Deux compositions avec satyreau jouant de la flûte et syrinx, bergers et chèvres

Transcription: 
“Between the bushes and rocks, two shepherds and a satyr are having a music contest.
A goat stands up and sticks its head between a shepherd and the satyr, as though listening to the song. 
Other goats and sheep are scattered here and there in attractive groups. Wooden goblets, baskets of fruit, a lyre and a set of pan pipes.” Bourdelle liked to record his thoughts in small, lined notebooks, often combining text and drawings. 
His first sketches of sculptures were done in pen with purple ink. This page features the juxtaposition of two compositions of shepherds, satyrs and animals. They are perched on rocks, competing in a music contest. The artist's drawing is smooth and fluid. The dark purple ink dots, from which his pen soars into curves and interlacing, can be clearly seen. The first few pen strokes are strong, providing the outline of the shapes. They are followed by a few softer strokes in light ink, which add detail and sketch the natural setting. 
These two drawings are early sketches for the small sculptural groups Small Pastoral and Faun and Goats, executed in bronze in 1907 and 1908. 
Bourdelle, as the grandson of a goatherd, associated the animal world of his childhood with mythology and music, and he was attached to these themes. 
This musical contest from another time pits a satyr on the one hand: a faun with the horns and legs of a goat, playing the aulos (a wind instrument resembling a double flute), against a shepherd on the other, playing a syrinx (pan pipes made of reeds). Bourdelle owned a boxwood syrinx, which he inherited from his grandfather (a goatherd), and kept all his life. In his native Quercy, shepherds drove their herds to the sound of such pipes.

Claire Boisserolles