François Duquesnoy | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byAnthony van Dyck | |
| Born | (1597-01-12)12 January 1597 |
| Died | 19 July 1643(1643-07-19) (aged 46)[1][2] |
| Nationality | Flemish |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Notable work | Saint Susanna,Saint Andrew,Tomb of Ferdinand van den Eynde |
| Movement | Baroque |
François Duquesnoy orFrans Duquesnoy (12 January 1597 – 18 July 1643) was aFlemishBaroque sculptor who was active in Rome for most of his career, where he was known asIl Fiammingo ("the Fleming"). His idealized representations represented a quieter and more restrained version of Italian baroque sculpture, and are often contrasted with the more dramatic and emotional character ofBernini's works, while his style shows a great affinity toAlgardi's sculptures.
Duquesnoy was born inBrussels. Having come fromFlanders, Duquesnoy was calledIl Fiammingo by the Italians andFrançois Flamand by the French. His father,Jerôme Duquesnoy the Elder, sculptor of theManneken Pis fountain in Brussels (1619), was the court sculptor toArchduchess Isabella andArchduke Albert, governor of theLow Countries. The sculptorJerôme Duquesnoy, the younger was his brother. Some of Francois' early work in Brussels attracted the notice of the Archduke, who gave him the wherewithal to study in Rome, where he would spend his whole career.
According to early biographers, when Duquesnoy arrived in Rome in 1618, he studied antique sculpture in detail, climbing over theequestrianMarcus Aurelius to determine how it was cast, or making a pilgrimage to the shrine of Diana atLake Nemi. In 1624,Nicolas Poussin, who shared his classicly styled, emotionally detached manner of depiction, arrived in Rome, and the two foreign artists lodged together. Both moved in the circle of patronage ofCassiano dal Pozzo. They developed a canon of ideal expressive figures, counter to the theatrical baroque ofBernini. Contemporary critics, likeGiovanni Bellori, inLives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects from 1672, hailed Duquesnoy's art as restoring contemporary sculpture to quality of antique Roman sculpture. Bellori said that with hisSanta Susanna, Duquesnoy "had left to modern sculptors the example for statues of clothed figures, making him more than the equal of the best ancient sculptors...".[3]
Among Duquesnoy's early works arebas-relief putti forVilla Doria Pamphili.[4] In spite of the contrast perceived by contemporaries in their stylistic approaches, Duquesnoy collaborated with Bernini in the design, among others, of the angels offering garlands of thebaldacchino forSaint Peter's (in process 1624–1633). The four angels are entirely Duquesnoy's work, and this work earned him future commissions.
Duquesnoy's classicly styledSaint Susanna (1629) depicts the saint as both modest and revealing under marble draperies – "so much so that the pure volume of the members is visible" (Bellori). This is one of four sculptures depicting virgin martyrs by various sculptors for the church ofSanta Maria di Loreto in front of the Roman Forum of Trajan (1630–33).
Critics have remarked on the refined surfaces and the softness and sweetness with which Duquesnoy invested this statue. There is a transcendence in her empty gaze. The sculpture was little known until the 18th century, when a marble copy byGuillaume Coustou was sent to Paris (1739) and Duquesnoy'sSusanna entered the canon of most-admired modern sculptures.
The more extroverted marble representation ofSaint Andrew (1629–33) was begun a few months after his completion of the Santa Bibiana. It is one of the four larger-than-life statues which frame the baldacchino in the transept ofSt. Peter's Basilica; each statues is associated with the basilica's primary holy relics (the other three statues in St. Peter areBernini'sSaint Longinus,Mochi'sSaint Veronica, andBolgi'sSt Helena). It is useful to contrast the tone ofAndrew with that ofLonginus: inAndrew the draperies fall vertically or droop, whileLonginus' clothes inflate in improbably starched ebullience. Andrew leans over thesaltire cross of his martyrdom, while Longinus theatrically flings arms outward expostulating divine influence. Both statues accentuate the diagonals, but Duquesnoy's is more restrained than either Bernini's or Mochi's contribution.
Poussin recommended Duquesnoy toCardinal Richelieu, who offered the position of royal sculptor toLouis XIII and with the goal of founding a royal academy of sculpture in Paris. Duquesnoy was about to sail from Livorno, when he died; he had suffered for years fromgout and episodes of vertigo (he fell from the scaffolding while attaching the gildedpalm branch to hisSusanna) and bouts of depression. His brother,Jerôme Duquesnoy (II) (1612–1654) inherited the chests with the designs of uncompleted work, including some designs for putti for the tomb of Bishop Triest in theSaint Bavo Cathedral inGhent.[5]
Like other sculptors working in 17th century Rome, Duquesnoy was called upon to restore and complete antiquities, for headless torsos rarely found a market with contemporary connoisseurs. With theRondanini Faun (1625–30; now in theBritish Museum) Duquesnoy amplified a torso into a characteristicallyBaroque expansive gesture that deeply satisfied contemporary taste but was bitterly criticised byNeoclassicists by the end of the 18th century. He completeda Roman torso as Adonis. It found its way into the collection ofCardinal Mazarin and is now in the Louvre.
There are bronze busts of theSusanna in Vienna, Berlin, and Copenhagen. Finely finished small-scale bronzes of antique subjects, suitable for collectors, occupied the sculptor and his studio assistants. AMercury and Cupid is at the Louvre, a gracileBacchus at theHermitage Museum. A bronzeMercury was commissioned by the collector of antiquitiesVincenzo Giustiniani as a pendant to a Hellenistic bronze Hercules in his collection, a compliment to Duquesnoy and implicitly a statement of the parity of the Ancients and the Moderns. Giustiniani commissioned a life-sizeVirgin and Child from Duquesnoy in 1622, at a moment when the sculptor was hard pressed to finish hisAndrew, due to interruption of payments instigated by a cabal (Joachim von Sandrart). His terracottamodelli were more likely to carry the immediacy of the sculptor's touch and were of especial value to other sculptors, if they could afford them.Louis XIV's royal sculptorFrançois Girardon owned a great number of Duquesnoy's terra-cotta models, which are recorded in the inventory of Girardon's collection drawn up after his death in 1715.[6]
His characteristicputti, plump, with carefully observed children's heads, helped to establish the conventional type, familiar in the paintings ofRubens: in fact Rubens wrote Duquesnoy in 1640 to thank him for sending him casts of the putti from the sculptor'sTomb of Ferdinand van den Eynde inSanta Maria dell'Anima in Rome.[6]
Flemish boxwood or ivory carvings, especially with scenes of putti, are often casually described as "in his manner", though he never left Rome.
Aside from his brother, who collaborated with him in his studio, his most prominent pupils wereFrançois Dieussart[7] andArtus Quellinus. Quellinus andRombaut Pauwels, another Flemish sculptor who familiarized himself with Duquesnoy's style in Rome, brought the classicly styled Baroque style of what Duquesnoy's circle, an informalacademy, calledla granmaniera greca[6] to the Netherlands on their return from Rome. In Rome, Duquesnoy's student Orfeo Boselli wroteOsservazioni della scoltura antica in the 1650s; his observations reflected connoisseurship of the subtle contours of superior Greek sculpture, considered superior to Roman work, which had been developed in Duquesnoy's circle and would inform the sensibility ofWinckelmann andNeoclassicism.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "François Duquesnoy".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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