RODIN, Auguste

Rodin was deeply impressed by the work of Michelangelo and drew on the Sistine Chapel frescoes as a direct source of inspiration. In Adam, which shows the first man being roused to life, Rodin combined elements from the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel and from the Christ of Michelangelo’s Pietà in the Duomo in Florence.

Adam was modeled originally in 1880, and for a time Rodin intended to incorporate the figure into the design for The Gates of Hell, which was never constructed.

Rodin was deeply impressed by the work of Michelangelo and drew on the Sistine Chapel frescoes as a direct source of inspiration. In Adam, which shows the first man being roused to life, Rodin combined elements from the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel and from the Christ of Michelangelo’s Pietà in the Duomo in Florence.

Adam was modeled originally in 1880, and for a time Rodin intended to incorporate the figure into the design for The Gates of Hell, which was never constructed.

Rodin was deeply impressed by the work of Michelangelo and drew on the Sistine Chapel frescoes as a direct source of inspiration. In Adam, which shows the first man being roused to life, Rodin combined elements from the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel and from the Christ of Michelangelo’s Pietà in the Duomo in Florence.

Adam was modeled originally in 1880, and for a time Rodin intended to incorporate the figure into the design for The Gates of Hell, which was never constructed.

Adam is one of a series of powerful male nudes that established Rodin as a major sculptor in the 1870s and early 1880s. Of these, Adam offers the clearest homage to Michelangelo, whose marbles and Sistine ceiling frescoes, Rodin had passionately admired and studied in Italy before he returned home in 1876. Adam’s extended right forefinger alludes to the awakening gesture in Michelangelo’s painted Creation scene.

This statue is the monument in memory of the French novelist Honor� Balzac (1799-1850). The work was commissioned in 1891 by the Soci�t� des Gens de Lettres, a full size plaster model was displayed in 1898 at a Salon in Champ de Mars. After coming under criticism, the model was rejected by the soci�t� and Rodin moved it to his home in Meudon. In 1939 (22 years after the sculptor’s death) the model was cast in bronze for the first time and placed on the Boulevard du Montparnasse in Paris.

In the 1880s, Rodin had begun removing parts of the bodies of his statues to give more meaning to the rest; in portraying Balzac, he concealed the entire body. The figure has no arms, even; only the head emerges from the top of his menhir symbolizing creation. This is the starting point of twentieth-century sculpture. Indeed, it was because it was so far ahead of his time that the monument was rejected by the Societies.

This bust was executed for the competition for the bust of The Republic.

�tienne Cl�mentel (1864-1936) was a powerful minister of trade, industry, post and telegraph, who skillfully intervened on several occasions to bring the negotiations regarding the creation of Rodin’s museum to a conclusion.

When Rodin began The Gates of Hell, he was conscious of combining two arts, sculpture and architecture. It was Rodin’s taste for architecture that also led him to give the title of The Cathedral to one of his famous works. Employing his assemblage technique to join two identical right hands, Rodin thus composed a surprising allegory of the Gothic arch, one with extraordinary symbolic power.

Rodin originally modelled this despairing figure from Greek mythology, condemned to eternally carry water from a leaking jug, for The Gates of Hell, but he did not include it in the final version.

Rodin originally modelled this despairing figure from Greek mythology, condemned to eternally carry water from a leaking jug, for The Gates of Hell, but he did not include it in the final version.

The female body was Rodin’s main source of inspiration. Some of his works projected a sensuality sometimes bordering on eroticism, as does the group called Eternal Idol, a clear allegory of Rodin’s abiding admiration for female genitalia.

As part of the Gates of Hell, Rodin also intended to include a depiction of lovers condemned to eternal torments. This idea became the basis for many of his sculptures devoted to passion. The combination it proposed - of pleasure and torment, instantaneous ecstasy and eternity - proved exceptionally in tune with his striving to show a moment of swift movement and a paroxysm of emotion.

