The Bust of Claude Monet

  Giverny, my village, 40 years of life.
(Daniel Goupil, sculptor, décember 2004).

I’ve always tried to gather Givernois to share and maintain an essential friendship with the harmony of the village.
The presence of Claude Monet among us is very natural.
The artist is a famous Givernois and its life is also related to the intimacy of the village whose fame has become a reality.

I am very concerned by the fact that you accept this sculpture, result of many years of projects and I am very honoured that it is placed at the heart of the village, to which I remain very attached.

This sculpture crowns 25 years of work during which I carried out many different portraits of the painter.
During all this period, my first concern was not to arrive to a formal resemblance, but rather, a manner of translating a multitude of feelings which I was to control progressively, to approach closer to the inaccessible truth of the presence of the painter.

I wanted to represent a mature man in full possession of his art, at the apogee of his talent. Its beard, by its width and its form, symbolizes at the same time the force and the fluid undulatory moving stream present in its work.
This fluidity takes us along towards the vibrations of its face which underline the questioning of its glance sheltered and protected by the neutral mass from its hat.

  Daniel Goupil, born in March 11th, 1931.

After taking courses of the School Boulle, Faidherbe, the Academies Froment,
Grande Chaumière, and courses of the School of the Louvre

Its professors, mainly H. Dieupart and R. Heim give to him a total support in its
thirst to learn its course is sanctioned by a diploma of end d`Etudes
as well as a silver medal given to the Sorbonne by the Prefect Roger Verlomme.

Some exhiitions :
50 years of dialogue, matters and sculptures with Evreux.
Exhibition of the French Artists.
Aspect of the contemporary Grand-Couronnes sculpture.
Guest of honor of the Exhibition of Spring in Coulommiers

Works acquired by group SINGER :
In the center of the World.
Radiance.
The wire of Arianne.

Monumental works.
Memorial “ The liberators of the town of Vernon Monument of the French memory“.
Bust of Nicolas Poussin to the Museum of Andelys.

  Cast iron of the bust.

"To attend the birth of a work of foundry cause an intense emotion, made apparently revealing of a mystery whereas it acts, and that only imports, of this form of genius which conceals, in the event, the hand of the craftsman. (Jean de Bengy. "the adventure of fire and metal")

The collaboration of the sculptor with the founder is essential. The founder must as well as possible respect the work of the artist who will intervene with each stage, of the control of wax to polishing and the patina. The sculptor created his model out of plaster and the founder perpetuate the work in metal. Confidence, collaboration necessary between the various protagonists led Daniel Goupil to choose the Foundry of Coubertin, one of the workshops of control of the Foundation of Coubertin.

The foundation was born from the meeting of Jean Bernard (renovating of the Companions of France) and of Yvonne de Coubertin (heiress of the property).

One of their objectives is to allow a conservation of the techniques and savoir-faire while continuing a research on technical innovation. At the Foundry of Coubertin, the sculptor finds experts with his listening, able to develop with him a reflexion on the realization of his work and the quality of the finished. The Foundry of Coubertin(...) corresponds perfectly to the vocation of the Foundation of Coubertin, place of meeting of the hand and the spirit, the sculptor while being a perfect symbiosis.

  Sculpture - Creation.

To sculpt the bust of Claude Monet, "Sculpture Ronde-Bosse", Daniel Goupil used the plaster like material.

The preparation was done in two stages :

  preparation of volume by
modelling sculpture itself .

Dimensions of the sculpture :

• height : 0,96 cm
• diameter of the hat : 0,90 m
• weight : 150 to 200 kg

The sculpture is a means of expression which allows the man, amateur or professional, to concretize through volume, the relief and space .