Ariane (statue project, 1883)

Overview

Ariane (Ariadne) is a statue that Marie planned in 1883 and never made. The diary names it in five paragraphs between March and December 1883, always as one of several projects waiting their turn, and each time next to the statue she did make, La Douleur de Nausicaa. It supersedes the old auto-generated stub `people/mentioned/ARIANE_SCULPTURE`, which was filed under people by mistake.

Marie and this work

The first mention is 22 March 1883 (098.0551), the day she has professionals build the armature of the big statue from her small clay model -- which is Nausicaa: "Les Saintes femmes en peinture que je tâcherai de faire cet été. Et en sculpture ma grande préoccupation c'est Ariadne. Ces deux œuvres sont connues avec un sentiment sublime, je le dis quoique ce soit moi." Of Ariadne she adds (098.0552) "Je n'en ferai peut-être pas grand chose, mais cela pourrait être merveilleux", and "en attendant je fais cette femme" -- the weeping Nausicaa (098.0553). No description of Ariadne's pose is given.

On 17 July (100.0376) she lists her coming works: "Une statue. Nausicca ou Ariadne, les esquisses sont tout arrêtées. Ariadne fera blaguer, on dira que c'est moi, abandonnée par qui ? Et Nausicaa. J'aime les deux." The Ariadne of the myth is the woman abandoned on Naxos by Theseus, and Marie foresees that the public will read the subject as her own story. On 7 August (100.0552): "Et Nausicaa et Ariadne. Les belles choses ! ... Nausicaa pourra bien... Non, Ariadne voir bientôt le jour." On 28 November (102.0352) the list has grown to "Les Saintes femmes ... Le grand bas-relief Printemps, Jules César, Ariadne. On se sent pris de vertige", and on 3 December (102.0423) the candidates are "Les Saintes femmes ou Nausicaa, ou Ariadne, ou le Printemps". After that, the statue she works on in December (102.0521-0589) and brings to the Salon plans of 1884 is Nausicaa; Ariadne does not come up again.

Do not confuse with

Ouida's novel Ariadne (1877), which Marie rereads in English on 28 August 1882 (096.0141-0156), is a different thing: that is the book, not her project. The two may be connected in her mind -- in the same pages she says her drawings are "des dessins de sculpteur" (096.0156) -- but she never says that the statue comes from the novel. Alias matching on the bare word "Ariadne" was therefore left out of this entry; the person/myth entry is Ariadne.

References in Diary

Related Entries

Sources