GENERAL DESCRIPTION
In 1910 the Russian collector Ivan Morosov ordered four statues in gilded bronze from Aristide Maillol for his Moscow palace: Flora, Pomona, Spring, and Summer. The statues of Flora and Pomona were conceived for the music room along with an accompanying set of paintings by Maurice Denis. The commission established Maillol’s international reputation as a sculptor.
Maillol made this piece after a trip to Greece in 1908. Flora's pleated drapery and soft monumentality show an obvious debt to classical Greek art. The figure's graceful pose, emotional tranquility, and clinging translucent garment recall ancient statuary. The symbolic significance of Flora- an embodiment of the bounty of nature- finds direct expression in the figure's full, rounded torso and sturdy limbs. By balancing real, human characteristics with eternal idealized forms, Maillol dynamically reinvented the classical tradition with a modern sensibility.
The period following his trip to Greece was one of the most creative and prolific of Maillol's career. He later said that Flora came to him as a fully formed inspiration that took less than two weeks to realize. The Museum’s cast was made by the great bronze foundry of Alexis Rudier.
Adapted from
- Shirley Reece-Hughes, "Aritide Maillol, Flora," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Charles Venable (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 118.
- Bonnie Pitman, ed. Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 226.
NOTES
Text entries were added for the 2012 guide essay, Dallas 100 Years, DMA: Selected Works (1983), a script for a 2012 smARTphone stop, and the transcript from a 2012 smARTphone Video recording of Olivier Meslay.
Add object number to Piction assets, exhibitions.
Removed TMS object tag because rule exists.
Adding "draft" tag back to note, Dec 19, 2016, as part of the revised harvest/route procedure. This note will be pulled into GDrive and manually moved to Queta's folders for final review. Update- January 18, 2017- Adding #routed tag so that I can easily keep track of this note in Evernote to confirm that it is eventually pushed into GDrive. As of January 18, 2017 the content is in Brain but not in GDrive so I am unable to finish revisions and mark it complete in Evernote or move the GDoc to Queta's folder.
Update Jan 31, 2017- removing the routed tag so that this note will be resubmitted to Nicky for review. The draft is in the Euro folder in GDrive.
Sources for the fun facts:
From Shirley Reece-Hughes, "Aritide Maillol, Flora," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Charles Venable (New Haven, CT: Yale Univerisity Press, 1997), 118.
Adapted from "Aristide Maillol, Summer," online description, http://www.metmuseum.com/collection/the-collection-online/search/204794
From Anne Bromberg, untitled document in the object file, 1986.
The following text was removed from the Image Assets field because of time constraints:
DMAmobi 701 includes two photos credited to Dina Viernay Collection and the Maillol Museum--Dina Viernay Foundation.
"Interior of Ivan Morosov's house in Moscow with Flora and Spring"
"Interior of Ivan Morosov's house in Moscow with Summer and Pomona"
Images not located in Piction.
Smartphone list of contents (Feb 2012) includes an additional two images credited to Dina Viernay Collection and the Maillol Museum--Dina Viernay Foundation.
"Aristide Maillol"
"Mailloll admiring Greek sculpture at the Archeological Museum in Athens "
Images not located in Piction.
The following text was removed from Archives Assets due to time constraints. Also removed the %exhibitions pending tag.
Archives, Records and Manuscripts, Exhibition records, box 12, folder 5: Maillol Exhibition, 17 January- 21 February
Provenance (not public)
Before d. 1944: Aristide Maillol (1861-1944)
After 1944: The estate of Aristide Maillol
Until 1960: Raul Rosenberg & Co., New York, March 1960
After 1960: Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene McDermott
Notes:
The main source for this provenance is the exhibition catalog "Dallas Collects: Impressionist and Early Modern Masters" (January 25- February 26, 1978), cat. no. 103.
Catalogue essays specific to object
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
- Commission location- Moscow
Process/materials
bronze
Historical periods
Individuals
- Auguste Rodin
- Maurice Denis
- Alexis Rudier
- Ivan Morosov
Subject terms
- sculpture in the round
- idealized
- monumental
- naturalistic
- drapery
- pastiche
- female
- nude
- hairstyle
- myth
- commission
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
SmARTphone tour, "Learn about Aristide Maillol," 2012, collections_2012_maillol.mp3. (DMAmobi 701)
Object number added to Piction.
