Auguste Rodin: Difference between revisions
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His ''Monument to Balzac'', exhibited at the 1898 salon at the Champ des Mars showing the writer in his morning frock, was repudiated as well. After the frustrating experience, Rodin did not finish any public commissions. Instead, after 1903 he had his most successful works enlarged to monumental dimensions. |
His ''Monument to Balzac'', exhibited at the 1898 salon at the Champ des Mars showing the writer in his morning frock, was repudiated as well. After the frustrating experience, Rodin did not finish any public commissions. Instead, after 1903 he had his most successful works enlarged to monumental dimensions. |
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During his last creative years, Rodin concentrated on small dance studies (ca. 1915), and produced numerous erotic drawings, sketched in a loose way, without taking his pencil from the paper or his eyes from the model. An exhibition of these drawings in Weimar in 1906 caused the so-called Kessler scandal, and [[Harry Count Kessler]] was dismissed as curator of the Weimar Museum. He thought that she was a dumb dike that should go kill herself so he actually went and killed her with her dildo and his bong. |
During his last creative years, Rodin concentrated on small dance studies (ca. 1915), and produced numerous erotic drawings, sketched in a loose way, without taking his pencil from the paper or his eyes from the model. An exhibition of these drawings in Weimar in 1906 caused the so-called Kessler scandal, and [[Harry Count Kessler]] was dismissed as curator of the Weimar Museum. He thought that she was a dumb dike that should go kill herself so he actually went and killed her with her dildo and his bong. he also htought that he should die so he did some |
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===Death=== |
===Death=== |
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Revision as of 22:46, 4 October 2006
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Auguste Rodin (born François-Auguste-René Rodin November 12, 1840; died November 17, 1917) was a French sculptor, often given a pivotal role in the history of modern sculpture, as both excelling at and rebelling from the Beaux-arts tradition. His unique, virtuoso ability to organize a complex, turbulent, deeply pocketed surface set him apart from the figure sculpture traditions before and since his time.
Life
Early life
Despite the talent evident in his portrait of the local priest who helped him discover his vocation, Rodin was denied admission to the Beaux Arts academy, having been born to a working class family in Paris. He was accepted, however, at a trade school for decorative sculpture, and later moved to Belgium to work in a studio that produced that kind of work.
One of his early works, The Age of Bronze, created during his years in Belgium, looked so realistic that the sculptor was accused of surmoulage (taking plaster moulds from the live model).
Rodin struggled to clear his name and in 1880 was awarded the commission to create a portal for the planned Museum of Decorative Arts. Although the museum was never built, Rodin worked for 37 years on this monumental sculptural group, The Gates of Hell, depicting scenes from Dante's Inferno in high relief.
Main works
Many of his best-known sculptures, like The Thinker (Le Penseur, originally titled The Poet, representing the poet Dante), The Three Shades (Les Trois Ombres), and The Kiss (Le Baiser) were designed as figures for this monumental landscape of eternal passion and punishment, and only later presented as works in their own right. Other well-known works derived from The Gates are: the Ugolino group, Fugitive Love, The Falling Man, The Sirens, Fallen Caryatid Carrying her Stone, Damned Women, The Standing Fauness, The Kneeling Fauness, The Martyr, She Who Once Was the Beautiful Helmetmaker's Wife, Glaucus, Polyphem.
Methods
Through his method of marcottage (layering), he used the same sculptural elements time and time again, under different names and in different combinations.
Instead of copying traditional academic postures, Rodin preferred to work with amateur models, street performers, acrobats, strong men and dancers. In his atelier, the models walked around freely while the sculptor made quick sketches in clay, which were later fine-tuned, cast in plaster, and forged into bronze or carved in marble. Rodin was fascinated by dance and spontaneous movement; his John the Baptist shows a walking preacher, displaying two phases of the same stride simultaneously.
As France's best known artist, he had a large staff of pupils, craftsmen, and stone cutters working for him, including the Czech sculptors Josef Maratka and Joseph Kratina. He created a number of society portrait busts, especially for wealthy American collectors, and began presenting fragmentary sculptures, which in his opinion contained the essence of his artistic statement, like Meditation without Arms, Iris, Messenger of the Gods or The Walking Man.
