Antoine-Félix Bouré (8 July 1831 – 8 April 1883Edmond Marchal, La sculpture et les chefs-d'œuvre de l'orfèvrerie belges (Brussels, 1895), p. 696. Information in this article not otherwise cited comes from Marchal.), known in his own time as Félix Bouré but sometimes found in modern scholarship as Antoine Bouré,Bouré signed himself as Ant. Félix Bouré on at least two of his works, L'enfant au lézard and the pair of lions known as Totor et Tutur. The critic Camille Lemonnier, who knew him personally through the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts, calls him "Félix Bouré." was a Belgian sculptor, best known for his monumental lions.
Life and career Bouré was born in Brussels as the Belgian war of independence was drawing to a close. He studied locally first under Guillaume GeefsA.J. Wauters, Catalogue illustré de l'Exposition rétrospective de l'art belge organisée par la Societé Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles (Brussels, 1905), p. 11; Marchal, p. 687. and then from 1846 to 1852Arto Dictionnaire, "Bouré, Antoine-Félix," biography. under Eugène Simonis at the Royal Academy for Fine Art, going abroad to complete his training at the Academy of Fine Arts at Florence. In his studies, he followed the same course as his older brother, Paul Bouré. Paul died in his mid-twenties when Antoine-Félix was only 17.Marchal, pp. 696.
Bouré was among the artists whose work was exhibited at the Musée Bovie, a grand maison built by the painter Virginie Bovie on the Rue de Trône, Brussels.Anne-Marie ten Bokum, Art&fact: Revue des historiens de l'art, des archéologues, des musicologues et des orientalistes de l'Université de Liège 24 (2005), retrieved 25 July 2010. In 1868, he was one of sixteen co-founders of the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts,Arto Dictionnaire, "Bouré, Antoine-Félix," biography. an avant-garde society that provided exhibition space alternative to that of the official Salon in Belgium. The manifesto of the society espoused the Realist principle of "free and individual interpretation of nature" along with avant-gardist ideals of "struggle, change, freedom, progress, originality and tolerance" that were inspired by Courbet and Baudelaire. "Modernity" and "sincerity" were keywords. By 1875 the Salon had come to accept and then coopt the Realist program, at which time the society disbanded.Julius Kaplan, entry on "Société Libre des Beaux Arts," The Grove Dictionary of Art: From Renaissance to Impressionism (St. Martin's Press, 2000), p. 343 online; Arto, Aperçus historiques, "La Société Libre des Beaux-Arts," retrieved 25 July 2010.
Bouré was a friend of Auguste Rodin, who worked on a number of projects in Brussels throughout the 1870s.Paul Verbraeken, "Histoire de la sculpture en Belgique," ArtQuid. In 1877, Bouré was one of two Belgian sculptors who offered testimony on behalf of the 36-year-old Rodin during a controversy over The Vanquished, a life-sized male nude modeled after a Belgian soldier that was later retitled The Age of Bronze. Rodin had been accused of assembling the work from plaster casts rather than modeling it from life; Bouré confirmed Rodin's work methods from his own observations in the studio.The Rodin-Web, in cooperation with the Musée Rodin, Rodin Nude Photo Project, "Rodin Works: The Age of Bronze (The Conquered One, The Vanquished), retrieved 23 July 2010; Catherine Lampert, Rodin: Sculpture and Drawings (Yale University Press, 1987), p. 22 online. Lampert describes Bouré's efforts as "letters of support." The other Belgian sculptor was Gustave Biot.
Bouré's sculptures were considered remarkable for their combination of grace and power."Remarquable en même temps par la grâce et par la force": Marchal, p. 697. The critic Camille Lemonnier, a fellow member of the Sociéte Libre, praised him for "sincerity", one of the ideals prized by their group.Assuming Lemonnier is the L. who wrote "Correspondance de Belgique," La Chronique des arts et de la curiosité (Paris, 1883), p. 128, a publication to which he was a major contributor. Bouré showed work at the Exposition Universelle de Paris in the years 1867 and 1878, and at numerous salons in Belgium and abroad.Arto Dictionnaire, "Bouré, Antoine-Félix," biography. He earned medals at exhibitions in Brussels, Paris, and Philadelphia.Clovis Lamarre, La Belgique et l'Exposition de 1878 (Paris, 1878), p. 192 online; Marchal, p. 696.
Bouré was awarded the Order of Leopold, either as a chevalier (knight)Lamarre, La Belgique et l'exposition de 1878, p. 192. or officier.Marchal, p. 697. He died at Ixelles in 1883 in what was marked as the prime of his life, and was buried next to his brother.Après trente ans de séparation, la mort les réunit sous la même pierre. … il est frappé dans la maturité de l'âge, as expressed by L. (Lemonnier), "Correspondance de Belgique," La Chronique des arts et de la curiosité (Paris, 1883), p. 128 online. In L'Art moderne, he was eulogized jointly with the octogenarian Geefs to the detriment of his former teacher, whom the anonymous writer accused of "inundating the country with pathetic vulgarities": Bouré, the writer said, "produced little, but all of it fine."L'Art moderne 15 (April 1883), p. 119 online. La rue Félix Bouré (or just la rue Bouré) in Ixelles is named for him."À la découverte de l'historie d'Ixelles," p. 17; "Rue Félix Bovie (Félix Boviestraat) – Ixelles (1050 Bruxelles)," ebru. When it was opened in 1860, during Bouré's lifetime, the street was called rue de la Santé.
