In the footsteps of Jean-Antoine Injalbert
Born in Béziers on February 23, 1845, Jean-Antoine Injalbert spent his entire childhood there and then entered the Beaux-Arts in Paris. His sculptures are then steeped in Italian and French influences. A student of Auguste Dumont, his neo-baroque art earned him the Prix de Rome in 1874 for his work La Douleur d'Orphée. His creativity flourished, and his Bust of Marianne, executed in 1889 to celebrate the Centenary of the French Revolution, was to become the most common figure in French town halls and schools in the early 20th century. Although he worked in his Parisian studio, this native of the region liked to come to his studio in the Villa Antonine, his former summer residence in Béziers. Let's follow the itinerary proposed by the Béziers Méditerranée Tourist Office to understand the works that the sculptor offered to his city of Béziers. Like many artists of his time, Jean-Antoine Injalbert had a predilection for mythological subjects. Since Béziers built its wealth at the end of the 19th century thanks to the wine industry, it was only natural that the artist sculpted several Bacchante au biniou. His work on the Place des Bons Amis should have adorned the sculptor's garden in Paris. Another bacchante stands in the Hôtel Fayet. Several sketches of this work were made before the final sculpture, in marble, now on display at the Musée d'Orsay. On the Place de la Révolution stands the Monument to Casimir Péret and the victims of the coup d'état of December 2, 1851. Created on the initiative of Antoine Moulin, father of Jean Moulin, this monument recounts the deportation to Cayenne of the former mayor of Béziers and the republican insurrection against the coup d'état of Napoleon III. The town hall of Béziers is home to the Drunken Faun whose blissful face and staggering body reveal his condition! A work on the representation of the human body of which Injalbert, teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, masters all aspects. The Plateau des Poètes is the public garden in Béziers where artists come to seek inspiration. In 1901, Injalbert offered the city a marble bust of Maffre Ermengaud, a famous troubadour from Béziers. His desire was to create a campaign to decorate the garden with busts of famous personalities. Thus, in 1902, the busts of Jean Pons, Guillaume Viennet, Joseph Rosier and Victor Hugo joined that of the troubadour monk. Of all his works, the Fountain of the Titan is the most famous. Installed on the Plateau des Poètes, this monumental work of 17 meters high was inaugurated in 1893. Made of Carrara marble and bronze, it shows Atlas, in bronze, resting on a team of sea horses led by two playful children; the whole surmounts an artificial cave whose entrance is marked by an Atlantean and a caryatid. The city of Béziers called upon Jean-Antoine Injalbert in 1920 to create the monument to the city's dead. While the artist created eight such monuments in the south of France, the one in Béziers is the most complex, with a wealth of detail and emotion. Before his death, the artist decided to donate the funds from his Parisian studio to the city where he was born. In 1934, Louise Injalbert, the sculptor's widow, donated nearly 1,600 of his sculptures to Béziers.
The Old Cemetery
Opened in 1812, the Old Cemetery is laid out as a Mediterranean garden, with terraces planted with cypress trees. The establishment of this new cemetery outside the town was a result of Napoleon's decree of 1804 requiring towns and villages to carry out burials on land reserved for this purpose and at least 40 metres from any dwelling. The one we call today the "Père Lachaise of Berne" covers no less than 5 hectares. Historically, the opening of this place coincides with the golden age of wine growing and therefore the consequent enrichment of the population of Béziers. A detail that is of great importance when you cross the threshold of the cemetery. Wishing to mark their stay in the afterlife in the most luxurious of ways, the wealthy inhabitants of Béziers called on architects, contractors, artists and decorators to erect their graves with as much panache as they had put into the construction of their private mansions.
It is thus a true open-air museum that the alleys of the Old Cemetery offer us. The greatest artists of Berne have sculpted ornamental and symbolic works of art. We find the works of Jean-Antoine Injalbert (who himself sculpted his tomb), Jean-Marie Joseph Magrou, (Injalbert's pupil, his works can also be found in the park of the Villa Guy in Béziers), Louis Paul (former curator of the Béziers Museum of Fine Arts from 1905 to 1920), or those of Jacques Villeneuve (also a pupil of Injalbert). All of these remarkable tombs have been listed in a leaflet, available at the Béziers Méditerranée Tourist Office, to enable you to admire these works, while respecting the site.
Art from the 15th to the 21st century
The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Béziers presents an eclectic collection of paintings from the 15th to the 20th century, with works by Corot, Holbein and Olivier Debre. It also presents more than 500 drawings by Jean Moulin, as well as his private collection of modern works including Soutine, Chirico and Dufy. The Hôtel Fayet highlights a collection of 19th century paintings, from Romanticism to the more academic painters of the Third Republic, with works by Delacroix, Géricault and Cabanel. The contemporary art meets him in Sérignan where the regional museum of contemporary art exposes collections of the Sixties to our days. Paintings, drawings, photographs... focus on abstract art, conceptual art and narrative figuration. Let's also mention the work of the artist Daniel Buren, Rayonnant, which structures the urban space with its 170 stainless steel posts at the entrance of the city. A singular work, like the creations of Alain Fornells at the Museum of modest furniture Bassan. From diverted materials, the artist gives life, poetry and emotion to small furniture modestly charming.
