Admire the statues of Maillol on the sea front

The child of the country

Maillol marked his time

Aristide Maillol was born in 1861 in Banyuls. He began his career in painting and became interested in the decorative arts very early on: ceramics and tapestry before devoting himself to sculpture at the age of 40.

The year 1900 was a turning point in the artist’s work as Maillol invented a veritable repertoire of forms, prefiguring his future work.

The perfection of the forms of Leda impressed Rodin and Mirbeau, who acquired it in 1902, during an exhibition at the Vollard Gallery in Paris, which was a great success. In 1905 he made a triumph by exhibiting a plaster of the Mediterranean that André Gide described as follows: “It is beautiful, it means nothing, it is a silent work.

From then on, public and private commissions poured in, including the monument in homage to Auguste Blanqui, “l’Action enchainée”. This unprecedented conception of the public monument provoked a terrible scandal.

The greatest French sculptor

Inspired and inspiring

After the death of Rodin in 1917, to whom he was always opposed in terms of style, Maillol is considered the greatest living French sculptor.

Between the wars, he created four monuments to the dead: in Elne, Céret, Port-Vendres and Banyuls-sur-Mer. The problem of the female nude arises each time and Maillol sometimes covers the forms with a drape, thus reviving a tradition of statuary.

In the 1930s Maillol was famous, he embodied a renewal of sculpture and created the Monument to Debussy, with its exquisitely soft curves. During this period, when he was looking for new inspiration, he met Dina Vierny in 1934, a young girl who embodied his ideal in sculpture and who became his main model for ten years. At once muse, interlocutor and collaborator, she inspired his last monumental sculptures: The Mountain, in 1937, which completes the cycle begun at the beginning of the century, The Air, in 1938, a monument to the memory of the aviators of l’Aéropostale, and then The River, a female body tipped backwards, trying to resist the current that is inexorably dragging it along, and whose face expresses fear. This is the first representation in sculpture of a figure on her back, in unstable balance, a sort of allegory of the troubled times that were to come with the Second World War, during which Maillol retired to Banyuls-sur-Mer.

Maillol at Maillol’s house!

Banyuls native village of the internationally renowned artist is the perfect setting to admire his works!
During your walks outside, you can admire :
– The monument to the dead: The bronze replica on the Ile Grosse where the stone one used to be, which is now behind the town hall to protect it from sea spray.
– On the Allées Maillol : the young girl lying down
– On the rambla of the sea front: Île de France without arms, the Air, and the Action Enchainée.
– In the garden of the Town Hall: Sketch to Harmony, his last work.

Continue your walk

In the steps of Aristide

Circuit ” In the footsteps of Aristide “.

Discover the work of Aristide Maillol through a tour in the charming typical neighborhood of Cap d’Osna where the artist was born.

An immortal work

The artist died in 1944 following a car accident near his native village. He left a considerable body of work that can be admired in Paris, in the provinces and abroad. In the gardens of the Tuileries are exposed the eighteen sculptures offered under the aegis of André Malraux, in 1964, by Dina Vierny, who created a museum dedicated to the artist, inaugurated in 1995 by François Mitterrand.

Around...

Banyuls full of surprises!

Other must-sees

Banyuls, city of culture, but not only! Don’t pass by without taking a dip in the heart of the Mediterranean, visiting the biodiversarium or enjoying the view of the coastal path from Banyuls to Cerbère!

The Mediterranean garden

88849118 - petanque balls on the field with nobody.

Petanque in Banyuls

The Marine Reserve

I let myself be inspired