Animalier
Bouré's reputation rests primarily on his large sculptural lions, characterized by their athletic musculature and majestic air.Marchal, p. 696. The most famous of these is the colossal lion that sits atop the Gileppe Dam "like a cat on a garden wall."Adolph Kemna, "Purification of Water for Domestic Use: European Practice," Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 54 (1905), p. 158. The Gileppe lion stands 13.5 meters tall (around 44 feet).According to the information sign at the dam and most other sources. Its height is sometimes given as 43 feet in Anglophone sources; see for instance General Commissariat of Belgium, Belgium, Its Institutions, Industries and Commerce (Brussels, 1904), p. 333. Weighing 130 tonnes, it was constructed from 183 blocks of sandstone brought to the site by horse-drawn carts.Pierre Stéphany, La Belgique en cent coups d'oeil (Éditions Racine, 2006), p. 202. Marchal, p. 696, notes 243 blocks, but the informational sign at the dam confirms Stéphany's figure of 183.
Bouré also sculpted the colossal lion in bronzed zinc at the Leopold Gate in Brussels; the pair at the entrance to the Palais de Justice in Charleroi, known as Totor et Tutur; and other lions throughout Brussels, including those in the garden of the Palais des Académies and four along the Rue Royale. Some of his lions were produced in tabletop versions.Glerum auctioneers listed an example of a 45 cm tabletop lion (retrieved 23 August 2010).
Bouré's interest in leonine subject matter places him in company with les animaliers, the 19th-century French sculptors led by Antoine-Louis Barye who made animals the focus of their work rather than relegating them to the background.National Museum of Wildlife Art artist biography, retrieved 23 July 2010. Along with the sculptor Léon Mignon (1847–1898) and Jacques de Lalaing (1858–1917), Bouré helped establish a distinctively Belgian tradition of animal art, to which the flourishing Antwerp Zoo contributed inspiration.Verbraeken, ArtQuid
The Lizard
The other work for which Bouré is most noted shows a strikingly different side of the artist. The white marble Le lézard or L'enfant au lezard, not quite 4 feet long and about 2 feet high (overall 61.5 by 118.5 by 39 cm), depicts a nude boy lying on his stomach, ankles crossed, resting on his left elbow with his right hand cocked inquisitively as he directs his absorbed gaze down at a small lizard. Bouré created this délicieux morceauJules Dujardin, L'art flamand: Les artistes contemporains (Brussels, 1900), p. 2 online. during the period 1872–1874.Description of Le Lézard, Fabritius Catalogue of the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; the image may be viewed online. It was praised for its fine modelingLouis Gonse, Exposition universelle de 1878: Les Beaux-arts et les arts décoratifs (Paris, 1879), vol. 1, p. 71 online; review of the same exposition, William W. Story, Reports of the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878 (Washington, D.C., 1880), vol. 2, p. 147 online. and lifelike expression,Marchal, p. 697; Carl Buls, "Le salon de Gand," Revue de belgique 18 (1874), p. 67 online. its charm and grace of attitude,Marchal, p. 697; Buls, p. 67; Gonse, p. 71. and the "rare suppleness of its lines."L. (Lemmonier), "Correspondance," La Chronique des arts, p. 128. Souple ("supple") is a recurring term of praise for the work, found also in Marchal and even de Hauranne (see following), in whom the work otherwise excited no great admiration. Le lézard was not uniformly admired. One critic noted its "poverty of imagination" and thinness of execution, while admitting other qualities.Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne, "Le Salon de 1874," Revue des deux mondes 3 (1874), p. 694 online.
Bouré's child recalls in some aspects the Apollo Sauroctonos ("Apollo the Lizard-Slayer"), an often-reproduced figure in classical antiquity of the pubescent god observing a lizard as it climbs up a tree. The original bronze was attributed to the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles.Pliny (Natural History 34.69–70) says the original was a bronze by Praxiteles: "he made a pubescent Apollo sneaking up with an arrow for hand-to-hand combat with a lizard as it crawls from below, which they call Sauroctonos" (fecit et puberem Apollinem subrepenti lacertae comminus sagitta insidiantem, quem sauroctonon vocant); the 1st-century poet Martial alludes to the statue type in the couplet Sauroctonos Corinthius ("Corinthian Lizard-Slayer," Epigrams 14.172): "Spare the lizard creeping toward you, sneaky boy: she desires to perish on your fingers": Ad te reptanti, puer insidiose, lacertae Parce: cupit digitis illa perire tuis. The Louvre acquired a white marble version in 1807. The sculpture received attention in French-language books on art published while Bouré was active, including Émile Gebhart's Praxitèle (1864) and Wilhelm Fröhner's Notice de la sculpture antique du Musée Impérial du Louvre (1878). If an image of the Sauroctonos is rotated and flipped horizontally, the compositional resemblances with Bouré's L'enfant au lézard become more evident. The Apollo's overall height of nearly 5 feet, which includes the tree trunk extending past the body, gives the figure a vertical proportion comparable to that of Bouré's 4-foot horizontal boy.Louvre Atlas database, Apollo Sauroctonos.
The Louvre acquired its Apollo Sauroctonos as part of the Borghese Collection,Louvre Atlas database, Apollon Sauroctone. which included other pieces that may have influenced Bouré such as a boyish standing Eros,Louvre Atlas database Jeune garçon en Éros. the so-called ephebe Narcissus, and a sleeping Hermaphroditus.Louvre Atlas database, Hermaphrodite endormi.
Related marbles from the Borghese Collection