Facing the Other: Charles Cordier Ethnographic Sculptor
by Meredith Bergmann
The work of French sculptor Charles Cordier (1827-1905) was inspired by the nascent science of anthropology. His celebration of a variety of skin colors, hair textures, and costumes led him to revive and embellish ancient techniques of polychrome sculpture. The results were considered outrageous by many nineteenth-century Parisians, and still have the power to raise questions of racism, sexism, imperialism, and bad taste. An exhibition of about sixty of these sculptures has been brought together with the cooperation of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, and the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York.
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