Art@Site www.artatsite.com Paul Landowski Cristo Redentor Rio de Janeiro
Artist:

Paul Landowski

Title:

Cristo Redentor

Year:
1931
Adress:
Corcovado
Website:
www.wikipedia.org:
Christ the Redeemer (Portuguese: Cristo Redentor) is an Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, created by French sculptor Paul Landowski and built by Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with French engineer Albert Caquot. Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida fashioned the face. Constructed between 1922 and 1931, the statue is 30 metres (98 ft) high, excluding its 8-metre (26 ft) pedestal. The arms stretch 28 metres (92 ft) wide.
The statue weighs 635 metric tons (625 long, 700 short tons), and is located at the peak of the 700-metre (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro. A symbol of Christianity across the world, the statue has also become a cultural icon of both Rio de Janeiro and Brazil, and was voted as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone.
Vincentian priest Pedro Maria Boss first suggested placing a Christian monument on Mount Corcovado in the mid 1850s to honor Princess Isabel, regent of Brazil and the daughter of Emperor Pedro II, but the project was not approved. In 1889, the country became a republic, and due to the separation of church and state, the proposed statue was dismissed.
The Catholic Circle of Rio made a second proposal for a landmark statue on the mountain in 1920. The group organized an event called Semana do Monumento ("Monument Week") to attract donations and collect signatures to support the building of the statue. The organization was motivated by what they perceived as 'Godlessness' in the society. The donations came mostly from Brazilian Catholics. The designs considered for the "Statue of the Chris" included a representation of the Christian cross, a statue of Jesus with a globe in his hands, and a pedestal symbolizing the world. The statue of Christ the Redeemer with open arms, a symbol of peace, was chosen.

www.wikipedia.org:
Paul Maximilien Landowski (1 June 1875 '' 31 March 1961) was a French monument sculptor of Polish descent. His best-known work is Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Landowski was born in Paris, France of a Polish refugee father of the January Uprising, and a French mother Julie Vieuxtemps, daughter of Henri Vieuxtemps. He studied at the Académie Julian, before graduating from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, he won the Prix de Rome in 1900 with his statue of David, and went on to a fifty-five-year career. He produced over thirty five monuments in the city of Paris and twelve more in the surrounding area. Among those is the Art Deco figure of St. Genevieve on the 1928 Pont de la Tournelle. He also created Les Fantomes, the French Memoto the Second Battle of the Marne which stands upon the Butte de Chalmont in Northern France.
Landowski is widely known for the 1931 Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a collaboration with civil engineer Heitor da Silva Costa and architect and sculptor Gheorghe Leonida. Some sources indicate Landowski designed Christ's head and hands, but it was Leonida who created the head when asked by Landowski.
He won a gold medal at the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics for Sculpture, an event held from 1912 to 1952.[2] From 1933 through 1937 he was Director of the French Academy in Rome. He also served as an art''juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal, a grant given between 1919''1954 to young French painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers and musicians.
Landowski was the father of artists: painter Nadine Landowski (1908''1943), composer Marcel Landowski (1915''1999), and pianist and painter Françoise Landowski-Caillet (1917''2007)n Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb of Paris, where a museum dedicated to his work has over 100 works on display.

www.wikipedia.org:
Art Deco, sometimes referred to as Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture and design that first appeared in France just before World War I. Art Deco influenced the design of buildings, furniture, jewelry, fashion, cars, movie theatres, trains, ocean liners, and everyday objects such as radios and vacuum cleaners.[2] It took its name, short for Arts Décoratifs, from the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts) held in Paris in 1925.[3] It combined modern styles with fine craftsmanship and rich materials. During its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress.
From its outset, Art Deco was influenced by the bold geometric forms of Cubism and the Vienna Secession; the bright colors of Fauvism and of the llets Russes; the updated craftsmanship of the furniture of the eras of Louis Philippe I and Louis XVI; and the exotic styles of China and Japan, India, Persia, ancient Egypt and Maya art. It featured rare and expensive materials, such as ebony and ivory, and exquisite craftsmanship. The Chrysler Building and other skyscrapers of New York City built during the 1920s and 1930s are monuments of the Art Deco style.
In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, Art Deco became more subdued. New materials arrived, including chrome plating, stainless steel, and plastic. A sleeker form of the style, called Streamline Moderne, appeared in the 1930s; it featured curving forms and smooth, polished surfaces. Art Deco is one of the first truly international styles, but its dominance ended with the beginning of World War II and the rise of the strictly functional and unadorned styles of modern architecture and the International Style of architecture that followed.