Aristide Mayolle (born December 8, 1861, Banyuls-sur-Mer, France - died September 27, 1944, near his hometown) - French sculptor, painter and engraver, illustrator and designer of tapestries.
He is best known for the classic depiction of female nudes. Having started his career as an artist, he switched to three-dimensional works around 1897, when his vision began to deteriorate. These early works of Aristide Maillol - mainly wood carvings and terracotta figurines - formed the basis for his later works, most of which were eventually cast in bronze. Greek sculpture also influenced him, mainly after visiting Athens in 1906.
Characteristic of creativity
Aristide Maillol began his artistic career as an artist and designer of tapestries. His early works reflected admiration for a group of French artists, Nabis, whose works consisted, as a rule, of decorative patterns. The artist was almost 40 years old when his vision problems forced him to move away from weaving tapestries. Therefore, he turned his attention to sculpture.
In adulthood, Aristide Mayol abandoned the highly emotional sculpture of his contemporary Auguste Rodin, preferring to preserve the sculptural traditions of classical Greece and Rome. “Mediterranean” (c. 1901) and “Night” (1902) demonstrate emotional restraint, a clear composition, which the sculptor used in his work until the end of his life. Most of his works depict mature female forms, which he tried to fill with symbolic meaning.
After 1910, Mayol became world famous and received a constant stream of commissions. Due to the austerity of aesthetic means characteristic of him, he repeatedly used the same subject, varying it from work to work. Only in “The River” and “Bound Freedom” Aristide Mayol changed his basic formula, representing a human figure in action.
He resumed painting in 1939, but sculpture remained his favorite means of expression. He also made many woodcut illustrations for the works of ancient poets such as Virgil and Ovid. In the 1920s and 1930s, he did a lot to revive the art of the book.
Although Maillol’s connection with the art of the past was strong, his interest in form and geometry helped the formation and development of such abstract sculptors as Konstantin Brancusi and Jean Arp.
Almost all the work of the artist and sculptor is a female nude. The most famous works created by Aristide Maillol: The Mediterranean Sea (1902, Museum of Modern Art, New York), The Torso of the Nereids (1905) and The Cyclist of the Knees (1907, Orsay Museum).
Early life and academic preparation
Mayol was born in Banyul-sur-Mer, Roussillon in 1861. At an early age, he decided to become an artist and in 1881 he moved to Paris to study. Initially, he could not enter the French Academy of Fine Arts and for some time lived in poverty until he was accepted into the Academy in 1885. Here he studied with the artist and sculptor Jean-Leon Jerome (1824-1904), whose academic style included historical painting, portraits of the characters of Greek mythology and painting of the East. Also, Mayol’s teacher was Alexander Cabanel (1823-1889), who painted classical and religious images in an academic style.
The beginning of creative activity
Aristide Maillol considered this training to be old-fashioned and took up contemporary art, including the work of Paul Gauguin (primitivism) and Puvi de Chavannes. He also joined the Nabis group of post-impressionist avant-garde artists who developed the Art Nouveau style in visual and graphic art in France in the 1890s. Other members of the group were Pierre Bonnard, Eduard Vuillard, Georges Lacombe and Maurice Denis. Portraits of Mayol of that time demonstrate the influence of the group, in particular, this was manifested in the use of decorative compositions and flat color areas.
Examples of his works of this period are Laundresses (1890) and Woman with an Umbrella (1895). The latter shows a young woman in profile, standing against the backdrop of a sea landscape. The lack of connection between the figure and the landscape clearly indicates that the portrait was painted in the artist’s workshop. Mayol painted a figure motionless, in a classical decorative manner. Located halfway between the portrait and the allegory, this painting is considered a masterpiece of his pictorial career.
Tapestries
The strong influence of decorative art and Gothic tapestry in the Cluny Museum (Paris) inspired Mayol. He believed that the tapestries are on a par with the paintings of Cezanne and Van Gogh. This impressed him so much that in 1893 he founded his own workshop in Banyul. The tapestries that he created were decorative, vibrant and very colorful. His patron, Princess Bibesco, bought many works, including the tapestry “Music for the Bored Princess” (1897).
Maillol continued to create tapestries until, due to vision problems, in 1900 he did not have to leave the occupation. Instead, he turned his attention to ceramics and sculpture.
Sculpture
Aristide Maillol first carved figures from pieces of wood, demonstrating the influence of the Art Nouveau style. “Dancing Woman”, “Woman with a Mandolin” and “Woman Sitting in a Pensive Pose” are examples of woodcarvings from this period. However, the sculptor found the wood carving process too slow, so he quickly moved on to sculpting clay figurines. He also modeled small terracotta nude figurines.
In 1902, Maillol received support from the famous art dealer Ambroise Vollard, who also took care of other unknown artists, including Paul Cezanne, Renoir, Louis Valt, Georges Rouault, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh, at the beginning of their career. Thanks to Vollard, Maillol found buyers willing to pay for figures cast in bronze. This allowed him to focus exclusively on sculpture.
In 1902, Vollard organized the first solo exhibition of Maillol, which included his tapestries, figurines, paintings and the first sculptural works.
First big work
In 1900, Maillol began work on his first major sculptural work, The Sitting Woman, which he later renamed the Mediterranean Sea. Think". The first version of this work was completed in 1902 and is kept at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Not completely satisfied with this attempt, he began working with another version. It was placed in an almost perfect cube and was designed in such a way that it could be viewed from only one point. Art historians at the time claimed that Maillol was a classical artist in the style of Cezanne.
The work was exhibited at the Autumn Salon in 1905. The sculpture attracted the attention of wealthy philanthropists who wished to receive bronze casts. And the French government eventually ordered its own version in 1923 (now it is in the Orsay Museum).
Other significant examples of bronze sculptures of this period are Desire (1905-07) and Cyclist (1907). Although Maillol mainly sculpted naked women, Cyclist is one of three images of men he created representing cyclist rider Gaston Kolen. The sculpture of Aristide Maillol Pomone (Pomona) also belongs to this period.
Late work
In 1908, the patron saint of the sculptor took him to Greece, where he was able to study classical art. In his mature works, much attention is paid to the study of the female body. Works of this period include The Night (1909); "Flora and Summer" (1911); "Spring" (1911); le-de-France (1910–25); Venus (1918–28); (1930–37); Monument to Claude Debussy (marble, 1930–33, Saint-Germain-en-Le), “Harmony” (1944) and others.
Majol's simplistic classicism became virtually an international style in the interwar period. He was accepted by the Facist movement (part of the “Facist Fashion”), which advocated that music, fashion and culture cannot be explained through logic and common sense. One of Mayol's students, Arno Brecker (1900-91), became the leading sculptor of Nazi Germany.
Heritage
His muse and favorite model was Dina Verni, with whom he bequeathed all his wealth and collections. She opened a gallery, which later became the Majol Museum.
An outstanding artist and sculptor died in 1944 in a car accident. Large collections of his works are kept in Paris, in the Maillol Museum and in the Orsay Museum. His curly bronzes are considered the forerunners of a significant simplification in the art of Alberto Giacometti and Henry Moore.