Rather, Susan. "The Smile of Athena: Archaic Sculpture and Modernism," New Approaches to Twentieth-Century Sculpture lecture series, February 7, 1998. Filename- SmileAthena (transcript exists, original format- audio casette). [Need to review content of this lecture.]
Object number added to Piction.
VIDEO ASSETS
SmARTphone video, Olivier Meslay, dma_431189. (DMAmobi 701) Also available on Artbabble, http://www.artbabble.org/video/dma/dallas-museum-art-collection-flora-aristide-maillol
Collections smARTphone video; Olivier Meslay discusses Flora by Aristide Maillol (DMA collection 1960.70)
12937006: UMO
Object number added to Piction
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- Aristide Maillol, Summer, c. 1911~Look at this alternate seasonal subject in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Aristide Maillol, Spring, 1910-1911~Check out another example of Maillol's sculpted seasons in the collection of the Modern Museum of Art (New York).
- French Sculpture Census, A project by Laure de Margerie~Get a better understanding of Maillol's recurring subjects and personal style by looking at the large number of his sculptures housed in American collections.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- Aristide Maillol began his career as a painter and tapestry designer working in the decorative style of the Nabis, a group of artists inspired by the simplicity of line, flat patterning, and expressive color theory of Paul Gauguin's work in Brittany. By the latter half of the 1890s, however, the intricacy of Maillol's tapestry work was threatening his eyesight, and he turned entirely to sculpture.
- Ivan Morosov's plan to place Maillol's sculptures in a room alongside paintings by Maurice Denis was a fitting display of their work in part because Denis recommended the sculptor as an artist that might interest the avid collector.
- Maillol never wanted more than six copies of any of his pieces cast. After six castings, he felt that a plaster model began to lose its clearness of line.
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
Apply to objects where number equals 1960.70
Category
rules_operator
AND
General Description
In 1910 the Russian collector Ivan Morosov ordered four statues in gilded bronze from Aristide Maillol for his Moscow palace: Flora, Pomona, Spring, and Summer. The statues of Flora and Pomona were conceived for the music room along with an accompanying set of paintings by Maurice Denis. The commission established Maillol’s international reputation as a sculptor.
Maillol made this piece after a trip to Greece in 1908. Flora's pleated drapery and soft monumentality show an obvious debt to classical Greek art. The figure's graceful pose, emotional tranquility, and clinging translucent garment recall ancient statuary. The symbolic significance of Flora- an embodiment of the bounty of nature- finds direct expression in the figure's full, rounded torso and sturdy limbs. By balancing real, human characteristics with eternal idealized forms, Maillol dynamically reinvented the classical tradition with a modern sensibility.
The period following his trip to Greece was one of the most creative and prolific of Maillol's career. He later said that Flora came to him as a fully formed inspiration that took less than two weeks to realize. The Museum’s cast was made by the great bronze foundry of Alexis Rudier.
Adapted from
- Shirley Reece-Hughes, "Aritide Maillol, Flora," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Charles Venable (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 118.
- Bonnie Pitman, ed. Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 226.
Fun Facts
- Aristide Maillol began his career as a painter and tapestry designer working in the decorative style of the Nabis, a group of artists inspired by the simplicity of line, flat patterning, and expressive color theory of Paul Gauguin's work in Brittany. By the latter half of the 1890s, however, the intricacy of Maillol's tapestry work was threatening his eyesight, and he turned entirely to sculpture.
- Ivan Morosov's plan to place Maillol's sculptures in a room alongside paintings by Maurice Denis was a fitting display of their work in part because Denis recommended the sculptor as an artist that might interest the avid collector.
- Maillol never wanted more than six copies of any of his pieces cast. After six castings, he felt that a plaster model began to lose its clearness of line.
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- Aristide Maillol, Summer, c. 1911~Look at this alternate seasonal subject in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Aristide Maillol, Spring, 1910-1911~Check out another example of Maillol's sculpted seasons in the collection of the Modern Museum of Art (New York).
