Mystery sculptor of Cambridge bulls revealed: Isidore Jules Bonheur

The extraordinary story of the two Cambridge bulls

Remember the two astonishing bull sculptures at Deloitte on Hills Road that I blogged about earlier this month?

Deloitte got back to my twitter query and told me that these sculptures are by Isidore Jules  Bonheur (1827-1901).

Isidore Bonheur, Bull, c.1878, bronze. Deloitte, Cambridge

What a remarkable revelation!

19th-century might and masculinity

Isidore Bonheur was a 19th-century French sculptor.  This means that these sculptures were imported from what was then the leading centre of the European art world  -- Paris.  Made during an era when this kind of sculpture was a central part of art-making.  Isidore Bonheur exhibited at universal and other exhibitions, and won a number of gold medals and awards.

These bulls express all the confidence of the 19th century.  They are big and brash and secular; they stride belligerently into a future of industrial and commercial promise.

They are part of a Europe that is at the height of its political and imperial power, full of arrogance and ambition and belief in its place in the world.

Isidore Bonheur, Detail of Bull, c.1878, Deloitte, Cambridge

But they speak to me also of other things:  of the price to be paid for being top of your game.  Of masculine braggadoccio and its flipsides:  anxiety about rivals, the need to be always one step ahead, patriarchal posturing with no real substance.

Isidore Bonheur, Bull Pawing the Ground, c.1878, bronze. Deloitte, Cambridge

Here's another remarkable fact:  Isidore Bonheur was the brother of Rosa Bonheur.

Rosa Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur was a hugely successful animal painter. She was also one of the few women artists to succeed within the artistic mainstream of the 19th-century.



Rosa Bonheur. Source: Les amis de Rosa Bonheur.

You can see her painting Horse Fair (1855) in the National Gallery in London:




Rosa Bonheur, Horse Fair (1855). Source: National Gallery, London.

Here is the Bonheur family:


Source: Le piéton de Paris.

Rosa Bonheur is seated and holds a print.  Isidore Bonheur stands behind her, with the snazzy ringlets above ears and forehead.  It was Rosa who apparently taught her little brother his first artistic skills.

Isidore Bonheur

What else did Isidore Bonheur sculpt?

Mainly animals.  And of those animals, mainly powerful prowling or prancing mammals.


Isidore Bonheur, Legionary on Horseback, Sainte-Anne Hospital, Paris.  Source: Wikipedia,© Siren-Com.


Isidore Bonheur, Prowling Lioness. Source: Prices 4 antiques.



Isidore Bonheur, Lion and Mouse. Source: Live auctioneers.

And, what a surprise:  quite a lot of bulls.



Isidore Bonheur, Bear and Bull. Source: frbronze.



Isidore Bonheur, Rearing Bull with Handler. Source: Arcadja.

From Paris to Cambridge

Here is a version of our very own Cambridge bull:



Rosa Bonheur. Source: Wikipedia.

This bull is a public statue.  It's one of a pair.  They face each other across the entrance gate to the Georges Brassens Park in Paris.



Parc Georges Brassens, Paris. Source: Le piéton de Paris.
The bulls are reminders that this Park was once an abattoir.  According to Le Piéton de Paris, Rosa Bonheur used to visit this abattoir regularly, in order to study the animals for her own paintings.

The two Park bulls are based on the two bulls that Isidore Bonheur exhibited at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878.  The one with the lifted head stood on what was to be the future west base for the Eiffel Tower, the other (the one with the lowered head) stood on the north base.  Brilliant pictures of these bulls at the Expo are at Piéton de Paris.

Universal bulls

Our Cambridge bulls are versions (copies? casts?) of those Universal Exposition bulls.  What an illustrious pedigree!

