Utente:Cotton/Sandbox

Auguste Rodin fotografato da Nadar nel 1891

François-Auguste-René Rodin (Parigi, 12 novembre 1840 – Meudon, 17 novembre 1917) è stato uno scultore e pittore francese.

Sebbene Rodin sia universalmente considerato il progenitore della scultura moderna, l'artista non decise deliberatamente di ribellarsi contro lo stile precedente. Fece studi tradizionali, ebbe un approccio al suo lavoro umile e simile a quello di un artigiano e desiderò a lungo il riconoscimento da parte del mondo accademico, nonostante non sia mai stato accettato nelle più importanti scuole d'arte parigine.

Rodin ebbe una capacità unica di plasmare l'argilla creando superfici complesse, vigorose e profonde. Molte delle sue opere più famose alla sua epoca furono diffusamente criticate in quanto si scontravano con la tradizione scultorea figurativa dominante, secondo la quale le opere dovevano essere decorative, stereotipate o strettamente riferibile a tematiche conosciute. La grande originalità del lavoro di Rodin sta nell'essere partito dai temi mitologici e allegorici tradizionali per modellare le figure umane con realismo esaltando il carattere e la fisicità dell'individuo. Rodin fu consapevole delle polemiche che i suoi lavori suscitavano ma rifiutò di cambiare stile. Le opere successive finirono per incontrare maggiormente il favore sia del governo che della comunità artistica.

Partendo dall'innovativo realismo della sua prima grande scultura - ispirata da un viaggio in Italia che fece nel 1875 - fino ai monumenti in stile non convenzionale per i quali ottenne in seguito commissioni, la fama di Rodin crebbe sempre più e finì per diventare il più importante scultore francese della sua epoca. Con l'arrivo del XX secolo era ormai un artista apprezzato in tutto il mondo. Dopo la mostra che allestì all'Esposizione universale del 1900 facoltosi committenti si contesero le sue opere e Rodin frequentò molti artisti e intellettuali di alto profilo. In quello che sarebbe stato l'ultimo anno della vita di entrambi sposò la sua storica compagna Rose Beuret. Dopo la sua morte, sopraggiunta nel 1917, le sue sculture soffrirono un breve declino di popolarità ma in pochi decenni la sua reputazione e la sua eredità artistica tornarono a consolidarsi. Rodin rimane uno dei pochi scultori ampiamente noto e conosciuto anche al di fuori della ristretta cerchia della comunità artistica.

Biografia

Gli anni della formazione

La firma di Rodin su Il pensatore.

Rodin nacque nel 1840 in una famiglia della classe lavoratrice parigina, secondo figlio di Marie Cheffer e Jean-Baptiste Rodin, che lavorava come impiegato in un dipartimento di polizia. La sua istruzione fu in gran parte quella di un autodidatta, e iniziò a disegnare all'età di dieci anni. Tra i quattordici e i diciassette anni Rodin frequentò la Petite École, una scuola specializzata nelle arti e nella matematica, dove studiò disegno e pittura. Il suo insegnante di disegno, Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, si preoccupava soprattutto delle sviluppo della personalità degli studenti e faceva disegnare loro quello che avevano visto con i loro occhi attingendo poi alla memoria. Rodin per la maggior parte della sua vita non perse occasione per manifestare il suo apprezzamento per gli insegnamenti di de Boisbaudran. Fu alla Petite École che incontrò per la prima volta Jules Dalou e Alphonse Legros.

Nel 1857 Rodin presentò una statua d'argilla raffigurante un amico alla Grand École, tentando di venirvi ammesso; il tentativo non ebbe successo e così anche le due domande di ammissione successive. Dato che i requisiti per l'ammissione alla Grand École non erano particolarmente severi, i rifiuti per Rodin rappresentarono delle brutte sconfitte. La sua incapacità di ottenere l'ammissione potrebbe essere stata dovuta ai gusti neoclassici degli esaminatori mentre Rodin aveva studiato la scultura del XVIII secolo. Nel 1857, dopo aver lasciato la Petite École, Rodin si mise a guadagnarsi da vivere lavorando come artigiano decoratore, lavoro che svolse per la maggior parte dei due decenni successivi, producendo oggetti decorativi e elementi architettonici ornamentali.

La sorella Maria, maggiore di due anni, morì in un convento di peritonite nel 1862. Rodin ne soffrì molto in quanto si sentiva in colpa per averla presentata a un corteggiatore infedele. Abbandonata l'arte per un breve periodo si unì a un ordine religioso cattolico, la Congregazione del Santissimo Sacramento; San Pierre-Julien Eymard, fondatore e capo della congregazione, riconobbe il talento di Rodin e, resosi conto inoltre che non era in realtà adatto per restare nell'ordine, lo incoraggiò a continuare a dedicarsi alla scultura.

Tornò quindi a lavorare come decoratore, prendendo al contempo lezioni dallo scultore specializzato in figure di animali Antoine-Louis Barye. L'attenzione per i dettagli del maestro - degne di nota le sue muscolature di animali in movimento finemente riprodotte - influenzarono Rodin in modo significativo.

Nel 1864 Rodin iniziò a convivere con una giovane cucitrice, Rose Beuret, con la quale sarebbe rimasto - con alcune interruzioni - per il resto della vita. La coppia mise al mondo un figlio, Auguste-Eugène Beuret (1866–1934). In quell'anno l'artista presentò la sua prima scultura a una mostra ed entrò a far parte dello studio di Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, un produttore di oggetti d'arte su larga scala di successo. Rodin lavorò come primo assistente di Carrier-Belleuse fino al 1870, progettando decorazioni per soffitti e scalinate e abbellimenti per portoni. Con lo scoppio della guerra franco-prussiana Rodin fu chiamato a prestare servizio nella Guardia nazionale ma la ferma fu breve a causa della sua miopia. A causa della guerra le opportunità di lavoro come decoratore diventarono scarse, ma Rodin dovette comunque provvedere alla sua famiglia; la miseria rappresentò un problema continuo fino a che raggiunse circa i trent'anni. Carrier-Belleuse presto gli chiese di raggiungerlo in Belgio, dove avrebbero potuto lavorare decorando la borsa di Bruxelles.

Rodin pensava di stare in Belgio per pochi mesi, ma finì per restare all'estero sei anni; per la sua vita questo rappresentò un periodo fondamentale. Aveva fino ad allora acquisito grandi abilità ed esperienza come artigiano, ma nessuno aveva ancora potuto vedere la sua arte, confinata nel suo laboratorio dal momento che non poteva sostenere il costo delle colate. Nonostante i suoi rapporti con Carrier-Belleuse si fossero deteriorati Rodin a Bruxelles trovò altri lavori riuscendo ad esporre alcune opere; la sua compagna Rose presto lo raggiunse nella città belga. Essendo riuscito a risparmiare abbastanza soldi per permettersi di viaggiare Rodine nel 1875 visitò per due mesi l'Italia, dove fu attratto dalle opere di Donatello e Michelangelo che ebbero un profondo effetto sulla sua traiettoria artistica. Disse in seguito "E' stato Michelangelo a liberarmi dalla scultura accademica." Tornato in Belgio iniziò a lavorare a L'età del bronzo, una figura maschile a grandezza naturale il cui realismo attirò l'attenzione su Rodin, ma che gli attirò l'accusa di non aver davvero scolpito ma di aver fatto un calco di un modello vivo.

Rodin nel 1893

L'indipendenza artistica

Rodin e Rose Beuret tornarono a Parigi nel 1877, trasferendosi in un appartamentino sulla Rive gauche. Una volta rientrato però Rodin fu bersagliato da disgrazie: sua madre, che avrebbe voluto vedere il figlio sposato, era morta e il padre era ormai vecchio e cieco e affidato alle cure della cognata di Rodin, Zia Thérèse. Anche Auguste, il figlio undicenne e probabilmente affetto da un ritardo nello sviluppo, era affidato alle cure della servizievole Thérèse. Rodin praticamente aveva abbandonato suo figlio per sei anni, e da allora in poi ebbe con lui un rapporto molto limitato. Il padre e il figlio andarono a vivere con la coppia nel loro appartamento e prendersi cura di loro diventò compito di Rose. Le accuse di "falso" riguardo L'Età del Bronzo continuavano. Rodin a Parigi iniziò a cercare sempre più di frequente altre rassicuranti compagnie femminili e Rose venne messa in disparte.

Rodin si guadagnava da vivere collaborando con scultori più affermati alla realizzazioni di commissioni pubbliche, principalmente monumenti alla memoria e strutture architettoniche neobarocche nello stile di Carpeaux. In concorsi per ottenere commissioni presentò ritratti scultorei di Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau e Lazare Carnot, ma senza successo. Nel tempo libero lavorava a degli studi che l'avrebbero poi portato alla realizzazione della sua successiva opera di rilievo, San Giovanni Battista.

