A new sculpture, titled The Fourth Apple, from artist Franck Scurti, has been unveiled in Paris’s Place de Clichy, commemorating French philosopher and Utopian socialist Charles Fourier (1772-1837).
The Fourth Apple stands on the site of a previous statue of Fourier, which was toppled and melted down for bronze during the Nazi occupation of the city. The original pedestal is still intact, encased by glass walls, with the large chrome apple sitting on top.
The apple is in reference to Fourier’s symbolic apple. Using the fruit as an example of the problems inherent in capitalism, he pointed out that its price in Paris was over 100 times the cost to grow it.
Fourier made it the fourth in a series of symbolic apples throughout history, following the Biblical apple of temptation, the apple offered to Aphrodite by Paris, and lastly, the apple that fell upon Newton’s head.
Along with his communist ideals, Fourier was an early proponent of women’s rights, and is even credited with having created the term feminism in 1837.