Mythological Scene. Sacrifice of a Goat

Claude Michel (Clodion)

Basic information

ID: С-II-116
Author: Claude Michel (Clodion)
Name: Mythological Scene. Sacrifice of a Goat
Date of creation: 1784
Country: France
Culture: Modern times
Technique: casting
Material: bronze
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 21 x 50.5

Additionally

Type: sculpture (relief) sculpture (plaquette)
Genre: mythological painting
Plot: Dionysia. Sacrifice of a goat
Provenance: Collection of Lviv City Gallery

Information about author

Author: Claude Michel (Clodion)
Artist's lifetime: 1738–1814
Country: France
Biography: Claude Michel (Clodion) (20 December 1738, Nancy - 29 March 1814, Paris) was a French sculptor and a representative of the chamber movement of Neoclassicism. He belonged to the dynasty of Lorraine sculptors. The artist received his first lessons from his father, Thomas Michel, a court sculptor of the Prussian king. Later, he studied in Paris under the famous sculptor Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. In 1759 and 1761, he won the main prize and a silver medal at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1762, he moved to Rome, where he studied at the Academy of Art for nine years. The exquisite plasticity of Clodion's works, mainly depicting nymphs, erots, satyrs, and bacchanals, gained him popularity, commissions, and professional recognition. Upon his return to France in 1771, the sculptor was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In addition to works on the theme of "gallant mythology", Clodion is the author of portraits, the composition "Dying Cleopatra", models of statuettes for the Sèvres Manufactory, drawings of plaques, vases, and candelabra. The master worked in marble, bronze and terracotta. He reproduced his works and put them on sale, which was an innovation for his time.

Object description

The bronze plaque, made by Clodion in 1784 at the height of his career, depicts a goat sacrifice during the Dionysia. The Dionysia (Great, Little, Lenaea) was one of the most important festivals in ancient Greece in honour of Dionysus, the god of wine and the productive forces of nature, the patron saint of the theatre, religious ecstasy and creative inspiration. Tragedies, comedies, masquerades, phallic processions, poetry contests, feasts and goat sacrifice accompanied the celebrations. The peculiarity of the French master's interpretation of the plot is a combination of Neoclassical architectonics with playfulness, plasticity, and Rococo sophistication. Thus, the composition is organised by a precise, almost musical rhythm, initiated by a "crescendo" of monotonous, reproduced in profile figures of fauns with horns and baskets of ripe fruit. The culmination of the action and the rhythmic pause is the image of the frontal face of Dionysus in the centre, in its upper part, and the sacrifice of a goat below. The composition is completed by a scene of violent merriment in a circular motion, reflecting the merger with the forces of nature and the whirlpool of natural elements.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Mythological Scene. Sacrifice of a Goat

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