Nel 1880, Carrier-Belleuse - diventato nel frattempo direttore artistico della fabbrica nazionale di porcellana di Sèvres - offrì a Rodin un impiego a tempo parziale come designer. L'offerta voleva essere in parte un gesto di riconciliazione tra i due e Rodin accettò. In quel periodo Rodin apprezzava abbastanza il gusto del XVIII secolo, così lo scultore si dedicò a alla progettazione di vasi e soprammobili che contribuirono a far diventare la fabbrica famosa in tutta Europa. La comunità artistica apprezzò questo suo tipo di lavoro e Rodin fu invitato a varie edizioni del Salon di Parigi da amici come o scrittore Léon Cladel. Nelle sue prime apparizioni a quel tipo di eventi sociali Rodin sembrò piuttosto timido; negli anni successivi invece, quando la sua fama era cresciuta, mise in mostra la loquacità e il temperamento per i quali è più conosciuto. Lo statista francese Léon Gambetta espresse il desiderio di incontrarlo e, quando si videro al Salon lo scultore lo colpì molto favorevolmente. Gambetta ne parlò a diversi ministri, tra i quali il sottosegretario del ministero delle belle arti Edmund Turquet, che infine incontrò a sua volta Rodin.

Camille Claudel (1864–1943)

Il contatto con Turquet si rivelò fruttuoso: grazie a lui Rodin nel 1880 vinse una commissione per creare il portale di un museo di dedicato alle arti decorative che si intendeva allestire. Rodin dedicò buona parte dei successivi quarant'anni alla sua minuziosa Porta dell'Inferno, che rimase incompiuta perché alla fine il museo non fu mai costruito. Molte delle figure presenti sul portale diventarono delle sculture singole, tra cui la più celebre dell'artista, Il pensatore, e Il bacio. Insieme alla commissione per il portale gli fu assegnato gratuitamente uno studio, che gli garantì un nuovo livello di indipendenza artistica. Presto smise di lavorare per la fabbrica di porcellana riuscendo a mantenersi grazie a commissioni da parte di privati.

Nel 1883 Rodin accettò di tenere un corso per conto dello scultore Alfred Boucher che doveva assentarsi; al corso incontrò la diciottenne Camille Claudel. I due intrecciarono una relazione appassionata ma tempestosa, che finì per influenzarli entrambi sotto il profilo artistico. La Claudel fu di ispirazione per Rodin come modella per molte delle sue opere, ma era a sua volta una scultrice di talento, e lo aiutò nella realizzazione delle commissioni.

Nonostante fosse già occupato con la Porta dell'Inferno Rodin vinse altri incarichi pubblici.

He pursued an opportunity to create a historical monument for the town of Calais. For a monument to French author Honoré de Balzac, Rodin was chosen in 1891. His execution of both sculptures clashed with traditional tastes, and met with varying degrees of disapproval from the organizations that sponsored the commissions. Still, Rodin was gaining support from diverse sources that propelled him toward fame.

In 1889, the Paris Salon invited Rodin to be a judge on its artistic jury. Though Rodin's career was on the rise, Claudel and Beuret were becoming increasingly impatient with Rodin's "double life". Claudel and Rodin shared an atelier at a small old castle, but Rodin refused to relinquish his ties to Beuret, his loyal companion during the lean years, and mother of his son. During one absence, Rodin wrote to Beuret, "I think of how much you must have loved me to put up with my caprices…I remain, in all tenderness, your Rodin." Claudel and Rodin parted in 1898. Claudel suffered a nervous breakdown several years later and was confined to an institution by her family until her death.

Works

In 1864, Rodin submitted his first sculpture for exhibition, The Man with the Broken Nose, to the Paris Salon. The subject was an elderly neighbourhood street porter. The unconventional bronze piece was not a traditional bust, but instead the head was "broken off" at the neck, the nose was flattened and crooked, and the back of the head was absent, having fallen off the clay model in an accident. The work emphasized texture and the emotional state of the subject; it illustrated the "unfinishedness" that would characterize many of Rodin's later sculptures. The Salon rejected the piece.

The Age of Bronze (1877)

Early figures: the inspiration of Italy

In Brussels, Rodin created his first full-scale work, The Age of Bronze, having returned from Italy. Modelled by a Belgian soldier, the figure drew inspiration from Michelangelo's Dying Slave, which Rodin had observed at the Louvre. Attempting to combine Michelangelo's mastery of the human form with his own sense of human nature, Rodin studied his model from all angles, at rest and in motion; he mounted a ladder for additional perspective, and made clay models, which he studied by candlelight. The result was a life-size, well-proportioned nude figure, posed unconventionally with his right hand atop his head, and his left arm held out at his side, forearm parallel to the body.

In 1877, the work debuted in Brussels and then was shown at the Paris Salon. The statue's apparent lack of a theme was troubling to critics—commemorating neither mythology nor a noble historical event — and it is not clear whether Rodin intended a theme. He first titled the work The Vanquished, in which form the left hand held a spear, but he removed the spear because it obstructed the torso from certain angles. After two more intermediary titles, Rodin settled on The Age of Bronze, suggesting the Bronze Age, and in Rodin's words, "man arising from nature". Later, however, Rodin said that he had had in mind "just a simple piece of sculpture without reference to subject".

