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The volume offered by the Barye Monument Association to those interested in the fund for a monumnet to Antoine Louis Barye at Paris is the memorial of a very uncommon event. The United States has no sentimental feeling with regard to France as the fatherland, like that which a large number of American cherish toward Great Britain and Ireland. Bonds of amity were knit in the past, and others have been formed since France became a republic ; but the difference of tongue more than offsets these. Therefore great merit must exist in the artist whose work exercises enough fascination to set Americans on the task of gathering funds for a monument that is to stand three thousand miles away across the ocean. It is often said that art has no country. But when, before this, has a foreign land raised a monument to a sculptor of modern times? -- Preface note.

The volume offered by the Barye Monument Association to those interested in the fund for a monumnet to Antoine Louis Barye at Paris is the memorial of a very uncommon event. The United States has no sentimental feeling with regard to France as the fatherland, like that which a large number of American cherish toward Great Britain and Ireland. Bonds of amity were knit in the past, and others have been formed since France became a republic ; but the difference of tongue more than offsets these. Therefore great merit must exist in the artist whose work exercises enough fascination to set Americans on the task of gathering funds for a monument that is to stand three thousand miles away across the ocean. It is often said that art has no country. But when, before this, has a foreign land raised a monument to a sculptor of modern times? -- Preface note.

"Antoine-Louis Barye (1796-1875), called by Gautier "le Michel-Ange de la Menagerie," is a sculptor whose star continues to rise both among critic-historians and among private collectors. Major museums--notably the Louvre, the Metropolitan, and the Walters--constantly add to their holdings of his work, while auction prices rose fivefold in the 1970's. Barye's relationship to contemporary sculptors and his influence on succeeding generations also are increasingly recognized. His art, in the author's words, "embodies the yearning and turmoil, the triumphs and anguish" of the Romantic Age. Bayre's work combines scientific precision (especially zoological), technical skill (particularly with bronze), and--despite his apparent thoroughgoing realism--composition approaching abstract expressionism. An introductory chapter tells what little is known of Barye's life: his friendship with Delacroix, his apprenticeship under the goldsmith to Napoleon I, his absorption of both the romanticism of Hugo and the positivism of Comte, his allegories for the royal house of Orleans, his association with Napoleon III in creating the New Louvre, and his tutelage of Rodin in the technique of animal sculpture. The bulk of the book presents a chronological critique of Barye's oeuvre, incorporating a complete catalog. It therefore serves not only as a study in artistic evolution but also as a handbook for curator and connoisseur."--Publisher's description.

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