[stag_toggle style=\u201dnormal\u201d title=\u201dPiece details\u201d state=\u201dclosed\u201d]Bust of Queen Elizabeth
Vladimir Hegel, 1891
white marble
Signed and dated on the base
I: 70 cm; L \u2013 50 cm[\/stag_toggle]<\/p>\n
In 1891, Hegel created the bust of Queen Elisabeth in white marble. The work belongs to a series of busts \u2013 meant to embody cultural and political figures of the era, in which the artist Wladimir Hegel was also involved.<\/p>\n
The white marble bust represents, frontally, Queen Elisabeth, the first sovereign of Romania (1869-1916), dressed in a late 19th century costume, wearing a small diadem on her head. At the bottom left (on the base) is the author's signature and the date: "W. Hegel, 1891".<\/p>\n
The fact that the sculptor approached the Royal Court, knowing the exquisite artistic tastes of both Queen Elizabeth and King Carol I, proves the fame that Wladimir Hegel enjoyed in the artistic world, as well as among the Romanian protipendiary, since the turn of the two centuries.<\/p>\n
Wladimir Hegel, a prominent representative of Romanian neoclassicism (1839-1918), comes from an ancient family of Polish sculptors, who came to his new adopted country, Austria. By name, in Romania, W. Hegel was taken as German; it is not surprising that once settled in D\u00e2mbovi\u0163a he became a close friend of King Carol I and Queen Elisabeth. However, both his great-grandfather, J\u00f3zef Hegel, his grandfather, Antoni, and his father, Konstanty Hegel, were professional sculptors, closely linked to Polish culture.<\/p>\n
The activity of the young sculptor, Wladimir (W\u0142odzimierz in Polish) is less known to us. It seems that after in-depth studies in Germany, and in Paris, he was known by the writer VA Urechia, the Romanian man of culture and statesman, who received in 1873, as a tribute \u2013 for his participation in the Congress of Latinity in Paris \u2013 a statuette made by the sculptor Hegel. The respective object constituted for the then senator, an urge to campaign to bring him to Romania. The influential Romanian statesman will intensely support Hegel not only to come to Bucharest, but also to carry out some of the projects on the agenda of those times, something extremely important on a national level. The encouragement given by Urechia helped the sculptor to quickly reach the attention of the Romanian pro-independence, but also of public opinion.<\/p>\n
Wladimir Hegel settled in Bucharest in 1885 and established himself as a pedagogue and professor at the School of Arts and Crafts, and in 1898 he became a professor of sculpture and drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts in the Romanian capital, after the premature death of Ion Georgescu.<\/p>\n
Under Hegel's guidance, he also studied, between 1898 and 1902, Constantin Br\u00e2ncu\u015fi, the sculptor who would renew modern sculpture of the 20th century, both in terms of values and not only. Br\u00e2ncu\u015fi then created, with the help of Dr. Dimitrie Gerota, the work that represented the study of the human body: Ecor\u015feu, which was awarded a bronze medal.<\/p>\n
W. Hegel was the "father and teacher" of the sculptor Dimitrie Paciurea, instilling in him the cult of form, supporting him to continue his studies in Paris.<\/p>\n
We also note that the Polish artist, like many of his compatriots, adapted wonderfully to the Romanian environment; he created monumental works of great stature, which undoubtedly enriched the national cultural heritage, with works that have imposed themselves on posterity, most of them in neoclassical style, including the statue of Miron Costin in Ia\u0219i (1888), appreciated by Nicolae Tonitza as:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most successful statue ever erected on the land of Wallachia\u201d<\/p>\n
Starting in 1893, Hegel focused his attention on creating sculptures dedicated to Mihail Kog\u0103lniceanu, which he would create in Gala\u0163i, Ia\u015fi, Piatra Neam\u0163 and Dorohoi. It is known that the historian posed for the artist in Constan\u0163a for the creation of a bust, also making a plaster mask for him. The patinated bronze bust of Kog\u0103lniceanu is kept at the Romanian Academy.<\/p>\n
In 1894, the Bac\u0103u city hall commissioned W. Hegel to create a bust of Vasile Alecsandri.
\nA loss for Romanian monumental art remains the failure to realize the Hegelian project related to the erection of a monument dedicated to Independence, in the form of a 40-meter-high column, apparently suggested by Trajan's Column, above which the statue of victorious Romania was to be enthroned. He did not definitively give up on the idea, since the work Commemorative Column, cast and chiseled in 1903, is preserved in the artistic heritage of the Pele\u0219 National Museum.<\/p>\n
Taken as a whole, Wladimir Hegel's works marked a moment of reference in Romanian monumental art at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, as an area of scope and expression that was difficult to surpass.<\/p>\n
[stag_toggle style=\u201dnormal\u201d title=\u201dPiece details\u201d state=\u201dclosed\u201d]Bust of Queen ElizabethWladimir Hegel, 1891white marbleSigned and dated on the baseW: 70 cm; L \u2013 50 cm[\/stag_toggle] In 1891, Hegel created the bust of Queen Elizabeth in white marble. The work belongs to a series of busts \u2013 meant to embody cultural and political personalities of the era, in which the artist also [\u2026]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,259],"tags":[130],"class_list":["post-8683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arta-plastica","category-patrimoniu","tag-colectia-de-arta-plasticaregina-elisabetasculpturawladimir-hegel"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n