Its mastery of form, light, and shadow made the work look so realistic that Rodin was accused of surmoulage — having taken a cast from a living model. Rodin vigorously denied the charges, writing to newspapers and having photographs taken of the model to prove how the sculpture differed. He demanded an inquiry and was eventually exonerated by a committee of sculptors. Leaving aside the false charges, the piece polarized critics. It had barely won acceptance for display at the Paris Salon, and criticism likened it to "a statue of a sleepwalker" and called it "an astonishingly accurate copy of a low type". Others rallied to defend the piece and Rodin's integrity. The government minister Turquet admired the piece, and The Age of Bronze was purchased by the state for 2,200 francs — what it had cost Rodin to have it cast in bronze.

St. John the Baptist Preaching (1878)

A second male nude, St. John the Baptist Preaching, was completed in 1878. Rodin sought to avoid another charge of surmoulage by making the statue larger than life: St. John stands almost 6' 7"'' (2 m). While The Age of Bronze is statically posed, St. John gestures and seems to move toward the viewer. The effect of walking is achieved despite the figure having both feet firmly on the ground — a physical impossibility, and a technical achievement that was lost on most contemporary critics. Rodin chose this contradictory position to, in his words, "display simultaneously…views of an object which in fact can be seen only successively". Despite the title, St. John the Baptist Preaching did not have an obviously religious theme. The model, an Italian peasant who presented himself at Rodin's studio, possessed an idiosyncratic sense of movement that Rodin felt compelled to capture. Rodin thought of John the Baptist, and carried that association into the title of the work. In 1880, Rodin submitted the sculpture to the Paris Salon. Critics were still mostly dismissive of his work, but the piece finished third in the Salon's sculpture category.

Regardless of the immediate receptions of St. John and The Age of Bronze, Rodin had achieved a new degree of fame. Students sought him at his studio, praising his work and scorning the charges of surmoulage. The artistic community knew his name.

The Gates of Hell

The Gates of Hell (unfinished), Musée Rodin

A commission to create a portal for Paris' planned Museum of Decorative Arts was awarded to Rodin in 1880. Although the museum was never built, Rodin worked throughout his life on The Gates of Hell, a monumental sculptural group depicting scenes from Dante's Inferno in high relief. Often lacking a clear conception of his major works, Rodin compensated with hard work and a striving for perfection. He conceived The Gates with the surmoulage controversy still in mind: "…I had made the St. John to refute [the charges of casting from a model], but it only partially succeeded. To prove completely that I could model from life as well as other sculptors, I determined…to make the sculpture on the door of figures smaller than life." Laws of composition gave way to the Gates' disordered and untamed depiction of Hell. The figures and groups in this, Rodin's meditation on the condition of man, are physically and morally isolated in their torment.

The Gates of Hell comprised 186 figures in its final form. Many of Rodin's best-known sculptures started as designs of figures for this composition, such as The Thinker, The Three Shades, and The Kiss, and were only later presented as separate and independent works. Other well-known works derived from The Gates are Ugolino, Fugit Amor, The Falling Man, and The Prodigal Son.

The Thinker (originally titled The Poet, after Dante) was to become one of the most well-known sculptures in the world. The original was a 27,5 pollici (700 mm)-high bronze piece created between 1879 and 1889, designed for the Gates' lintel, from which the figure would gaze down upon Hell. While The Thinker most obviously characterizes Dante, aspects of the Biblical Adam, the mythological Prometheus, and Rodin himself have been ascribed to him. Other observers de-emphasize the apparent intellectual theme of The Thinker, stressing the figure's rough physicality and the emotional tension emanating from it.

The Burghers of Calais (1884–ca. 1889) in Victoria Tower Gardens, London, England

The Burghers of Calais

The town of Calais had contemplated an historical monument for decades when Rodin learned of the project. He pursued the commission, interested in the medieval motif and patriotic theme. The mayor of Calais was tempted to hire Rodin on the spot upon visiting his studio, and soon the memorial was approved, with Rodin as its architect. It would commemorate the six townspeople of Calais who offered their lives to save their fellow citizens. During the Hundred Years' War, the army of King Edward III besieged Calais, and Edward ordered that the town's population be killed en masse. He agreed to spare them if six of the principal citizens would come to him prepared to die, bareheaded and barefooted and with ropes around their necks. When they came, he ordered that they be executed, but pardoned them when his queen, Philippa of Hainault, begged him to spare their lives. The Burghers of Calais depicts the men as they are leaving for the king's camp, carrying keys to the town's gates and citadel.

Rodin began the project in 1884, inspired by the chronicles of the siege by Jean Froissart. Though the town envisioned an allegorical, heroic piece centered on Eustache de Saint-Pierre, the eldest of the six men, Rodin conceived the sculpture as a study in the varied and complex emotions under which all six men were laboring. One year into the commission, the Calais committee was not impressed with Rodin's progress. Rodin indicated his willingness to end the project rather than change his design to meet the committee's conservative expectations, but Calais said to continue.

