Jean and Pierre Charpentier, the Artist's Sons 1899 - 1903

Editor: Here we have Alexandre Charpentier’s metal relief, "Jean and Pierre Charpentier, the Artist's Sons," created between 1899 and 1903. The simple profile portraits of the children facing one another are touching, although slightly austere. What captures your imagination when you look at this, Professor? Curator: Oh, the bittersweet fragility of childhood, etched in metal! For me, it’s the artist, isn’t it? Imagining him studying those plump little cheeks, wanting to freeze that moment in time, that ephemeral stage when they were purely his, mirroring his own features. He sees eternity, fleetingly, and he's desperate to grasp it, don't you think? Editor: It does seem like a tender, familial attempt to capture the present! The formality is also interesting given it depicts family members; a way to immortalize them in the language of classical portraiture? Curator: Precisely! It's a lovely tension, that dance between the classical, that striving for immortality, and the deeply personal, that parental yearning to preserve the fleeting. It’s also in metal, such a hard and unyielding substance, for representing babies. Quite a contrast! Don't you find that affecting? Editor: I agree; this adds a layer of meaning! The piece manages to be at once sentimental and monumental, soft and industrial, even a little haunting. I will never see Art Nouveau in quite the same way. Curator: That’s wonderful! Maybe it means seeing the world in a completely new way; that’s the enduring legacy of any true artwork!