I wonder when Deloitte acquired them?  The Deloitte accountancy firm was founded in 1854, according to the Deloitte website; 1845, according to Wikipedia).  I don't know when they opened their Cambridge branch or when they bought these two bulls.  But I like to think that they purchased them in the wake of the Universal Exposition, in the late 1870s or early 1880s.  As a tangible symbol of their ambitions to be universally important.  (They opened their first New York office in 1880).

Two bulls in a Cambridge office lobby.  And such a fascinating history.  Who would have thought it?

Read more:

All about Isidore Bonheur: Wikipedia.

All about Rosa Bonheur: Les amis de Rosa Bonheur (in French).

All about the bulls in Georges Brassens Park, Paris: Le piéton de Paris (with fabulous pics; in French).

My first blog post about the Cambridge bulls: Cambridge bull sculptures.

Rosa Bonheur, drawing of a pony, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Source: Fitzwilliam Museum.

Thanks to: Deloitte on twitter.

Happy Easter Saturday! or, The Harrowing of Hell

Have you ever wondered what Jesus Christ was doing in between his death on the cross (Good Friday) and his resurrection (Easter  Sunday)?

Well, he was down in hell.  Rescuing some of the worthy souls trapped down there and taking them straight to Heaven.  Eve, Abraham and Adam were all included.

This is called the Harrowing of Hell (or anastasis in Greek - I just love that word).

The Harrowing of Hell.  Manuscript illumination, from f.54r of MS K.21,
Canticles, Hymns and Passion of St Christ, late 13th/early 14th C.
Source:  Collection of St John's College Library, Cambridge

I'm not 100% sure of the iconography but it looks to me as if Christ is standing on the instruments of his torture (planks from the cross).  I don't know what the symbols on the planks stand for.  He's wrapped his red funeral shroud around himself, or that's what it looks like as he's not fully clothed.  And he's stabbing the Devil's mouth with a long spear-like thing which looks more like a shaft of light than anything physical.

Three souls (the middle one is surely Eve) come huddling out through the Gate of Hell.  I like the way Hell has turreted architecture.  And I love the way the naked humans are walking barefoot on the Devi's teeth.

Satan is angry red (but a different, more orangey red from the regal red of Christ's robe).  The eyes are big and bulging, as are those of a beak-nosed sub-demon baring his teeth at the divine intruder.  Two tiny comic-looking devils cavort in the background:  the blue horned one looks a bit like a cow, and the bat-winged one blowing his little trumpet seems to have jumped out of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.

Four more souls crowd together in Satan's maw.  One of them holds his face in his palm.  Their eyebrows and downturned mouths express desperate misery.  Are they among those about to be saved?  Or are their sins too great?

I like the ocular intimacy (a phrase I borrow from Mika Natif in her chapter in this brilliant book that I'm reading at the moment) between Christ and the foremost human (Adam?).  The anatomical detail is also great:  breast bones, clavicles, rib cages, diaphragms, calf muscles -- all carefully delineated.

Have a peaceful and happy Easter, everyone!


If you'd like to read more:
St John's College Library, mediaeval manuscripts

Icons and their interpretation: The Khora anastasis (great analysis of a brilliant Byzantine Harrowing fresco in the Kariye Cami in Istanbul)

Eat the bible (a sceptic's view)

Easter and art! What's on in Cambridge art, April 2014

My personal pick of five:

1.  Art and Life 1920-1931:

Winifred Nicholson, her husband Ben, and her friends (exhibition)

  

Winifred Nicholson, Roman Road (Landscape with Two Houses), 1926
Source: © Kettle's Yard.

Don't miss the incredible picture of a zebra on the roof terrace of Le Corbusier's iconic modernist building, the Villa Savoye (picture by Christopher Wood; click on the link to see it, or, even better, go to Kettle's Yard and be surprised!!)

My son's favourite was the white abstract relief by W. Nicholson.

Where: Kettle's Yard. 

Ends 11 May 2014.

