Saturday, November 4, 2017

George Washington - Houdon


We just learned about the Nicolaus Copernicus Monument by Danish Bertel Thorwaldsen in Poland.

Another famous sculpture is the bust of George Washington by French artist Jean-Antoine Houdon, in 1785.
A "bust" is a sculpture of just the head and shoulders of a person.

Houdon was a famous sculptor in France, and he really liked the people at the time that were pushing for better knowledge, freedom and making lives better, so he made sculptures of people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.

George Washington sat for this sculpture with Houdon, where he made clay models and a plaster mask of Washington.

The models that Houdon used were reused many times for other sculptures of Washington through the years.


(from: wikipedia - jean-antoine houdon)


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