REALISTIC SCULPTURE.
In sculpture, the spiritual brother of Gustave Courbet, the creator of the Stonecutters, was a Belgian, CONSTANTINE MEUNIER (1831—1905). Like many sculptors of this era, Meunier could not forget the great and still living examples of classical sculpture, of her statues full of dignity and peace. But Meunier's heroes are not ancient gods or heroes, nor are they "the mighty of this world.", but workers - miners and steelworkers of the Belgian coal and industrial basins, depicted in a simple and proud posture at the same time, with tools in hand or in heavy work, everyday heroic toil, in which their simplicity is revealed to the fullest, effortless dignity. The desire to extract maximum expressive power from these statues forces Meunier to reject the classical softness of modeling. It works strong, categorical chisel cuts, revives the surface, skips everything, what is superfluous, which could destroy the simplicity and directness of the statue's impact on the viewer. Meunier's sculpture presents realism in its most perfect form. The creative idea of the Belgian sculptor will live for a long time. Its echoes will be heard in realistic, dignified statues of workers and peasants.