Monument to Hugo at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

In 1889, The Burghers of Calais was first displayed to general acclaim. It is a bronze sculpture weighing two tons (1,814 kg), and its figures are 6.6 ft (2 m) tall. The six men portrayed do not display a united, heroic front; rather, each is isolated from his brothers, individually deliberating and struggling with his expected fate. Rodin soon proposed that the monument's high pedestal be eliminated, wanting to move the sculpture to ground level so that viewers could "penetrate to the heart of the subject". At ground level, the figures' positions lead the viewer around the work, and subtly suggest their common movement forward. The committee was incensed by the untraditional proposal, but Rodin would not yield. In 1895, Calais succeeded in having Burghers displayed in their preferred form: the work was placed in front of a public garden on a high platform, surrounded by a cast-iron railing. Rodin had wanted it located near the town hall, where it would engage the public. Only after damage during the First World War, subsequent storage, and Rodin's death was the sculpture displayed as he had intended. It is one of Rodin's best-known and most acclaimed works.

Commissions and controversy

Auguste Rodin in mid-career.

Rodin observing work on the monument to Victor Hugo at the studio of his assistant Henri Lebossé in 1896

Commissioned to create a monument to French writer Victor Hugo in 1889, Rodin dealt extensively with the subject of artist and muse. Like many of Rodin's public commissions, Monument to Victor Hugo was met with resistance because it did not fit conventional expectations. Commenting on Rodin's monument to Victor Hugo, The Times in 1909 expressed that "there is some show of reason in the complaint that [Rodin's] conceptions are sometimes unsuited to his medium, and that in such cases they overstrain his vast technical powers". The 1897 plaster model was not cast in bronze until 1964.

Monument to Balzac (1891–1898)

The Société des Gens des Lettres, a Parisian organization of writers, planned a monument to French novelist Honoré de Balzac immediately after his death in 1850. The society commissioned Rodin to create the memorial in 1891, and Rodin spent years developing the concept for his sculpture. Challenged in finding an appropriate representation of Balzac given the author's rotund physique, Rodin produced many studies: portraits, full-length figures in the nude, wearing a frock coat, or in a robe—a replica of which Rodin had requested. The realized sculpture displays Balzac cloaked in the drapery, looking forcefully into the distance with deeply gouged features. Rodin's intent had been to show Balzac at the moment of conceiving a work — to express courage, labor, and struggle.

When Balzac was exhibited in 1898, the negative reaction was not surprising. The Société rejected the work, and the press ran parodies. Criticizing the work, Morey (1918) reflected, "there may come a time, and doubtless will come a time, when it will not seem outre to represent a great novelist as a huge comic mask crowning a bathrobe, but even at the present day this statue impresses one as slang." A modern critic, indeed, indicates that Balzac is one of Rodin's masterpieces. The monument had its supporters in Rodin's day; a manifesto defending him was signed by Monet, Debussy, and future Premier Georges Clemenceau, among many others.

Rather than try to convince skeptics of the merit of the monument, Rodin repaid the Société his commission and moved the figure to his garden. After this experience, Rodin did not complete another public commission. Only in 1939 was Monument to Balzac cast in bronze.

Other works

The Shade, High Museum of Art, Atlanta

The popularity of Rodin's most famous sculptures tends to obscure his total creative output. A prolific artist, he created thousands of busts, figures, and sculptural fragments over more than five decades. He painted in oils (especially in his thirties) and in watercolors. The Musée Rodin holds 7,000 of his drawings and prints, in chalk and charcoal, and thirteen vigorous drypoints. He also produced a single lithograph.

Portraiture was an important component of Rodin's oeuvre, helping him to win acceptance and financial independence. His first sculpture was a bust of his father in 1860, and he produced at least 56 portraits between 1877 and his death in 1917. Early subjects included fellow sculptor Jules Dalou (1883) and companion Camille Claudel (1884). Later, with his reputation established, Rodin made busts of prominent contemporaries such as English politician George Wyndham (1905), Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1906), Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1909), former Argentinian president Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and French statesman Georges Clemenceau (1911).

Aesthetic

A famous "fragment": The Walking Man

Rodin was a naturalist, less concerned with monumental expression than with character and emotion. Departing with centuries of tradition, he turned away from the idealism of the Greeks, and the decorative beauty of the Baroque and neo-Baroque movements. His sculpture emphasized the individual and the concreteness of flesh, and suggested emotion through detailed, textured surfaces, and the interplay of light and shadow. To a greater degree than his contemporaries, Rodin believed that an individual's character was revealed by his physical features.

Rodin's talent for surface modeling allowed him to let every part of the body speak for the whole. The male's passion in The Kiss is suggested by the grip of his toes on the rock, the rigidness of his back, and the differentiation of his hands. Speaking of The Thinker, Rodin illuminated his aesthetic: "What makes my Thinker think is that he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back, and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes."

Sculptural fragments to Rodin were autonomous works, and he considered them the essence of his artistic statement. His fragments—perhaps lacking arms, legs, or a head—took sculpture further from its traditional role of portraying likenesses, and into a realm where forms existed for their own sake. Notable examples are The Walking Man, Meditation without Arms, and Iris, Messenger of the Gods.

Rodin saw suffering and conflict as hallmarks of modern art. "Nothing, really, is more moving than the maddened beast, dying from unfulfilled desire and asking in vain for grace to quell its passion." Charles Baudelaire echoed those themes, and was among Rodin's favorite poets. Rodin enjoyed music, especially the opera composer Gluck, and wrote a book about French cathedrals. He owned a work by the as-yet-unrecognized Van Gogh, and admired the forgotten El Greco.

Method

A plaster of The Age of Bronze

Instead of copying traditional academic postures, Rodin preferred his models to move naturally around his studio (despite their nakedness). The sculptor often made quick sketches in clay that were later fine-tuned, cast in plaster, and forged into bronze or carved in marble. Rodin's focus was on the handling of clay. George Bernard Shaw sat for a portrait and gave an idea of Rodin's technique: "While he worked, he achieved a number of miracles. At the end of the first fifteen minutes, after having given a simple idea of the human form to the block of clay, he produced by the action of his thumb a bust so living that I would have taken it away with me to relieve the sculptor of any further work." He described the evolution of his bust over a month, passing through "all the stages of art's evolution": first, a "Byzantine masterpiece", then "Bernini intermingled", then an elegant Houdon. "The hand of Rodin worked not as the hand of a sculptor works, but as the work of Elan Vital. The Hand of God is his own hand."

After he completed his work in clay, he employed highly-skilled assistants to re-sculpt his compositions at larger sizes (including any of his large-scale monuments such as the Thinker), to cast the clay compositions into plaster or bronze, and to carve his marbles. Rodin's major innovation was to capitalize on such multi-staged processes of nineteenth century sculpture and their reliance on plaster casting. Since clay deteriorates rapidly if not kept wet or fired into a terra-cotta, sculptors used plaster casts as a means of securing the composition they would make out of the fugitive material that is clay. This was common practice amongst Rodin's contemporaries, and sculptors would exhibit plaster casts with the hopes that they would be commissioned to have the works made in a more permanent material. Rodin, however, would have multiple plasters made and treat them as the raw material of sculpture, recombining their parts and figures into new compositions, and new names. As Rodin's practice developed into the 1890s, he became more and more radical in his pursuit of fragmentation, the combination of figures at different scales, and the making of new compositions from his earlier work. A prime example of this is the bold Walking Man (1899–1900), which was exhibited as his major one-person show in 1900. This is composed of two sculptures from the 1870s that Rodin found in his studio — a broken and damaged torso that had fallen into neglect and the lower extremities of a statuette version of his 1878 St. John the Baptist Preaching he was having re-sculpted at a reduced scale. Without finessing the join between upper and lower, between torso and legs, Rodin created a work that many sculptors at the time and subsequently have seen as one of his strongest and most singular works. This is despite the fact that the object conveys two different styles, exhibits two different attitudes toward finish, and lacks any attempt to hide the arbitrary fusion of these two components. It was the freedom and creativity with which Rodin used these practices — along with his activation surfaces of sculptures through traces of his own touch and with his more open attitude toward bodily pose, sensual subject matter, and non-realistic surface — that marked Rodin's re-making of traditional 19th century sculptural techniques into the prototype for modern sculpture.

Later years

A portrait of Rodin by his friend Alphonse Legros

By 1900, Rodin's artistic reputation was entrenched. Gaining exposure from a pavilion of his artwork set up near the 1900 World's Fair (Exposition Universelle) in Paris, he received requests to make busts of prominent people internationally, while his assistants at the atelier produced duplicates of his works. His income from portrait commissions alone totalled probably 200,000 francs a year. As Rodin's fame grew, he attracted many followers, including the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and authors Octave Mirbeau, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Oscar Wilde. Rilke stayed with Rodin in 1905 and 1906, and did administrative work for him; he would later write a laudatory monograph on the sculptor. Rodin and Beuret's modest country estate in Meudon, purchased in 1897, was a host to such visitors as King Edward, dancer Isadora Duncan, and harpsichordist Wanda Landowska. Rodin moved to the city in 1908, renting the main floor of the Hôtel Biron, an 18th-century townhouse. He left Beuret in Meudon, and began an affair with the American-born Duchesse de Choiseul.

