Outdoor Sculpture

Object/Work🔺

• Catalog Level:🔺 item (value type: controlled list)
• Type:🔺 outdoor sculpture (value type: authority)

Classification🔺

• Terms:🔺
  sculpture
  European Art (value type: controlled list)

Titles or Names🔺

• Text:🔺 L’Air (value type: free text)
  Preference: preferred (value type: controlled list)
  Language: French

• Text:🔺 Air
  Preference: alternate
  Type: published title

Creation🔺

• Creator Description:🔺 Aristide Maillol (French sculptor, painter, and tapestry designer, 1861-1944) (value type: free text)

• Identity:🔺 Maillol, Aristide (_value type: authority)
  Role:🔺
  sculptor
  designer

• Date Qualifier: design (value type: controlledl list)
  Creation Date:🔺 1938 (value type: free text)
  Earliest:🔺 1938 Latest:🔺 1938 (value type: controlled format)

• Date Qualifier: cast
  Creation Date:🔺 1962
  Earliest:🔺 1962 Latest:🔺 1962

• Creation Place/Original Location: Toulouse (Occitanie, France) (value type: free text and/or controlled format)

Measurements🔺

• Dimensions Description:🔺 object: 127 x 238.8 x 93.3 cm (50 x 94 x 36 3/4 in.), 687.1995 kg (1515 lb.); object base: 20 x 176.5 x 45.1 cm (7 7/8 x 69 1/2 x 17 3/4 in.) (value type: free text)

• Extent: object
  Value: 127 Unit: cm Type: height
  Value: 238.8 Unit: cm Type: width
  Value: 93.3 Unit: cm Type: diameter
  Value: 687.1995 Unit: kg Type: weight (value type: controlled format and controlled lists)

• Extent: base
  Value: 20 Unit: cm Type: height
  Value: 176.5 Unit: cm Type: width
  Value: 45.1 Unit: cm Type: diameter

Materials and Techniques🔺

• Description:🔺 Lead (value type: free text)

• Material Name: lead
  Technique Name: plaster casting (value type: authority)

Subject Matter🔺

• Indexing Terms:🔺
  nude
  human figure
  female
  gravity
  suspension
  flight
  immobility
  movement
  air
  commemoration
  l’Aéropostale (French aviation company, 1918-1933)
  nature (value type: authority)

Descriptive Note

• Text: This monumental nude seems to float in space. Although cast in lead, the smooth, grayish-blue surface actually enhances the form’s light, buoyant appearance. Resting on an imaginary center of gravity, she teeters between immobility and movement, suspension and flight. The nude’s face and figure are idealized–rather than a portrait of an individual, it is a personification of air. In 1938, the city of Toulouse in southern France commissioned Aristide Maillol to commemorate the pilots of the pioneering airmail service, l’Aéropostale, who had been killed in the line of duty. Air was cast from the plaster model for this monument. Its form was initially inspired by a small terra cotta sculpture Maillol had made several decades earlier depicting a reclining figure resting on wind-blown drapery. (value type: free text)

• Citation: J. Paul Getty Museum online (value type: authority)
  Page: accessed 30 July 2024 (value type: free text)

Current Location🔺

• Repository Name/Geographic Location:🔺 J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, California, United States) (value type: authority)
  Repository Numbers:🔺 2005.113.1 (value type: free text)

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NOTE: 🔺 indicates a core CDWA category.

Revised 30 July 2024
by Emily Benoff