Sketching

I set out for the Louvre Tuesday only to discover that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. So much for plans. I ended up at the Place de Bastille—where on July 14, 1789 the storming of a medieval fortress and prison set off the French Revolution.

I went there to sketch the monument that now marks the spot. The July Column was created after the Revolution of 1830 and has at its top a sculpture by Augustin-Alexandre Dumont—the brother of composer Louise Farrenc, the uncle of my main character, Tori. Tori names her doll, Augi Dumont—after her uncle.

Augustin Dumont won the Prix du Rome in 1823 and spent the next seven years in Italy studying sculpture. I know he returned to Paris in 1830, but I'm not sure if he was there during the July Revolution. At the moment his presence in the book is only through the doll. As I research his life for the paper I'm writing, I find myself wanting him in the book.

Interestingly, there's more about Louise Farrenc's family in the short biographies I've found on her brother, than in the longer discourses on her life. She was Augustin's little sister. He was a fifth generation sculptor. Their father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great grandfather had all been successful sculptors. In fact, their father, Jacques-Edme Dumont won the Prix de Rome in 1788 and lived in Italy until 1793. He came back hoping to secure commissions from the Republic, but was not able to. I think his politics might have been too tied to the aristocracy—although he did carve a sculptured portrait of Napoleon's second wife, Marie Louise of Austria. All of this must have shaped Louise and Augustin. The Dumont family lived in the Louvre until Napoleon kicked the artists out around 1808. Jacques-Edme Dumont lived into the years my novel; he died in 1844. I've started thinking he too belongs in the book. In other words, Tori's extended family needs to be involved and on the page. It's not surprising, I suppose, that so far, I've found nothing about Tori's grandmother, Jacques-Edme Dumont's wife, not even her name.

Augustin Dumont sculpted The Genius (or Spirit) of Liberty, that sits atop the July Column. I just learned that there's a version of it at the Louvre—a bronze cast, I think. So, today, I going to the Louvre—I'm about to leave. I'm going there to sketch Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, but I'm going look for the sculpture too, and for ones by Augustin's father, grandfather and great-grandfather. They're all there.

My sense is that Augustin Dumont (and his father) walked in the same circle of artists that I've been drawing into book. Augustin went to the same school as Gericault and Delacroix. He won the same Prix de Rome that Berlioz won (it was offered across a number of disciplines). He was a male, moving more freely through society. I don't know how close he was to his sister or to his niece. Like his sister, he eventually became an instructor—at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts. At the very least, it's a fascinating family and it seems foolish to write about Louise and Tori without including the context of Louise's family. I believe it was an aunt that first interested Louise in music.

"Genius in Roman mythology is the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place or thing. It was extremely important to the Roman mind to propitiate the appropriate genii for the major undertakings and events of their lives.”