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California: Stanford University – Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University – Burghers of Calais

Image by wallyg
Les Bourgeois de Calais (The Burghers of Calais) is one of the most famous sculptures by Auguste Rodin. It serves as a monument to the heroism of six burghers in Calais during a siege by the England in the Hundred Years’ War in 1347.

After a victory in the Battle of Crécy, England’s King Edward III besieged Calais, an important French port on the English channel, and Philip VI of France ordered the city to hold out at all costs. Which it did for a over a year. Philip failed to lift the siege and starvation eventually forced the city to parlay for surrender. Edward offered to spare the people of the Calais if any six of its top leaders would surrender themselves. Edward demanded that they walk out almost naked, wearing nooses around their necks and carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first and five other burghers–Jean d’Aire, Jacques and Pierre de Wissant, Jean de Fiennes, Andrieu d’Andres–soon followed suit. Though the burghers expected to be executed, their lives were spared by the intervention of England’s Queen, Philippa of Hainault, who persuaded her husband by saying it would be a bad omen for her unborn child. Rodin depicts a larger than life Saint Pierre leading the envoy of emaciated volunteers to the city gates, prepared to meet their imminent mortality.

The monument was initially proposed by Omer Dewavrin, mayor of Calais, for the town’s square in 1884. Unusual in that monuments were usually reserved for victories, the town of Calais had long desired to recognize the sacrifices made by these altruistic men. Rodin’s controversial design echoed this intent–the burghers are not presented in a heroic manner, but sullen and worn. His innovative design initially presented the burghers at the same level as the viewers, rather than on a traditional pedestal, although until 1924 the city, against Rodin’s wishes, displayed it on an elevated base.

The original statue still stands in Calais. Other casts stand around the world–the Victoria Tower Gardens, in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament in London; the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Brooklyn Museum in New York City, Musée Rodin in Paris, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, the Rodin Gallery in Seoul, and Glyptoteket in Copenhagen, to name a few. Some installations have the figures tightly grouped with contiguous bases, while others have the figures separated. Some installations are elevated on pedestals, others are placed at ground level. This bronze cast, at Stanford University’s Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, consists of six separate pieces which are slightly sunken, concealing the bottom few inches of the bases, and spaced such that viewers can walk between the figures. The museum claims this is how Rodin wished them to be displayed.

Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, Norwich

Image by Xavier de Jauréguiberry
C402_35
15/08/2008 : Norwich, University of East Anglia, Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts