Apollo’s Head known as Apollo in Combat (Apollon - tête avec base carrée, modèle définitif)

In the testamentary manuscript of Apollo in Combat, written in 1929, Bourdelle describes the process of creating Apollo's Head (1898-1911), which he presents as a modern manifestation, freed from the “Rodin style of modelling”. Creation, abandonment, reworking... From a study based on a live model, which Bourdelle found in a corner of the studio, he produced a fragmentary face that retains the changes made to the dried clay. He reworked the mask in clay and added a full, solid neck. Several intermediate stages followed before the final version was produced: the head is constructed entirely of facets; protruding edges on a large, almost cubist base, with simple, bevelled planes, and the neck itself has been replaced by a sharp-edged polyhedron. In 1912, Bourdelle gave plaster casts of Apollo’s Head to influential writers in the art world. He then presented bronze proofs at the Armory Show in New York in 1913 and at the Venice Biennial in 1914. In the same year, a cast by Eugène Rudier, whose splendid golden patina accentuated the archaeological effect, entered the Stockholm National Museum. Apollo in Combat was of course included in the first retrospective of Bourdelle's work at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1928, as well as in the posthumous retrospective at the Musée de l'Orangerie in 1931. When the Musée Bourdelle opened in 1949, the sculptor's widow and daughter placed this cardinal work at the heart of the exhibition.

Jérôme Godeau