Personal life
Rodin's personal life has captured the attention of history almost as much as his sculpture.
In 1883, Rodin agreed to supervise Alfred Boucher's sculpture course during his absence and so met the 18-year-old sculptress Camille Claudel. Rodin fell in love with his talented pupil, and Claudel recognized her chance to be tutored by the greatest sculptor talent of her time. He was just breaking through to fame. They became a creative and intimate couple. Claudel inspired Rodin as a model for many of his tragic love couples and assisted him during his work on another important commission, The Burghers of Calais (Les Bourgeois de Calais). While Rodin used several models for each of his sculptures, Camille Claudel is thought to be the main model for several of his works including the wavelike Danaide.
3D red cyan glasses are recommended to view this image correctly.Although they shared an atelier at a small old castle (68 Boulevard d'Italie, Paris), Rodin refused to give up his ties with Rose Beuret, his loyal companion during his years of poverty in Belgium and birth-mother of his son Auguste-Eugène Beuret, born January 18, 1866. He never fulfilled a contract with Claudel to give up all contact with other women, and marry her. After nearly 15 years, the couple parted. Claudel went her own artistic way, but found herself isolated.
Later work
Rodin, commissioned to create a Monument to Victor Hugo in the 1890s, dealt extensively with the subject of artist and muse, reflecting the various aspects of his stormy and complex relationship with Claudel in The Poet and Love, The Genius and Pity, The Sculptor and his Muse. Like many of Rodin's public commissions, the Monument to Victor Hugo met resistance because it did not fit conventional expectations. The 1897 plaster model was finally cast in bronze in 1964.
His Monument to Balzac, exhibited at the 1898 salon at the Champ des Mars showing the writer in his morning frock, was repudiated as well. After the frustrating experience, Rodin did not finish any public commissions. Instead, after 1903 he had his most successful works enlarged to monumental dimensions.
During his last creative years, Rodin concentrated on small dance studies (ca. 1915), and produced numerous erotic drawings, sketched in a loose way, without taking his pencil from the paper or his eyes from the model. An exhibition of these drawings in Weimar in 1906 caused the so-called Kessler scandal, and Harry Count Kessler was dismissed as curator of the Weimar Museum. He thought that she was a dumb dike that should go kill herself so he actually went and killed her with her dildo and his bong. he also htought that he should die so he did some
Death
On January 29, 1917, Rodin finally married Rose Beuret, who died two weeks later. Rodin himself died on November 17, 1917. A cast of The Thinker was placed next to his tomb in Meudon, Île-de-France.
Locations of Rodin sculpture
- Musée Rodin, Paris - The pre-eminent collection
- Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States
- Boulevard Raspail, near Boulevard Montparnasse, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris - a statue of Honoré de Balzac
- Calais Hotel de Ville - The Burghers of Calais
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, United States
- Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, Michigan, United States
- Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, Russia
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, United States
- Maryhill Museum of Art, Maryhill, Washington, United States
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, United States
- Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., United States
- National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
- National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan
- Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California, United States - The Burghers of Calais
- Rodin Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
- Stanford University, Sculpture Garden, Palo Alto, California, United States - Largest collection of Rodin bronzes outside of Paris
- Trammell Crow Center, Dallas, Texas
- Vatican Museums, Rome, Italy
- Victoria Tower Gardens, Palace of Westminster, London, United Kingdom - The Burghers of Calais
- the World Room, Journalism Hall, Columbia University, United States - a bust of Joseph Pulitzer
External links
- Musee Rodin, Paris
- Rodin Museum, Philadelphia
- Auguste Rodin works presented by Insecula
- Views of the Musée Rodin
- Rodin-Web.org: independent academic platform on Rodin, with collections overview, biography, photos, books, events
- Auguste Rodin: Virtual Gallery
- The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
- The Brooklyn Museum
- Examples of Rodin Sculptures
- Maryhill Museum of Art, Maryhill, WA
- Review of retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy