Update on Too Many Statues?

I would like to apologize for my cursory research on my earlier post about Westminster's decree banning more statues in their bailiwick. I have been researching for the book and find that what they face there is certainly precendented! It seems that Paris (no suprise) faced the same problem in the late 19th century.

The problem was that too many important men demanded too many important tributes, so bronze suits crowded the city streets and parks within an inch of their lives. Paris, it seems, was suffocating.

Although Victor Hugo wrote "War on the Demolishers" in 1832, by 1867 the Academy dubbed Hausmann, the ultimate urban renewal king, the "artiste demolisseur" (artist of demolition). The consensus was that they wanted a wide open city rather than an outdoor municipal museum.

Although he did his best (or worst) to effect the clearances, by 1879, the papers whined about "La Statuemanie" and the fact that there was hardly a space in the city free of the bronze and marble masters that would outlive them all. (Is that what really bothered them???) And even Degas complained, "One puts iron wire around the lawns of public gardens to prevent sculptors from depositing their works therein..."

More as events develop...