1901
Mediums: bronze.
Location: The Museum of Modern Art, New York (the USA).
The significance and originality of the images marked portraits painted by A. Bourdelle. According to him, “every portrait is at the same time an image of both the model and the author”. For each of the characters, the sculptor was looking for his “plastic key”, especially carefully considering portraits of geniuses. With the acuteness of the individual characteristics of the great composer, the small work captures the power of his spiritual energy and talent. Constantly returning to this image (about 50 different variants were created), the artist invariably repeated the uneven, as if pulsating surface texture, general dynamics of volumes. Thus, the author embodied the soul of music by his thought. “Beethoven” was one of the first works of Antoine, but in the last year of his life he worked on the painting “Beethoven on the Cross”.