Aristide Maillol

The sculpture of the French artist Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) is classical in form and spirit but does not imitate ancient art or the academic, Greco-Roman traditions. He was also a painter, printmaker, and tapestry designer.

Aristide Maillol was born on Dec. 8, 1861, in Banyuls-sur-Mer, the son of a ship captain who was also a fisherman and cultivator of vineyards. Maillol, second of four children, was brought up in a region once colonized by the ancient Greeks. His home looked out on the Mediterranean. After attending a local school, he was sent to Perpignan to further his education. He began to draw and to develop an interest in art early in life.

At the age of 21, Maillol became a painting student of Jean Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Dissatisfied, he turned to other teachers, Alexandre Cabanel and Jean Paul Laurens, but then rejected official instruction as sterile and pointless. Maillol was not alone in his opinion: other artists of consequence throughout the second half of the 19th century reacted in a similar manner.

In 1884 Maillol saw the paintings of Paul Gauguin and Maurice Denis. "Gauguin's painting was a revelation to me!" he exclaimed. Indeed it was. Maillol's style changed, but without assuming the mannerisms of Gauguin's style, only its breadth and innocence. Later, in 1894, Gauguin saw some of Maillol's tapestries and said they could not be "too highly praised." The two artists met once, but they never developed a close relationship.

In 1889 Maillol began to design tapestries. He was inspired by medieval examples he had seen at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. He returned to Banyuls to set up a small tapestry factory and hired some local women to assist him. He made the designs and dyed the wool to obtain colors not found in commercial wools. His drawings, paintings, and cartoons reveal the influence of the Nabis, many of whom he knew personally. Superintending his factory was such a strain that his eyesight began to fail.

About 1898 Maillol began to model in clay, and soon he confined himself exclusively to sculpture. By 1900 he had developed a style so distinctive and personally satisfying that it was to undergo no critical change thereafter. He depicted only the human figure, especially the female nude. A fine example of his early work is The Mediterranean (1901), a larger-than-life, seated female figure. It is a strong work and betrays no lack of experience or confidence.

In 1902 Maillol had his first one-man exhibition, which was a great success and led to a number of commissions. His earliest pieces were carved in stone and wood. After 1905 he concentrated on modeling and having the completed works cast in bronze. He was to follow this procedure throughout his life.

In 1904 Maillol had established a studio at Marly-le-Roi near Paris. He continued to spend his winters in his hometown. He did little traveling usually, but he did go to Greece, primarily to view ancient sculptures in the original. Seeing them caused no change in his work. Rather it seemed to confirm him in his approach. In a sense, Maillol had already recreated the Greek spirit without imitating the sculpture.

In 1906 Maillol was commissioned to design a monument in memory of the socialist Louis Blanqui, who had spent half of his life in prison in defense of his principles. For it Maillol conceived his Chained Action, an aggressively striding female nude; this sculpture is not typical of his production. Most of his figures appear placid, self-contained, and yet earthy, almost sensuous. They closely resemble those of Auguste Renoir; like Renoir's nudes, they are refined, sensitive, innocent pagans. It is as if they were untouched by time or other external pressures—except possibly for a slight air of melancholy. Maillol's Three Nymphs (1936-1938) exhibits no appreciable difference over his earlier works. In fact, the figures are very close in pose and attitude to his Pomona (1907).

In 1912 Maillol executed woodcuts for Virgil's Eclogues, and in 1931 he made lithographs to illustrate Emile Verhaeren's Belle Chair. Maillol died on Sept. 28, 1944, in Perpignan.

Further Reading

Waldemar George, Aristide Maillol (1965), with a biographical sketch by D. Vierny, and John Rewald, Maillol (1939), have many reproductions. The texts provide the basic biographical information, but they are essentially tributes to the artist. Rewald is the editor of The Woodcuts of Aristide Maillol: A Complete Catalog with 176 Illustrations (1943).

Additional Sources

Lorquin, Bertrand, Aristide Maillol, London; New York, N.Y.: Skira in association with Thames and Hudson, 1995, 1994.

Slatkin, Wendy, Aristide Maillol in the 1890s, Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1982. □

Maillol, Aristide (1861–1944). French sculptor, painter, graphic artist, and tapestry designer. He was born in Banyuls-sur-Mer, in the south-east of France, near the Spanish border, and moved to Paris in 1881 to study painting (he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1885). His early career, however, was spent mainly as a tapestry designer, and he opened a tapestry studio in Banyuls in 1893. He first made sculpture in 1895, but it was only in 1900 that he decided to devote himself to it after serious eyestrain made him give up tapestry. In 1902 he had his first one-man exhibition (at the Galerie Vollard in Paris), which drew praise from Rodin; in 1905 came his first conspicuous success as the Salon d'Automne; and after about 1910 he was internationally famous and received a constant stream of commissions. With only a few exceptions, he restricted himself to the female nude, expressing his whole philosophy of form through this medium. Commissioned in 1905 to make a monument to the 19th-century revolutionary Louis-August Blanqui, he was asked by the committee what form he proposed to give it and replied ‘Eh! une femme nue.’ More than any other artist before him he brought to conscious realization the concept of sculpture in the round as an independent art form stripped of literary associations and architectural context, and in this sense he forms a transition between Rodin and the following generation of modernist sculptors. This was acknowledged in his lifetime. In 1929 Christian Zervos wrote in Cahiers d'art: ‘With other premises and a very different effect, Maillol was a precursor of today's Constructivism. All his figures create an impression of massive structure, of a search for beautiful volume.’ Maillol himself said ‘My point of departure is always a geometrical figure', and that although ‘there is something to be learned from Rodin … I feel I must return to more stable and selfcontained forms. Stripped of all psychological details, forms yield themselves up more readily to the sculptor's intentions.’ He rejected Rodin's emotionalism and animated surfaces; instead, Maillol's weighty figures, often shown in repose, are solemn and broadly modelled, with simple poses and gestures. Although it was forward looking in many ways, Maillol's work also consciously continued the classical tradition of Greece and Rome (he visited Greece in 1908); at the same time it has a quality of healthy sensuousness (his peasant wife sometimes modelled for him).