- French Sculpture Census, A project by Laure de Margerie~Get a better understanding of Maillol's recurring subjects and personal style by looking at the large number of his sculptures housed in American collections.
Notes
Text entries were added for the 2012 guide essay, Dallas 100 Years, DMA: Selected Works (1983), a script for a 2012 smARTphone stop, and the transcript from a 2012 smARTphone Video recording of Olivier Meslay.
Add object number to Piction assets, exhibitions.
Removed TMS object tag because rule exists.
Adding "draft" tag back to note, Dec 19, 2016, as part of the revised harvest/route procedure. This note will be pulled into GDrive and manually moved to Queta's folders for final review. Update- January 18, 2017- Adding #routed tag so that I can easily keep track of this note in Evernote to confirm that it is eventually pushed into GDrive. As of January 18, 2017 the content is in Brain but not in GDrive so I am unable to finish revisions and mark it complete in Evernote or move the GDoc to Queta's folder.
Update Jan 31, 2017- removing the routed tag so that this note will be resubmitted to Nicky for review. The draft is in the Euro folder in GDrive.
Sources for the fun facts:
From Shirley Reece-Hughes, "Aritide Maillol, Flora," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Charles Venable (New Haven, CT: Yale Univerisity Press, 1997), 118.
Adapted from "Aristide Maillol, Summer," online description, http://www.metmuseum.com/collection/the-collection-online/search/204794
From Anne Bromberg, untitled document in the object file, 1986.
The following text was removed from the Image Assets field because of time constraints:
DMAmobi 701 includes two photos credited to Dina Viernay Collection and the Maillol Museum--Dina Viernay Foundation.
"Interior of Ivan Morosov's house in Moscow with Flora and Spring"
"Interior of Ivan Morosov's house in Moscow with Summer and Pomona"
Images not located in Piction.
Smartphone list of contents (Feb 2012) includes an additional two images credited to Dina Viernay Collection and the Maillol Museum--Dina Viernay Foundation.
"Aristide Maillol"
"Mailloll admiring Greek sculpture at the Archeological Museum in Athens "
Images not located in Piction.
The following text was removed from Archives Assets due to time constraints. Also removed the %exhibitions pending tag.
Archives, Records and Manuscripts, Exhibition records, box 12, folder 5: Maillol Exhibition, 17 January- 21 February
Provenance (not public)
Before d. 1944: Aristide Maillol (1861-1944)
After 1944: The estate of Aristide Maillol
Until 1960: Raul Rosenberg & Co., New York, March 1960
After 1960: Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene McDermott
Notes:
The main source for this provenance is the exhibition catalog "Dallas Collects: Impressionist and Early Modern Masters" (January 25- February 26, 1978), cat. no. 103.
Catalogue essays specific to object
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
- Commission location- Moscow
Process/materials
bronze
Historical periods
Individuals
- Auguste Rodin
- Maurice Denis
- Alexis Rudier
- Ivan Morosov
Subject terms
- sculpture in the round
- idealized
- monumental
- naturalistic
- drapery
- pastiche
- female
- nude
- hairstyle
- myth
- commission
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
SmARTphone tour, "Learn about Aristide Maillol," 2012, collections_2012_maillol.mp3. (DMAmobi 701)
Object number added to Piction.
Rather, Susan. "The Smile of Athena: Archaic Sculpture and Modernism," New Approaches to Twentieth-Century Sculpture lecture series, February 7, 1998. Filename- SmileAthena (transcript exists, original format- audio casette). [Need to review content of this lecture.]
Object number added to Piction.
VIDEO ASSETS
SmARTphone video, Olivier Meslay, dma_431189. (DMAmobi 701) Also available on Artbabble, http://www.artbabble.org/video/dma/dallas-museum-art-collection-flora-aristide-maillol
Collections smARTphone video; Olivier Meslay discusses Flora by Aristide Maillol (DMA collection 1960.70)
12937006: UMO
Object number added to Piction
rules
Apply To
Objects
number
Equals
1960.70
source file
object_notes_2_d-0331.xml.nores