This statue is a pendant to Adam. The two figures, originally probably intended to be part of The Gates of Hell, later became larger than life-sized independent compositions. Both figures tuck their heads into their shoulders; in Eve’s case her remorse is evident, as she hides behind her arms.

A few of the many compositions included in The Gates of Hell evolved into the masterpieces that still symbolize Rodin’s genius today. These are The Thinker, The Kiss, and Ugolino. In addition to these major works, a few other figures populating The Gates of Hell deserve mention, such as the centaurs, mythological creatures that became demons, and who were charged with guarding and torturing looters, tyrants, and murderers. Rodin also produced human figures that would in turn take on an independent life: one man was transformed into a free-standing figure known as The Falling Man, who was then combined with The Crouching Woman to become I Am Beautiful, while his enlarged torso would become Marsyas. The group titled Fugit Amor would be elaborated in several versions, the man becoming, on his own, The Prodigal Son.

Alone, at the foot of the right pilaster, is the solitary image of a bearded old man, The Creator, Rodin’s self-portrait that could be considered the artist’s signature, like medieval masters he has included himself in his work.

A few of the many compositions included in The Gates of Hell evolved into the masterpieces that still symbolize Rodin’s genius today. These are The Thinker, The Kiss, and Ugolino. In addition to these major works, a few other figures populating The Gates of Hell deserve mention, such as the centaurs, mythological creatures that became demons, and who were charged with guarding and torturing looters, tyrants, and murderers. Rodin also produced human figures that would in turn take on an independent life: one man was transformed into a free-standing figure known as The Falling Man, who was then combined with The Crouching Woman to become I Am Beautiful, while his enlarged torso would become Marsyas. The group titled Fugit Amor would be elaborated in several versions, the man becoming, on his own, The Prodigal Son.

Alone, at the foot of the right pilaster, is the solitary image of a bearded old man, The Creator, Rodin’s self-portrait that could be considered the artist’s signature, like medieval masters he has included himself in his work.

This small bronze group, which is also known as “The race into the abyss,’ is dedicated to the one particular subject that featured time and again in Rodin’s work: man’s constant desire for love, and the transience of the same. The fleeing love, shown here in the form of a woman, escapes the embrace of the man stretching behind her by writhing away from him like a snake; he is using every shred of his strength to hold her back.

This sculpture was often reproduced, and appeared in different sizes and materials throughout Rodin’s career.

The marble relief of Galatea from Greek mythology is an example of the Mediterranean beauty ideal.

This group was intended to top The Gates of Hell. It is a group of hopelessness. The three different aspects of the figures appear to embody Dante’s sentence: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’

Ascetic, sharp features give the composer an aristocratic look. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) modeled for Rodin, though the sittings were difficult to endure for the nervous composer, who saw rest as “time wasted away from his work,” as Alma Mahler remembered.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 11 minutes):

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5, Adagietto

On The Gates of Hell Rodin produced human figures that would take on an independent life: The Falling Man was combined with The Crouching Woman to become I Am Beautiful.

This bust represents Rodin’s father, Jean-Baptiste Rodin of Normandy. He was a minor civil servant at police headquarters, while his highly devout wife, Marie Cheffer, of Lorraine, spent all her time at home and made sure her children received religious instruction. The bust, representing his father in the guise of a Roman senator, is Rodin’s earliest surviving work.

Louise Lynch de Morla Vicuña (died 1937) was the daughter of General Lynch and the wife Carlos Morla Vicuña, a journalist and diplomat, the ambassador of Chile in Paris.

C�sar Franck (1822-1890) was a Belgian-French composer and organist. He studied at the conservatories of Liege and Paris, taking prizes in piano, composition, and organ. In 1858 he became organist of Sainte-Clotilde, Paris, where he demonstrated great skill in the art of improvisation. From 1872 until his death, he was professor of organ at the Paris Conservatory, where he exercised a strong influence on an entire generation of composers. His music is highly distinctive, rooted in the polyphonic and chromatic techniques of Bach.