Rodin and America

While Rodin was beginning to be accepted in France by the time of The Burghers of Calais, he had not yet conquered the American market and because of his technique and the frankness of some of his work, he did not have an easy time selling his work to American industrialists. Fortunately, he came to know Sarah Tyson Hallowell (1846–1924), a curator from Chicago who visited Paris to arrange exhibitions at the large Interstate Expositions of the 1870s and 1880s. Hallowell was not only a curator but an adviser and a facilitator who was trusted by a number of prominent American collectors to suggest works for their collections, the most prominent of these being the Chicago hotelier Potter Palmer and his wife, Bertha Palmer (1849–1918). The next opportunity for Rodin in America was the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Hallowell wanted to help promote Rodin's work and he suggested a solo exhibition, which she wrote him was beaucoup moins beau que l'original but impossible, outside the rules. Instead, she suggested he send a number of works for her loan exhibition of French art from American collections and she told him she would list them as being part of an American collection. Rodin sent Hallowell three works, Cupid and Psyche, Sphinx and Andromeda. All nudes, these works provoked great controversy and were ultimately hidden behind a drape with special permission given for viewers to see them. Fortunately, Bust of Dalou and Burgher of Calais were on display in the official French pavilion at the fair and so between the works that were on display and those that were not, he was noticed. However, the works he gave Hallowell to sell found no takers, but she soon brought the controversial Quaker-born financier Charles Yerkes (1837–1905) into the fold and he purchased two large marbles for his Chicago manse; Yerkes was likely the first American to own a Rodin sculpture. Other collectors soon followed including the tastemaking Potter Palmers of Chicago and Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924) of Boston, all arranged by Sarah Hallowell. In appreciation for her efforts at unlocking the American market, Rodin eventually presented Hallowell with a bronze, a marble and a terra cotta. When Hallowell moved to Paris in 1893, she and Rodin continued their warm friendship and correspondence, which lasted to the end of the sculptor's life. After Hallowell's death, her niece, the painter Harriet Hallowell, inherited the Rodin's and after her death, the American heirs could not manage to match their value in order to export them, so they became the property of the French state.

Great Britain

After the turn of the century, Rodin was a regular visitor to Great Britain, where he developed a loyal following by the beginning of the First World War. He first visited England in 1881, where his friend, the artist Alphonse Legros, had introduced him to the poet William Ernest Henley. With his personal connections and enthusiasm for Rodin's art, Henley was most responsible for Rodin's reception in Britain. (Rodin later returned the favor by sculpting a bust of Henley that was used as the frontispiece to Henley's collected works and, after his death, on his monument in London. Through Henley, Rodin met Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Browning, in whom he found further support. Encouraged by the enthusiasm of British artists, students, and high society for his art, Rodin donated a significant selection of his works to the nation in 1914.

Rodin in 1914

After the revitalization of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1890, Rodin served as the body's vice-president. In 1903, Rodin was elected president of the International Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers. He replaced its former president, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, upon Whistler's death. His election to the prestigious position was largely due to the efforts of Albert Ludovici, father of English philosopher Anthony Ludovici.

During his later creative years, Rodin's work turned increasingly toward the female form, and themes of more overt masculinity and femininity. He concentrated on small dance studies, and produced numerous erotic drawings, sketched in a loose way, without taking his pencil from the paper or his eyes from the model. Rodin met American dancer Isadora Duncan in 1900, attempted to seduce her, and the next year sketched studies of her and her students. In July 1906, Rodin was also enchanted by dancers from the Royal Ballet of Cambodia, and produced some of his most famous drawings from the experience.

Fifty-three years into their relationship, Rodin married Rose Beuret. The wedding was 29 January 1917, and Beuret died two weeks later, on 16 February. Rodin was ill that year; in January, he suffered weakness from influenza, and on 16 November his physician announced that "congestion of the lungs has caused great weakness. The patient's condition is grave." Rodin died the next day, age 77, at his villa in Meudon, Île-de-France, on the outskirts of Paris. A cast of The Thinker was placed next to his tomb in Meudon; it was Rodin's wish that the figure serve as his headstone and epitaph. In 1923, Marcell Tirel, Rodin's secretary, published a book alleging that Rodin's death was largely due to cold, and the fact that he had no heat at Meudon. Rodin requested permission to stay in the Hotel Biron, a museum of his works, but the director of the museum refused to let him stay there.

