There mark what Ills the Scholar's Life
assail
Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret and the
Jail.
See Nations slowly wise and meanly
just,
To buried Merit raise the tardy Bust.
From Samuel Johnson's 'The Vanity of
Human Wishes'
There's a statue in Bordeaux's Jardin
Public that commemorates the life of Alexis Millardet (1838-1902). On
the dais teeters a naked young woman proffering a bunch of grapes.
The grapes are dangled because Millardet was a professor who
specialized in viticulture in the University of Bordeaux's science
faculty. Along with Ulysse Gayon (1845-1929), the oenological
chemist, he developed the anti-mildew 'Bordeaux Mixture' that's so
widely used today.
The monument was erected in
1914. The original bust was in bronze and was the work of Gaston
Leroux (1854-1942). It was melted down during the German occupation.
Photograph taken by W.R.
Fisher in 1936
The stone replacement bust was carved
by Alexis Callède in 1953. I don't know who made the young woman. I
presume she is naked because she's a muse, or a nymph, or a maniac,
although I like to think of her as an absent-minded lab assistant.
Despite the interesting alternatives it's most probable she's a muse,
or a nymph, as the prof is wearing a toga or some such so as to place
the work in a lofty, classical setting and thus render it anodyne
viewing for families strolling in the park. Unfortunately it doesn't
make it anodyne viewing for me.
It's the layers of artifice I find
disturbing. Of course the whole thing is artifice, ceci n'est pas
une lab assistant and so forth, but it's not just that, it's
doubly that. It's not a sculpture of Millardet, it's a
sculpture of a bust of Millardet, I know this because he (i.e.
the sculpture of the bust of Millardet) is not acknowledging the
kind, or possibly disingenuous, offer of grapes, in fact it would be
very weird if he did so as he has no hands to receive them, no
stomach to digest them and, incidentally, no loins to be stirred by
the bunch’s bearer. Or perhaps he's staring stoically ahead
precisely because he has none of these attributes. Or perhaps
he's ignoring her because she is a lab assistant and he, as her
superior in the work place, doesn't want to be accused of exploiting
his supposed droit du seigneur. Not that he could anyway.
Or maybe he's looking away in a fit of
pique because the focal point of the ensemble is clearly not his
head, but the eye-level haunches of his callipygous minion.
'Callipygous'; it has the affected air
of a Victorian nonce word, the hard 'g' seems out of place in a term
for 'fair-buttocked'. 'Fair-buttocked' sounds even worse. The
contemporary 'bootylicious' is so much better, it evokes fun and
desire; pity I can't bring myself to say it, I'd sound ridiculous if
I did, pervy even. I can say 'callipygous', I can hide behind its
mock learning, but with 'bootylicious' I'd be all too easily
understood.