While Rodin was not a musician himself, he liked to listen to music and maintained friendship with several musicians. His favourite composer was Beethoven, whose work he would stay close to all his life.

When C�sar Franck died in 1890, it was Rodin who was commissioned to sculpt a medallion to be placed on the musician’s tomb. Following the completion of the medallion, plans were discussed for a statue of the composer to be placed in the basilica of Sainte-Clothilde, where Franck had long been the organist, but nothing became of them.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 5 minutes):

C�sar Franck: Panis angelicus

The 1890s marked the start of Rodin’s major efforts to celebrate two of the country’s greatest writers of all times, Honor� de Balzac and Victor Hugo.

Hugo died on May 22, 1885, and after a grandiose funeral organized by the state, the government commissioned Rodin in 1889 to sculpt a monument to the famous poet. It was to be set in Hugo’s crypt in the Pantheon, the former church of Sainte-Genevi�ve converted into a mausoleum for great Frenchmen.

Rodin made two proposals, the first representing a seating, the second a standing figure. In all of Rodin’s oeuvre, the dense allegorical program of them marks his greatest concession to official taste, which the sculptor had always viewed with wariness and even contempt. Rodin failed to complete either of these two groups. In the end, only a seated Victor Hugo was completed, rid of its female allegories and carved into marble for presentation at the Salon of 1901. It was later placed in the gardens of the Palais Royal.

The present picture shows the fourth study of the first proposal.

The 1890s marked the start of Rodin’s major efforts to celebrate two of the country’s greatest writers of all times, Honor� de Balzac and Victor Hugo.

Hugo died on May 22, 1885, and after a grandiose funeral organized by the state, the government commissioned Rodin in 1889 to sculpt a monument to the famous poet. It was to be set in Hugo’s crypt in the Pantheon, the former church of Sainte-Genevi�ve converted into a mausoleum for great Frenchmen.

Rodin made two proposals, the first representing a seating, the second a standing figure. In all of Rodin’s oeuvre, the dense allegorical program of them marks his greatest concession to official taste, which the sculptor had always viewed with wariness and even contempt. Rodin failed to complete either of these two groups. In the end, only a seated Victor Hugo was completed, rid of its female allegories and carved into marble for presentation at the Salon of 1901. It was later placed in the gardens of the Palais Royal.

The present picture shows the second study of the second proposal.

This marble sculpture has an erotically charged subject. The smooth naked bodies of a man and woman emerge from a cleft in rough rock. Orpheus’s story, taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, enjoyed renewed popularity at the end of the nineteenth century.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 7 minutes):

Cristoph Willibald Gluck: Orfeo, Act I, Orpheus’ aria in G Major

Rodin executed this bust of the newly elected pope in three sittings in the Vatican, and completed it from his still-fresh memory of the pope’s features in Meudon.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was an Austrian composer and conductor, born in Bohemia of Jewish parentage. He studied at the University of Vienna and the Vienna Conservatory. He was conductor of the Budapest Imperial Opera (1888-90), the Hamburg Municipal Theater (1891-97), the Vienna State Opera (1897-1907), and the New York Philharmonic (1909-11). He also conducted the Metropolitan Opera orchestra (1908-10). As a conductor Mahler was extraordinarily exacting and precise, achieving high standards of performance that have become legendary. Composing mainly during summers, he completed nine symphonies (the unfinished tenth has been completed by Deryck Cooke) and several songs and song cycles, mostly with orchestral accompaniment.

Rodin executed a bust of Gustav Mahler that is sometimes called Mozart, the sculptor having commented that “Mahler’s head was a blend of Franklin, Frederic the Great, and Mozart.”

The male-female couple is one of the central themes in Rodin’s work.

