Francois Rude (1784 - 1855). François Rude was a French sculptor, best known for the Departure of the Volunteers, also known as Le Marseillaise on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. His work often expressed patriotic themes, as well as the transition from neo-classicism to romanticism. François Rude was born 4 January 1784 on rue Petite-Poissonnerie in Dijon. His father was a blacksmith and locksmith, who taught Rude the trade of forging iron, so he could take over the family business. In 1799, At the age of fifteen, despite his fathers resistance, he began taking courses at the School of Fine Arts in Dijon, located within the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy, while continuing to work in the family business. His teacher was the deputy curator of the Dijon museum, Louis Fremiet. Rude learned both drawing and sculpture, using classical models. Fremiet helped protect Rude from being drafted into Napoleon's army, and, in 1808, sent him to Paris to continue his studies. Rude began his studies at the Imperial Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in August 1808 under Pierre Cartellier, a devotee of classical sculpture. His fellow students included several sculptors who later became prominent, including David d'Angers, James Pradier and the celebrated animalist Antoine-Louis Barye. While studying, he gained practical experience as an assistant to Edme Gaulle, who was making part of the sculptural frieze of the column being made for Place Vendôme to celebrate the victories of Napoleon. In 1809 he competed in the Academy's prestigious annual competition, and took second place with the purely classical Marius meditating upon the ruins of Carthage. In 1812, he won two competitions, one for the most expressive bust, with a work called attention combined with fear; and a second, Aristotle deploring the loss of his bees. The latter work won the Grand Prize of the Academy, Prix de Rome, and the opportunity to study at the French Academy in Rome. Unfortunately for Rude, the Academy in Rome was having financial difficulties, and the departure of the winners was postponed. He was preparing again to depart for Rome in early 1815 when Napoleon returned from his exile in Elba and the war began again. After Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo and the second restoration of the French monarchy, Rude decided to go into self-imposed exile in Brussels. At the request of his teacher from Dijon, Louis Fremiet, he agreed to take with him to Brussels and look after Fremiet's mother-in-law, aunt, and two daughters, including Sophie, who in 1821 became Rude's wife. Rude lived in Brussels from 1817 until 1826. where he found many other self-imposed exiles, the most famous of whom was the painter Jacques-Louis David. Rude's wife, a painter, became David's pupil and then his copyist. In Brussels he made a bust of David, neoclassical in style, but realistically portraying the deformation of David's mouth caused by a nervous malady. in Brussels He received his first major commission; he was asked by the Belgian royal architect Charles Vander Straeten to design decorative relief sculptures for the hunting lodge of the Belgian crown prince at Tervuren. The work was a frieze of a around the rotunda of the Hall of Honor. The other artists selected to work on the frieze Sophie Fremiet, also a painter, who became Rude's wife. The friezes by Rude represented a classical hunting scene, The Hunt of Melanger for the entry portico and a series of eight reliefs for the rotunda, illustrating the life of Achilles. The work required representing dozens of figures, both in action scenes and scenes of pathos and drama. Rude based his work on the models of classical sculpture, but gave them exceptional naturalism and dynamism. The original work was destroyed by a fire in the lodge in 1879, but plaster copies made the from the original moldings and illustrations survive. Brussels did not offer enough opportunities or challenges, and in 1827 Rude returned to Paris with Sophie and entered a work in the Paris Salon. The work was shown only a short time before the Salon closed, and it attracted little attention, but it illustrated the evolution of his style. The statue, Mercury fastening his sandals after slaying Argus was neoclassical in theme, but showed a striking energy and realism. Rude decided to move permanently to Paris in 1828. He found a client in the French state, which commissioned him, along with several others sculptors, to work on a frieze for the Arc de Triomphe, He refined his technique and style. In 1833 he presented a new work, A young Neopolitan fisherman playing with tortoise a fusion of classicism and romanticism, vividly expressing emotion. This work won a cross of the Legion of Honor, sculpture.