The Fallen, the Fighters, and the Defenders of Tarn-et-Garonne 1870-1871 (Monument aux combattants et défenseurs du Tarn-et-Garonne de 1870-1871)

In 1895, Bourdelle won a competition run by the Veterans’ Society in Montauban (his home town) to erect a monument to those killed in the 1870 war. For his first large-scale project, the artist wanted to raise his profile and make a break with traditional statuary. Fuelled by the great lessons of Rude and Carpeaux, as well as the contemporary work of Rodin, Bourdelle redoubled his studies, with the aim of combining an epic vision of the war with the ultimate “upheaval of humanity”. The monument is comprised of a group of four figures: France, the Great Warrior, the Cuirassier Dragon, and the Dying Warrior. Overlooked by heroic France, fighters embody in turn the unbearable nature of war, the decisive moment of assault, combat and death. In 1900, Bourdelle completed the clay model in his Montparnasse studio. The following year, he sent the full-size plaster model to the studio of the sculptor Jef Lambeaux in Brussels. He went there to supervise the assembly of the monument, before entrusting it to the Petermann Foundry. In spring 1902, the monument was presented in Paris at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Critics were repelled by this innovative expressionism, but Rodin's voice was decisive: “This is an epic work – one of the best impulses of sculpture today.” On 14 September 1902, the monument was inaugurated in Montauban.

Jérôme Godeau