BOURDELLE, (MILE-) ANTOINE

born Oct. 30, 1861, Montauban, Fr. died Oct. 1, 1929, Paris French sculptor in whose works heroic energy and exaggerated, rippling surfaces mingled with the flat, decorative simplifications of Archaic Greek and Romanesque art, introducing a new vigour and strength into the sculpture of the early 20th century. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Toulouse and then went to Paris in 1885. After studying with Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and Jules Dalou, he entered the studio of Auguste Rodin, who was to remain one of the chief influences of his artistic life. In 1900 he created a crucial work, the Head of Apollo, the majestic dignity and broad planes of which recalled early classical Greek works. In 1910 he achieved his first triumph in the Salon with Hercules archer, which again owed much to Archaic art, although the pose is far more sinuous and the musculature more exaggerated; he made more than one sculpture of this subject. In that year he also created the full-length portrait Rodin at Work, the head of which is a pastiche of Michelangelo's Moses in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. In 1912 he executed reliefs for the Thtre des Champs-lyses, remarkable for their unusually compact, planar style. The subject was Apollo and His Thought, accompanied by dancing Muses. The year 1914 marked the creation of another masterpiece, the Dying Centaur, which represented for him the defeat of paganism. Never able as a sculptor completely to escape the shadow of Rodin, Bourdelle became a famous teacher, turning his studio into the Acadmie de la Grande-Chaumire.