Rude's Awakening: the Sculptural Revolution of François Rude Hardcover – March 23, 2026

A true story of the Romantic Revolution.A sensitive and silent soul born into the turmoil of the French Revolution, François Rude defies his working-class origins to excel as a student of sculpture, winning top honors at the world’s most prestigious art school in Paris. Achieving victory demanded that Rude deny his natural impulses and submit to the cold official style of the Empire; but Napoleon’s exile after the battle of Waterloo cast Rude’s future into chaos.In this moment of profound upheaval, Rude throws away his future as a Prix de Rome winner to follow his unrequited love, a talented painter and the daughter of a wanted Bonapartist, into an exile of his own making.With little to lose, he struggles in obscurity to reinvent his art; it's just the beginning of the arduous transformation into the man and artist Rude was meant to be - and along the way, he will change sculpture forever.Rude's Awakening is an historically accurate novel set in the world of nineteenth century sculpture, told by a sculptor and art historian in a unique position to tell it. Jason Arkles' sculptural training descends from the revolutionary methods François Rude inaugurated, six generations ago.With Illustrations by Gabrielle Loturco. Read more