In addition to a terracotta version, two marbles of Sleep exist, one made in 1889, the other in 1911. The loosened hair falling completely to the right underscores the gentle tilt of the head resting on one hand. Eyes closed, mouth parted, the young woman sleeps peacefully.

In 1880 Rodin was commissioned to produce an ornamental portal for the future Museum of Decorative Arts and conceived the monumental composition The Gates of Hell, inspired by Dante and Baudelaire. That sculptural group was never finished, but many of the figures created for it acquired an independent significance and became outstanding sculptures in their own right. The Sinner, a version of which is the present study (cast in 1966), is connected with the same project.

In 1875 Rodin decided to travel to Italy, the voyage was a mandatory stage in any artistic career at that time. In Florence, Rodin studied Michelangelo enthusiastically, paying him tribute on his return to Paris by completing a study of a life-sized nude. Initially exhibited without a title, later dubbed The Vanquished One and still later Man Awakening to Nature, it ultimately became known as The Age of Bronze, in reference to the third age of humanity as described by the Greek poet Hesiod. The figure represents the painful awakening of individual consciousness. Rodin breathed life into it through his mastery of the human form, handled with particular sensitivity to modeling and the subtle play of light and shadow.

Rodin’s knowledge of old masters began at the Louvre, where he tirelessly drew and copied all that endlessly repeated imagery from the past. The allusion to Michelangelo’s Dying Slave in Rodin’s The Age of Bronze is obvious.

This life-size nude male figure is also known as The Vanquished. When the statue was first exhibited at the 1877 Salon in Paris, France, Rodin was falsely accused of having made the statue by casting a living model, a charge that was vigorously denied. Rodin continued to produce casts of the statue for several decades after it was modelled in 1876. These casts can be found in several museums around the world.

One of Rodin’s most striking works is The Burghers of Calais which was commissioned in 1884, the plaster model exhibited in 1889, and the bronze monument unveiled in 1895. It commemorates the burghers of the town who sacrificed themselves to King Edward III in 1347 in order to raise the siege of the town. The movements of the figures vividly express their sense of despair at their imminent death.

Some of the studies for the monument are more Expressionist than the final monument itself. Rodin worked on the figures separately, making them nude first, then clothed. He linked them to others or mutilated them to make them even more expressive.

In 1880, Rodin was commissioned for a bronze door to a building still in the planning stage, designed to house a museum of decorative arts. France’s President Jules Ferry signed the order commissioning Rodin to produce a model of a “bas-relief depicting Dante’s Divine Comedy.” The very nature of the commission was of capital importance to the sculptor: like equestrian statues, monumental doors were considered prestigious projects that could be awarded only to well-known artists. One of the uncontested models for such doors were those done by Ghiberti for the baptistery in Florence, which Michelangelo dubbed the Gates of Paradise. Rodin, during his trip to Italy in 1875, spent a long time admiring the bronze masterpiece.

The influence of Ghiberti on Rodin was obvious when he sketched his early ideas for The Gates of Hell. They reflect the compartmentalised structure of the Florentine panels, each compartment depicting a specific incident. The subdivision of Dante’s poem into cantos made such division easy. Nevertheless, Rodin soon abandoned this initial idea in favour of a single overall panel on each of the double doors, providing scope for an astounding fall of the damned from top to bottom, thus echoing Dante’s text.

While preparing for this work, Rodin spent nearly a year on a series of sketches. In late 1884, casts of various parts of The Gates of Hell were assembled. But Rodin continually altered the work, and things dragged on - construction of the new museum of decorative arts was postponed indefinitely and Rodin began to work on other commissioned projects. Independent works based on the Gates were steadily making their way in the world, as witnessed for example The Kiss in 1888, and The Thinker in 1889.

Years went by, and the Gates steadily lost their utilitarian goal, becoming an autonomous artwork independent of practical consideration. It was in 1900 that a plaster cast of The Gates of Hell was first exhibited in public. It was unnoticed by the public and Rodin seemed to have abandoned any idea of finishing his work.