Maillol settled at Marly-le-Roi on the outskirts of Paris in 1903 but usually spent his winters in the South. In 1939 he returned to his birthplace. He took up painting again at this time, but apart from his sculpture the most important works of his maturity are his book illustrations, which helped to revive the art of the book in the 1920s and 1930s. His finest achievements in this field are the woodcut illustrations (which he cut himself) for an edition of Virgil's Eclogues (begun 1912 but not published until 1926), which show superb economy of line. He also made lithographic illustrations. A museum dedicated to Maillol opened in Paris in 1995, and there are examples of his work in many important collections of modern art.

Maillol, Aristide (b Banyuls-sur-Mer, 8 Dec. 1861; d Banyuls-sur-Mer, 24 Sept. 1944). French sculptor, painter, illustrator, and tapestry designer. His early career was spent mainly as a tapestry designer, but he also painted, exhibiting with the Nabis. Although he first made sculpture in 1895, it was only in 1900 that he decided to devote himself to it after serious eyestrain made him give up tapestry. In 1902 he had his first one-man exhibition, which drew praise from Rodin; in 1905 came his first conspicuous public success at the Salon d'Automne; and after about 1910 he was internationally famous and received a constant flow of commissions. With only a few exceptions, he restricted himself to the female nude, expressing his whole philosophy of form through this medium. Commissioned in 1905 to make a monument to the 19th-century revolutionary Louis-Auguste Blanqui, and asked by the committee what form he proposed to give it, he replied: ‘Eh! une femme nue.’ More than any other artist before him he brought to conscious realization the concept of sculpture in the round as an independent art form stripped of literary associations and architectural context, and in this sense he forms a transition between Rodin and the following generation of modernist sculptors. However, he rejected Rodin's emotionalism and animated surfaces; instead, Maillol's weighty figures, often shown in repose, are solemn and broadly modelled, with simple poses and gestures. His work consciously continued the classical tradition of Greek and Roman sculpture (Maillol visited Greece in 1908), but at the same time has a quality of healthy sensuousness (his peasant wife sometimes modelled for him). Maillol took up painting again in 1939 when he returned to his birthplace, Banyuls, but apart from his sculpture the most important works of his maturity are his book illustrations. His finest achievements in this field are the woodcut illustrations (which he cut himself) for an edition of Virgil's Eclogues (begun 1912 but not published until 1926), which show superb economy of line. A museum dedicated to Maillol opened in Paris in 1995 and his work can also be seen in many important collections of modern art.

Maillol, Aristide (1861–1944). French sculptor, painter, illustrator, and tapestry designer. His early career was spent mainly as a tapestry designer, but he also painted, exhibiting with the Nabis. Although he first made sculpture in 1895, it was only in 1900 that he decided to devote himself to it after serious eyestrain made him give up tapestry. In 1902 he had his first one-man exhibition, which drew praise from Rodin; in 1905 came his first conspicuous public success at the Salon d'Automne; and after about 1910 he was internationally famous and received a constant flow of commissions. With only a few exceptions, he restricted himself to the female nude, expressing his whole philosophy of form through this medium. Commissioned in 1905 to make a monument to the 19th-century revolutionary Louis-Auguste Blanqui, and asked by the committee what form he proposed to give it, he replied: ‘Eh! une femme nue.’ More than any other artist before him he brought to conscious realization the concept of sculpture in the round as an independent art form stripped of literary associations and architectural context, and in this sense he forms a transition between Rodin and the following generation of modernist sculptors. However, he rejected Rodin's emotionalism and animated surfaces; instead, Maillol's weighty figures, often shown in repose, are solemn and broadly modelled, with simple poses and gestures. His work consciously continued the classical tradition of Greek and Roman sculpture (Maillol visited Greece in 1908), but at the same time has a quality of healthy sensuousness (his peasant wife sometimes modelled for him). Maillol took up painting again in 1939 when he returned to his birthplace, Banyuls, but apart from his sculpture the most important works of his maturity are his book illustrations. His finest achievements in this field are the woodcut illustrations (which he cut himself) for an edition of Virgil's Eclogues (begun 1912 but not published until 1926), which show superb economy of line. A museum dedicated to Maillol opened in Paris in 1995 and his work can also be seen in many important collections of modern art.

Aristide Maillol , 1861–1944, French sculptor, woodcut artist, and painter. At first a painter, Maillol studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and then allied himself with the Nabis . In his forties he turned to sculpture and quickly developed his characteristic style, creating strong, energetic nude figures of women. His affinity to classical sculpture was strengthened by a trip to Greece in 1908. Maillol's massive nudes were idealized, yet endowed with robustness and an impressive controlled tension. The River and several other works are in the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Maillol also made woodcuts illustrating Daphnis and Chloë and the works of Ovid and Vergil. A museum devoted mainly to his works opened in Paris in 1995.

Bibliography: See his catalogue raisonné (in French) by M. Guérin (2 vol., 1965–67); his woodcuts, ed. by J. Rewald (1943); biography by J. Rewald (1975).

Maillol, Aristide (1861–1944) French sculptor. Initially a painter and tapestry designer, after 1900 Maillol concentrated on sculpture and in particular the female nude. He rejected the fluid forms and Romanticism of Rodin in favour of classical ideals. Works include Mediterranean (1901) and Night (1902).