Desire

Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol was a French sculptor, painter and printmaker born in Russillon. After living in poverty for many years he was finally enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1885. After years of study he opened a small workshop and started selling highly technical works that made him recognizable and famous in France. Late in his artistic career he started sculpting along with painting. The subject of almost all of his mature works is the female body. This high relief representing "the desire" is a great example of his classical body emphasis and stable forms associated with the human body.