Legacy

The grounds of Musée Rodin

Rodin willed to the French state his studio and the right to make casts from his plasters. Because he encouraged the edition of his sculpted work, Rodin's sculptures are represented in many public and private collections. The Musée Rodin was founded in 1916 and opened in 1919 at the Hôtel Biron, where Rodin had lived, and it holds the largest Rodin collection, with more than 6,000 sculptures and 7,000 works on paper. The relative ease of making reproductions has also encouraged many forgeries: a survey of expert opinion placed Rodin in the top ten most-faked artists. Rodin fought against forgeries of his works as early as 1901, and since his death, many cases of organized, large-scale forgeries have been revealed. A massive forgery was discovered by French authorities in the early 1990s and led to the conviction of art dealer Guy Hain.

To deal with the complexity of bronze reproduction, France has promulgated several laws since 1956 which limit reproduction to twelve casts—the maximum number that can be made from an artist's plasters and still be considered his work. As a result of this limit, The Burghers of Calais, for example, is found in fourteen cities.

The Thinker (1879–1889) is among the most recognized works in all of sculpture.

In the market for sculpture, plagued by fakes, the value of a piece increases significantly when its provenance can be established. A Rodin work with a verified history sold for US$4.8 million in 1999, and Rodin's bronze Eve, grand modele—version sans rocher sold for $18.9 million at a 2008 Christie's auction in New York. Art critics concerned about authenticity have argued that taking a cast does not equal reproducing a Rodin sculpture—especially given the importance of surface treatment in Rodin's work.

During his lifetime, Rodin was compared to Michelangelo, and was widely recognized as the greatest artist of the era. In the three decades following his death, his popularity waned with changing aesthetic values. Since the 1950s, Rodin's reputation has re-ascended; he is recognized as the most important sculptor of the modern era, and has been the subject of much scholarly work. The sense of incompletion offered by some of his sculpture, such as The Walking Man, influenced the increasingly abstract sculptural forms of the 20th century. Though highly honoured for his artistic accomplishments, Rodin did not spawn a significant, lasting school of followers. His notable students included Antoine Bourdelle, Charles Despiau, the American Malvina Hoffman, and his mistress Camille Claudel, whose sculpture received praise in France. The French order Légion d'honneur made him a Commander, and he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford.

Rodin restored an ancient role of sculpture—to capture the physical and intellectual force of the human subject—and he freed sculpture from the repetition of traditional patterns, providing the foundation for greater experimentation in the 20th century. His popularity is ascribed to his emotion-laden representations of ordinary men and women—to his ability to find the beauty and pathos in the human animal. His most popular works, such as The Kiss and The Thinker, are widely used outside the fine arts as symbols of human emotion and character.

References

• Ruth Butler, Hidden in the Shadow of the Master: The Model Wives of Cézanne, Monet, and Rodin, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2008, ISBN 0-300-12624-7.
• Ruth Butler, Rodin: The Shape of Genius, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-300-06498-5.
• Ruth Butler, Rodin: Rodin in Perspective, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1965.
• Rainer and Siegfried Salzmann, eds. Crone, Rodin: Eros and Creativity, Munich, Prestel, 1992, ISBN 3-7913-1809-8.
• Albert E. Elsen, Rodin's Art: The Rodin Collection of the Iris & Gerald B. Cantor Center for the Visual Arts, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-19-513381-1.
• Albert E. Elsen, The Gates of Hell, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1985, ISBN 0-8047-1273-5.
• Albert E., ed. Elsen, Rodin Rediscovered, Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1981, ISBN 0-89468-000-5.
• Albert E. Elsen, Rodin, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1963.
• David Getsy, Rodin: Sex and the Making of Modern Sculpture, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2010, ISBN 0-300-16725-3.
• Catherine Lampert, Rodin: Sculpture and Drawings, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1986, ISBN 0-7287-0504-4.
• Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Paris, Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2007.
• Auguste Rodin, Art: Conversations with Paul Gsell, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984, ISBN 0-520-05887-9.
• Royal Academy of Arts, Rodin, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 2006.

External links

Altri progetti

• Wikimedia Commons

• Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o altri file su Cotton/Sandbox
• Musée Rodin, Paris
• Rodin Museum, Philadelphia
• Rodin Collection, Stanford University
• A 26min film about Auguste Rodin and the Gates of Hell
• Auguste Rodin Biography, Style and Artworks
• Views of the Musée Rodin
• Rodin-Web.org: Academic site on Rodin
• Rodin: Academic View Points
• Auguste Rodin: Timeline of Art History Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Rodin at the Victoria and Albert Museum
• Gilles Perrault Website of the Art Expert at the Supreme Court of France in charge of the Guy Hain case, who analysed more than 580 works of Auguste Rodin – Art Analysis Laboratory
• 2009 Exhibition of Rodin as a Portraitist. HD images on this blog: ZoomArt.fr
• Museo Soumaya Located in Mexico City, this museum holds a large collection of Rodin's artwork
• Correspondence with Walter Butterworth held at the University of Salford

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