

catalog URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1960.82

information from the Cleveland Museum of Art catalog

description: A pioneer of modern sculpture, Antoine Bourdelle studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and worked as an assistant to Augustin Rodin, who greatly admired the younger artist’s work. In 1888 Bourdelle produced the first of a series of sculptural portraits of Ludwig van Beethoven, in which the artist orchestrated powerful billowing shapes to convey the creative spirit or genius of the composer. The artist inscribed a quote from Beethoven in the lower left: “My domain is the air; when the wind rises my soul swirls.”

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