/en/artist-detail/250059/jean-riviere
/en/artist-detail/250059/jean-riviere
Jean RIVIERE
Jean Rivière was a sculptor from Toulouse. The son of a carpenter, he spent his childhood in Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux before enrolling in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Toulouse around 1868, where he trained in sculpture. During his studies, he befriended Antoine Bourdelle, Jules Jacques Labatut, and Henri Martin who would later become the godfather of his daughter, painter Hélène Rivière (1896-1977). He taught ornemental sculpture from 1890 to 1922, and was a fervent advocate for the decorative arts.
His varied body of work includes religious sculptures for local churches, funerary monuments, and decorative reliefs for the Capitole in Toulouse and the Musée des Augustins. He regularly exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français beginning in 1882, and at the Salon de l'Union Artistique de Toulouse starting in 1885. His works can now be found in the Musée du Pays de Cocagne and the Musée du Vieux Toulouse.
Among his œuvre is a series of four medallions depicting Theodora in the likeness of Sarah Bernhardt, which he presented at the Toulouse Salon in 1891. The actress had been portraying the Byzantine empress in Victorien Sardou's eponymous play since 1884, thus popularising a strong fascination with Byzantine aesthetics among the public. Both the figures of Theodora and Sarah Bernhardt fueled fin-de-siècle fantasies about the femme fatale. By choosing this subject, Rivière fully engages with the aesthetic and cultural debates of his time through the expressive possibilities afforded by the revival of polychrome sculpture. Intended for wall decoration, these medallions were one of his specialities, as is evidenced by his portraits of Joan of Arc and Charles the Bold (1885).