Artwork Information

Bourdelle worked as an assistant in Auguste Rodin’s

studio between 1890 and 1908. During this time

Bourdelle began his great series of busts and masks

of the composer Beethoven. He inscribed on one of

them: ‘My domain is the air, when the wind rises my

soul whirls.’ This is not intended as a portrait mask of

Beethoven, rather the wild hair is meant to suggest the composer’s inner torment and creative fervour, a symbol originally suggested in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia of 1593.