reviews

  • San Diego

    Various Venues

    Moods and modes set the tune of June shows here. A major exhibition at the Fine Arts Gallery featured bronzes and drawings by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle (1861–1929) who carved a niche for himself between Rodin’s strain and Maullol’s simplicity, between the portrait and the monumental symbol. One of many pairs of contrasts in his work: Beethoven masks, distorted like Rodin’s Balzac, and Penelope, classic as a caryatid of the Erechtheum. His bronzes wavered between finger-marked modeling and smooth finish; between suggestions of movement “that does not complete itself within the thing” and static

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