Le génie du mal (; or The Genius of Evil or The Spirit of Evil), known informally in English as Lucifer or The Lucifer of Liège"Le génie du mal" could also be translated as Evil Genius or Evil Spirit. French génie in this sense can overlap in meaning with its English cognate "genie". Geefs may have had in mind the Kantian conception of genius, which influenced Romanticism in the 19th century. is a religious sculpture executed in white marble and installed in 1848 by the Belgian artist Guillaume Geefs. Francophone art historians often refer to the figure as an ange déchu, a "fallen angel".
The sculpture is located in the elaborate pulpit of St. Paul's Cathedral, Liège, and depicts a classically beautiful man chained, seated, and nearly nude but for drapery gathered over his thighs, his full length ensconced within a mandorla of bat wings. Geefs' work replaces an earlier sculpture created for the space by his younger brother Joseph Geefs, L'ange du mal, which was removed from the cathedral because of its distracting allure and "unhealthy beauty".In French, beauté malsaine: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Le génie du mal by Joseph Geefs, Fabritius online catalogue description.
Two spirits, one site
Le génie du mal is set within an open niche formed at the base of twin ornate staircases carved with gothic floral motifs.The sculpture may be viewed in its architectural setting online, and at an angle showing the stained glass windows also online. The view with stained glass windows is preserved also at the WebCite archive. The curved railing of the semi-spiral stairs reiterates the arc of the wings, which are retracted and cup the body. The versions by Guillaume and Joseph are strikingly similar at first glance and appear inspired by the same human model. For each, the fallen angel sits on a rock, sheltered by his folded wings; his upper torso, arms, and legs are nude, his center-parted hair nape-length. The veined, membranous wings are articulated like a bat's, with a prominent thumb claw; the knobby, sinewy olecranon combines bat and human anatomy to create an illusion of realism.Soo Yang Geuzaine et Alexia Creusen, "Guillaume Geefs: Le Génie du Mal (1848) à la cathédrale Saint-Paul de Liège," Vers la modernité. Le XIXe siècle au Pays de Liège, online catalogue of an exhibition presented by the University of Liège from 5 October 2001 to 20 January 2002. A broken sceptre and stripped-off crown are held at the right hip. A tear runs from the angel's left eye. The white-marble sculptures occupy approximately the same dimensions, delimited by the space; Guillaume's measures 165 by 77 by 65 cm, or nearly five-and-a-half feet in height, with Joseph's only slightly larger at 168.5 by 86 by 65.5 cm.Michael Palmer et al., 500 chefs-d'oeuvre de l'art belge du XVe siècle à nos jours (Éditions Racine, n.d.), p. 203 [ online.]
The commission
In 1837, Guillaume Geefs was put in charge of designing the elaborate pulpit for St. Paul's, the theme of which was "the Triumph of Religion over the Genius of Evil". Geefs had come to prominence creating monumental and public sculptures in honor of political figures, expressing and capitalizing on the nationalist spirit that followed Belgian independence in 1830. Techniques of realism coupled with Neoclassical restraint discipline any tendency toward Romantic heroism in these works, but Romanticism was to express itself more strongly in the Lucifer project.Geuzaine and Creusen, Vers la modernité; Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, 19th-century sculpture collection online introduction.
From the outset, sculpture was an integral part of Geefs' pulpit design, which featured representations of the saints Peter, Paul, Hubert the first Bishop of Liège, and Lambert of Maastricht. A drawing of the pulpit by the Belgian illustrator Médard Tytgat, published in 1900, shows the front; Le génie du mal would be located at the base of the stairs on the opposite side, but the book in which the illustration appears omits mention of the work.Illustration by Médard Tytgat in Eloi Bartholeyns, Guillaume Geefs: sa vie et ses œuvres (Brussels: Schaerbeek, 1900), pp. 105 and 112.
The commission was originally awarded to Geefs' younger brother Joseph, who completed L'ange du mal in 1842 and installed it the following year. It generated controversy at once and was criticized for not representing a Christian ideal.Ne rendant pas l'idée chrétienne: quoted by Vicky Chris, TrekLens. The cathedral administration declared that "this devil is too sublime.""Ce diable-là est trop sublime": originally quoted in L'Émancipation, 4 August 1844, as cited by Jacques Van Lennep, La Sculpture belge au xixe siècle, exposition organisée à Bruxelles du 5 octobre au 15 décembre 1990, La Générale de banque, Bruxelles (Exhibition catalogue, 1990); Geuzaine and Creusen, Vers la modernité. The local press intimated that the work was distracting the "pretty penitent girls" who should have been listening to the sermons.Edmond Marchal, "Étude sur la vie et les œuvres de Joseph-Charles Geefs," Annuaire de l'Académie Royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique (Brussels, 1888), p. 316. Bishop van Bommel soon ordered the removal of L'ange du mal, and the building committee passed the commission for the pulpit sculpture to Guillaume Geefs, whose version was installed at the cathedral permanently in 1848.Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Fabritius catalogue , from Francisca Vandepitte, Le Romantisme en Belgique. Entre réalités, rêves et souvenirs (exposition): Bruxelles, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; Espace Culturel ING; Musée Antoine Wiertz, 18.03–31.07.2005 (Brussels, 2005), p. 109.