At Rodin’s death, the first curator of the Mus�e Rodin had a complete model of the Gates assembled from the original molds. The first bronze cast was executed in 1926-28. Today there are seven casts of the Gates of Hell throughout the world, made between 1926 and 1997: Paris, Philadelphia, Tokyo, Zurich, Stanford, Shizuoka, and Seoul.

Rodin was one of the most successful, prolific, and influential sculptors of the modern age, regarded during his lifetime as a genius of the caliber of Michelangelo.

This detail represents Paolo and Francesca.

This detail represents Ugolino on the left door of The Gates.

Ugolino appears in cantos XXXII and XXXIII of Dante’s Divine Comedy (the Antenora ring of the ninth circle, for those who betrayed country or companions). Ugolino della Gherardesca, count of Donoratico, played an equivocal role in the wars that raged between Guelphs and Ghibellines among - and even within - Italian cities. In 1289, Ugolino was accused of treason and imprisoned with his sons and two grandsons in the Gualandi Tower in Pisa. There they all died of hunger. Legend has it that Ugolino ate the flesh of his dead children in an effort to survive, before succumbing to hunger himself.

The subject of Ugolino had already been handled by Carpeaux during his stay in Rome. Rodin had also approached the subject at an earlier date, during his time in Brussels, employing a seated pose. Yet at the same time he sketched a version in which Ugolino was crouching, the one that would ultimately be seen on the left door of The Gates. This final pose spectacularly accentuates the horror described by Dante.

This detail represents The Falling Man from The Gates of Hell.

This detail represents The Creator, a self-portrait of Rodin.

Alone, at the foot of the right pilaster, is the solitary image of a bearded old man, The Creator, a Rodin self-portrait that could be considered the artist’s signature: like medieval masters, he has included himself in his work.

This detail represents The Falling Man from The Gates of Hell.

This detail represents The Shades from the top of The Gates of Hell.

Here, Rodin makes extraordinary use, both technical and allegorical, of the medium of marble. The material plays a key role in the sculpture, especially the underworked and roughly chiseled portions. A variation on the theme of birth and beginnings, the work presents Adam and Eve entwined in a fetal position and emerging from an amorphous mound of marble cradled in God’s hand. During a seminal trip to Italy in 1876, Rodin had encountered works by Michelangelo in which the figures similarly materialize out of rough stone, symbolizing the process of artistic creation itself.

This is one of three full-scale versions of The Kiss made in Rodin’s lifetime. Its blend of eroticism and idealism makes it one of the great images of sexual love. The couple are the adulterous lovers Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, who were slain by Francesca’s outraged husband. They appear in Dante’s Inferno, which describes how their passion grew as they read the story of Lancelot and Guinevere together. In the sculpture, the book can be seen in Paolo’s hand.

The embracing couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of reliefs decorating Rodin’s monumental bronze portal The Gates of Hell, commissioned for a planned museum of art in Paris. The couple were later removed from the Gates and replaced with another pair of lovers located on the smaller right-hand column.

Before creating the marble version of The Kiss, Rodin produced several smaller sculptures in plaster, terracotta and bronze.

This is one of three full-scale versions of The Kiss made in Rodin’s lifetime. Its blend of eroticism and idealism makes it one of the great images of sexual love. The couple are the adulterous lovers Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, who were slain by Francesca’s outraged husband. They appear in Dante’s Inferno, which describes how their passion grew as they read the story of Lancelot and Guinevere together. In the sculpture, the book can be seen in Paolo’s hand.

The embracing couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of reliefs decorating Rodin’s monumental bronze portal The Gates of Hell, commissioned for a planned museum of art in Paris. The couple were later removed from the Gates and replaced with another pair of lovers located on the smaller right-hand column.

Before creating the marble version of The Kiss, Rodin produced several smaller sculptures in plaster, terracotta and bronze.

