LÉON-ERNEST DRIVIER (Grenoble, 1878 - Paris 1951). "Le Deluge" (The Lovers). Bronze, copy 1/8.

LÉON-ERNEST DRIVIER (Grenoble, 1878 - Paris 1951).
"Le Deluge (The Lovers).
Bronze, copy 1/8.
Signed and justified.
Exhibitions: "European sculpture of the 20th century", European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM), Barcelona, 2014.
Measurements: 64 cm.
In this sculpture we see a work with a clear Romantic heritage, which poetically combines the intensity of love with the anatomy of the bodies. She raises her arms above her head, while he embraces her with devotion, kneeling on the ground. It is a scene of great drama, capable of moving the viewer.
An illustrator and sculptor, Léon-Ernest Drivier entered the École des Beaux-Arts on a scholarship. His teacher there was Louis-Ernest Barrias. From 1907 he worked in Auguste Rodin's studio. He was friends with the sculptors Auguste de Niederhausern, Gaston Schnegg, Jane Poupelet and Antoine Bourdelle, among others, with whom he formed "la Bande à Schnegg", who reacted to Rodin's unfinished and sfumato works with a more classical and synthetic style. His first period was akin to neo-Romanticism, and then he moved towards the neoclassicism of Charles Despiau. He was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1943.