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After reading 'The New York Review of Books' review of an exhibition at the Liebieghaus, Frankfurt, and at the Musée
Fabre, Montpellier, Jean-Antoine Houdon: Die Sinnliche Skulptur (Sensuous Sculpture), I wanted to see an image of
Houdon's sculpture Summer that wasn't reproduced in the article (by Willibald Sauerländer). There seem to be quite a few
of them of the related work, Winter (below right), which was also reproduced in the magazine, but it took quite a while to
come across Summer (below left).
I was prompted to do this post because of my current mixed feelings about the change of seasons: having grown up in
Finland the seasons there used to have such a profound effect on people - as these two sculptures attest (well, Houdon was
of course of the Mediterranean stock; the effect in the Nordic countries was in theory much more severe, but he was on the
money regardless). Here in Sydney, we're gradually shifting from a nine month summer towards our three month winter.
Houdon's Winter could actually portray ours: we do need something to wrap ourselves with at night, but during the day,
when the sun's up, Venus could indeed cope without clothes.
From The Best Faces of the Enlightenment, The New York Review of Books, Vol LVII, Number 6, Willibald Sauerländer,
translated from German by David Dollenmayer:
"For the library of a wealthy royal counselor’s town house in the fashionable Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Houdon created two
statues personifying Summer and Winter. The seasons were still a popular motif for eighteenth-century painters, sculptors,
writers, and composers—one that gained erotic charge in France during the time of the Marquise de Pompadour. Yet here
that motif was as good as reinvented by Houdon.
In his enchanting depiction of Summer, the Ceres of antiquity is transformed into a lovely gardener. A wreath of flowers and
wheat adorns her hair. In her right hand she carries a sickle, a sheaf of grain, and poppies; in her left a prosaic watering
can. Instead of neoclassical personification, Houdon gives us a slice of nature. The charming face of the young woman
resembles the artist’s new bride, Marie-Ange Cécile Langlois.
Houdon did not portray all four seasons, just Summer and Winter; his challenge was to contrast warmth and cold, flowers
and frost. Ceres transformed into a gardener is followed by Venus shivering in the winter cold. Her lovely young body—is it
Marie-Ange Cécile once again?—is unclothed except for the wrap thrown over her head and shoulders. On the ground at
her feet is a cracked vase whose exterior is covered with spilled water, turned to ice. Perhaps the exhibition catalog is
overly learned in its discussion of this bewitching statue. Shivering figures are included in images of winter since antiquity,
and Houdon’s statue evokes a phrase that goes back to Terence: “Venus freezes without Ceres and Bacchus.”
Mademoiselle Winter is not mourning her lost innocence, she’s just cold!"
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