Reception Joseph exhibited his sculpture at Antwerp in 1843, along with four other works: a sculpture group called The Dream, and the individual statues St. Philomena, Faithful Love, and The Fisherman's Orphan.Marchal, Annuaire p. 315. Known both as L'ange du mal (Angel of Evil) and Le génie du mal, the controversial piece was later received into the collections of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, where it has remained as of 2009.Joseph's work is often referred to as L'ange du mal, but its formal title according to the Royal Museums' online 19th-century sculpture catalogue remains Le génie du mal. The common title L'ange du mal is used in this article to distinguish Joseph's sculpture from that of Guillaume.
Joseph's work was admired at the highest levels of society. Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, ordered a marble replica as early as 1842.As of 2009, this copy remains in the collections of the Goethe Goethe-Nationalmuseum, Weimar. The deracinated original was purchased for 3,000 florins by William II, King of the Netherlands, and was dispersed with the rest of his collection in 1850 following his death. In 1854, the artist sold a plaster cast of the statue to Baron Bernard August von Lindenau,Royal Museums, Fabritius description; Edmond Marchal, La sculpture et les chefs-d'œuvre de l'orfèvrerie belges (Brussels, 1895), p. 684 online; Michael Palmer et al., 500 chefs-d'oeuvre de l'art belge du XVe siècle à nos jours (Éditions Racine, n.d.), p. 203 online. the German statesman, astronomer, and art collector for whom the Lindenau-Museum Altenburg is named. The success of the work elevated Joseph Geefs to the top tier of sculptors in his day."Une légtimate admiration accueillit cette œuvre. Le plus grand succès répondit à l'attente de l'artiste et plaça celui-ci au premier rang des statuaires de ce temps": Marchal, Annuaire p. 315.
L'ange du mal is among six statues featured in a painting by , The Sculpture Hall of the Brussels Museum (Salle de sculpture du Musée de Bruxelles, 1882), along with Love and Malice by another of the six Geefs sculptor-brothers, Jean.Françoise Roberts-Jones-Popelier, Chronique d'un musée: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles (Pierre Mardaga, 1987), p. 31 online, with the painting reproduced on p. 32. Love and Malice by Jean Geefs may be viewed online. It was not uniformly admired even as a work of art. When it appeared in an 1862 international exhibition, the reviewer criticized Geefs' work as "gentle and languid" and lacking in "muscle", "a devil sick... : the sting of Satan is taken out."J. Beavington Atkinson, "Modern Sculpture of All Nations in the Exhibition," The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue of the International Exhibition 1862 p. 318.
'This devil is too sublime'
Other than the vespertilionid wings, the fallen angel of Joseph GeefsIn Dutch and German sources, the artist's name may appear as Jozef Geefs. takes a completely human form, made manifest by its artistic near-nudity. A languid scarf skims the groin, the hips are bared, and the open thighs form an avenue that leads to shadow.For better angles on the compositional treatment of the drapery in relation to the groin, see 500 chefs and detail. More information available on the photo detail. The serpentine curve of waist and hip is given compositional play in relation to the wing-arcs. The torso is fit but youthful; smooth and graceful, almost androgynous. The angel's expression has been described as "serious, somber, even fierce,"500 chefs-d'oeuvre de l'art belge p. 203. The angel's facial expression may not be apparent in the photograph that illustrates this article; view another angle. and the cast-down gaze directs the viewer's eye along the body and thighs to the parted knees. The most obvious satanic element in addition to the wings is the snake uncoiling across the base of the rock. L'ange du mal has been called "one of the most disturbing works of its time."Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, 19th-century sculpture collection online introduction.
Joseph's sculptures are "striking for their perfect finish and grace, their elegant and even poetic line," but while exhibiting these qualities in abundance, L'ange du mal is exceptional within the artist's body of work for its subject matter:500 chefs-d'oeuvre de l'art belge p. 203.
As a sort of "winged Adonis",Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Fabritius Le génie du mal. the fallen angel can be seen as developing from Geefs' early nude Adonis allant à la chasse avec son chien (Adonis Goes Hunting with His Hound).Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Fabritius Adonis allant à la chasse. The composition of L'ange du mal has been compared to that of Jean-Jacques Feuchère's small bronze Satan (1833), with Geefs' angel notably "less diabolic".Didier Rykner, review of the exhibition "Le romantisme en Belgique. Entre réalités, rêves et souvenirs," 18 March–31 July 2005 at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, and Espace Culturel ING, La Tribune de l'Art, 13 April 2005 online. Feuchère's Satan exists in multiple copies. The 1833 original of Satan held by the Louvre is not on public display, but may be viewed online. As of 30 April 2009, an 1836 version was on public display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; it may be viewed among the museum's online collections. For the version at the Royal Museum in Brussels, search Feuchère in the museum's database. The humanizing of Lucifer through nudity is characteristic also of the Italian sculptor Costantino Corti's colossal work, executed a few years after the Geefs' versions. Corti depicts his Lucifer as frontally nude, though shielded discreetly by the pinnacle of rock he straddles, and framed with the feathered wings of his angel origin.See article on Costantino Corti for an engraving of Lucifer.
Chained genius
In contrast to Joseph's work, Guillaume's génie shows less flesh and is marked more strongly by satanic iconography as neither human nor angelic. Whether Guillaume succeeded in removing the "seductive" elements may be a matter of individual perception.