Far from hindering Rodin from creating a striking artistic image, imperfection and asymmetry here make up its very foundation. The sculpture represents the face of a tramp known as Bibi. The sculptor was struck by his appearance and invited him to work as a model.

Later the hair redone in the manner of Greek philosophers, and the work was carved in marble and assumed the air of a Socrates with the impact of an antique bust. Its exhibition at the Salon of 1875 constituted Rodin’s first real victory.

Originally produced in 1864, this work reflected the world-weary face of a poor man nicknamed Bibi, who lived in Rodin’s neighbourhood. But that year the winter had been harsh, the head of clay froze, split and the entire black part shattered. Once the head was completed anew, the hair redone in the manner of Greek philosophers, the work was carved in marble and assumed the air of a Socrates with the impact of an antique bust. Its exhibition at the Salon of 1875 constituted Rodin’s first real victory.

The Prodigal Son, with its many versions, is an example of Rodin’s reuse and adaptation of favourite themes and compositions. It is derived from a figure originally planned low down on the right-hand panel of the doors, where it was combined with a fleeing female figure for the group called Fugit Amor (Love Flees).

In folklore traced back to medieval legend, a succubus is a female demon or supernatural being appearing in dreams, who takes the form of a human woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual intercourse. The male counterpart is the incubus.

This sculpture depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle. It is often used to represent philosophy. Its first cast is now in the Mus�e Rodin in Paris; there are some 20 other original castings, as well as various other versions, studies, and posthumous castings.

Originally the statue was part of a portal commissioned by the Mus�e des Arts D�coratifs, Paris. Rodin based the theme on The Divine Comedy of Dante and entitled the portal The Gates of Hell. Each of the statues in the piece represented one of the main characters in the epic poem. This detail from the Gate of Hell was first named “The Thinker” by foundry workers, who noted its similarity to Michelangelo’s statue of Lorenzo de Medici called “Il Penseroso” (the Thinker).

The Shades are three separate casts of the same figure that has been rotated into different positions. Each is a small version of the monumental bronze Adam that Rodin once planned to place at one side of The Gates of Hell. In the final version of The Gates, the Shades stood above the centre of the lintel and personify the dead.

With The Walking Man, Rodin pursued his quest for perfection by creating a work through assemblage and elimination. In a bold innovation, he removed the head and arms from Saint John the Baptist so that only the impressive striding legs and overall vigour remained. This figure, built uniquely on diagonal lines, immediately conveys the idea of movement, even as the determination and tranquil strength of the work assumes symbolic power.

Camille Claudel met Rodin while studying at the Acad�mie Colarossi in 1883, and became his colleague and mistress. They separated in the mid-1890s. After the separation, creative difficulties and crippling loneliness increasingly hampered her work, and she was committed to a psychiatric institution in 1913, where she remained until her death in 1943.

In 1886 Rodin began modeling a portrait of Camille Claudel in traditional costume. When his assistant Victor Peter, executing the work in marble, reached the collar, Rodin made him stop: the head emerging from the block offered the contrast, as in Michelangelo, of a finished section imprisoned in the rough-hewn stone. This triumph of sculpture was exhibited as it was at the Salon in 1895, entitled Head. Only later did it receive its Symbolist title of Thought Emerging from Matter, then simply Thought.

The group of Ugolino on The Gates of Hell was enlarged by Leboss� between 1901 and 1904, the modified group was cast after Rodin died, around 1925, and placed in the middle of the ornamented pool on the grounds of H�tel Biron, the site of the Mus�e Rodin.

Victor-Marie Hugo (1802-1885) was probably the most famous author and poet of nineteenth-century France. Rodin first exhibited the model for the bust in 1884 at the Salon of the Soci�t� des Artistes Fran�ais in 1884. The portrait would ultimately serve as the source for the head of Hugo in the Monument to Victor Hugo.