2. Charlotte Hodes (event)

Charlotte Hodes, Proposition 17: Order of Things (detail), 2014
Source:  New Hall Art Collection.  © the artist

Charlotte Hodes in conversation.  Hodes makes intriguing paper-cuts and ceramics, with delicate female figures crawling, walking, dancing and lying among ornament and patterns.  And New Hall (Murray Edwards) is always a nice place to visit.

Where:  Murray Edwards College (New Hall), Long Room. 

When:  Sat, 26 April 2014.  4.30 pm.

 

 3.  Sue Shepherd (exhibition)

© Sue Shepherd; source: ARB Public Art blog

The Alison Richard Building is a nice venue and this artist's work looks interesting: combines photos, scribbled text and fluorescent lighting.

Where:  Alison Richard Building, West Road.

Ends 27 June 2014.

 

4. Nicola Powys (exhibition and event)

Nicola Powys, Male-blue; © the artist

Where:  Williams Art Gallery, Gwydir St.
Ends 4 May 2014.
What and when:  Talk, Wed 30 April 2014.  For info on how to book, click here.

 

5.  Irish Art in Cambridge (exhibition)

Zelouf + Bell, Oak leaf console.  Source:  zeloufandbell

An opportunity to pop into the Caius Library near Senate House, previously the Squire Law Library,  and to see some interesting paintings and interior design artefacts.  Late-night opening allows for flexible visiting!

Where:  Caius Library, Gonville & Caius College, entrance from Senate House passage

When:  Thurs 17 and Fri 18 April, 6-9 pm; 19-21 April 9-5

More 'What's On':

Nine arty things to do in March 2014 - Many of these are still on!  I especially recommend the Fiji exhibition at the MAA.

Art to see outdoors in the sun:

A visit to Haddenham Gallery  (outdoor sculpture garden)

Where to take family visitors:  A Cambridge itinerary

Looking up at Cambridge buildings  (wander around and crane your neck)

Visit the Cambridge Sculpture Trails

And:  yarn-bombed Mill Road Bridge!

Whatever happened to the Newmarket Road graffiti?

Remember the graffiti on Newmarket Road?  I blogged about it in 2012:  Graffiti on Newmarket Road.

It looked like this:

All graffiti by the Blight Society.

Well, that's all just a memory now.  Because it's gone.

Instead, we have:

Source:  Cambridge News, Oct. 2013

What is happening on this building site?  There will be another new hotel.

One new hotel already exists, right next to the building site.  It's the new Travelodge.

Source of photo:  © Cambridge2000

The architects are Barber Casanovas Ruffles.  This firm designed a number of other buildings around Cambridge, including:

Portugal Street.  Source:  BCR

and:

Cambridge Water Company, Fulbourn Rd (Cherry Hinton - as you drive towards Tesco) Source:  BCR

This is what the architects Barber Casanovas Ruffles say about the Travelodge project on their website:

'The approved design satisfies the demands of this focal "Eastern gateway" to Cambridge City Centre and creates a vastly improved public realm with a generous new hard landscaped area to Newmarket Road.

The rigid budget hotel requirements and costings were carefully balanced with the Cambridge City's aesthetic demands.'

You know, I had no idea that Newmarket Road near the Elizabeth Way roundabout had morphed into an "Eastern gateway".  As far as I'm concerned it's still the ugliest road in Cambridge, and the worst approach to the town.  I also was unaware that Cambridge City had 'aesthetic demands'.

So I checked the Council website and discovered that yes, indeed, this area is referred to as Eastern Gate Study Area (sic).  The framework planning document does not mention the word 'aesthetic' but it does state its 'vision':

Regenerating and transforming this key approach to the city through high quality development coupled with key projects that will connect people and places.  (Eastern Gate Development Framework)

I'm very happy that somebody is devoting some tender loving care to this unlovely corner of Cambridge (somebody besides the Blight Society).  Although I do worry about the preponderance of commercial hotels.  It would be good to have a few more diverse and public spaces in the mix but given Cambridge City Council's history with disasters like the Cineworld complex or offices on the Hills Road railway bridge, I am not sanguine about any sort of imaginative urban planning.

The Travelodge sits next to where the graffiti used to be.  On the actual spot of the graffiti, there will be another new proposed hotel, a Premier Inn.

Edited to add:  An anonymous commenter (see below) pointed out to me that the new hotel will actually be on the other side of the Travelodge.  Sorry for the misleading error...!

  The Premier Inn will, apparently, look like this: 

Source:  Cambridge News June 2012

I couldn't find out the architects responsible for this hotel.  Does anyone know?


So what did people think of the loss of the graffiti?  Here's some vox pop.

And what do you think?  Are the hotels an improvement?

Related posts:

•  The murals in the tunnel under Elizabeth Way roundabout (just up the road from  the two new hotels)

•  Is there art in Arbury?  (Well, there's certainly graffiti by the Blight Society plus a Travelodge and a Premier Inn -- these two hotel chains seem to come in pairs)

•  The Snowy Farr statue (involvement from Cambridge City Council)

Have a lovely sunny April day!

Cambridge bull sculptures

Los toros

Walk across the Hills Road Bridge and into Deloitte's offices in City House.  An unpromising entrance, architecturally ugly.  But what do you find once you're inside?

Bulls!

Bulls of bronze!

This one looks at you with defiant cluelessness.  Jaunty ears.  Short horns. A gloriously curved and taut tail.  Cloven hoofs.  And rolling folds along his chest.

A curly coiffure.  And over-awed bulging eyes.  His large round nostrils snort at you.

What is he doing here, in the lobby of an international financial advisory corporation? 

Viewed in profile, he looks less aghast and more determined.

Penetrate more deeply into the gleaming tiled lobby and encounter Bull Nr 2.

This one paws the ground, dynamic, intent, ineffectual.  Surrounded by potted palms and faux-marble stripes.

What is it you seek on your little bronze platform, o bull?

Humped and muscular.

Kind of weird and incongruous.

But kind of majestic.

Who is the sculptor?  What is their title?  Who commissioned them, and when, and why?  I have no idea.

I call them los toros (pronounced with a Spanish accent) but that's just my personal name.  Not quite because of Picasso's Guernica but more because of the Osborne bulls that stand around in Spain:

Manolo Prieto, Spanish Osborne bull, 1956 (ad for Osborne Brandy de Jerez; this one's near Seville)
Source:  wikimedia, © Grez

And feature in Bigas Luna's film Jamón Jamón.

More bull sculptures

There are loads of bull sculptures out there.  Here's a selection:

Pan He, Pioneering Bull, 1984, Shenzhen, China
Source: News Guangdong

Karl Henning Seemann, The Bull of Brand (suburb of Aachen / Aix,
in Germany), 1976
Source: wikimedia, © Arthur McGill

Paul Mersmann, Bull (Aurochs), 1934, Alboin Square, Berlin-Schöneberg
Source:  wikimedia, © Lienhard Schulz

Laurence Broderick, Bull, Bull Ring, Birmingham, 2003
Source:  wikimedia, © Green Lane

Sally Matthews, Tarw (Welsh Black Bull), National Botanic Garden of Wales, c.2009
Source: Garden of Wales

The Bull of Wall Street lurches madly.  He is a guerrilla sculpture, transported to Wall Street in 1989, after the stock market crash (one of the many?) in trucks by the artist.  And now still there, a tourist attraction.

It has affinities with Deloitte's.

Arturo di Modica, Charging Bull (aka The Bull of Wall Street), 1989

Source:  Redhotmarketing

What are your associations?  Bull and multinational business?  Bull and minotaur?  Bull and matador?   Bull and agriculture?

P.S. Children will love these.  I used to look at them through the window with my son on the way to school.  One day we entered and were amazed.

Read my follow-up post:  

Mystery sculptor revealed!  The astonishing story of the Cambridge bulls