Welcome to the Deep Dive, the place where we
take complex figures and towering artistic movements
and give you the essential knowledge you need
to be an instant expert. Today we are focusing
on a monumental figure in art history, François
-Auguste René Rodin. He is the man whose name
is synonymous with modern sculpture, known globally
for works like The Thinker and The Kiss. Yeah,
and what's immediately crucial to understand
about Rodin, who lived from 1840 to 1917, is
the sheer paradox defining his life. I mean,
he's universally hailed as the founder of modern
sculpture, right? Absolutely. Everyone knows
the name. But his entire career path was defined
by a series of continuous rejections, controversies,
I mean, even outrageous accusations of cheating.
He started as this meticulous traditional craftsman,
really steeped in the technical side of things.
Okay. Only to emerge as a radical pioneer who
fundamentally changed how you look at form and
emotion in art. It's quite the story. Okay, let's
unpack this for you. Our mission today is to
trace exactly how this French sculptor, despite
his, well, pretty traditional schooling, managed
to execute a complete departure from the staid
academic expectations of mythology and allegory.
Right, how did he get away from all that? We're
going to explore how he embraced radical naturalism,
modeling the raw, expressive human body, cementing
his incredible legacy, but... and this is key,
only after enduring constant painful battles
with the very sponsors and critics who were supposed
to support him. Yeah, they really fought him.
We've compiled material detailing his rough life,
his revolutionary workshop methods, and maybe
the true stories behind those iconic works you
thought you already knew. And to appreciate the
depth of his revolution, you really have to understand
the depth of his struggles first. the establishment.
Yeah. They fought him every single step of the
way. It wasn't an easy ride. Right. So Rodin
didn't come from a privileged background that
granted easy access to the art world. He was
born into a working class family. You know, his
father was a police department clerk. Humble
beginnings. Yeah. He was largely self -educated,
starting to draw around age 10 and spent his
adolescence, maybe between 14 and 17, attending
a specialized art school called the Petit École.
Ah, yes, the little school. Which focused heavily
on art and mathematics for students destined
for craftwork. Now, that sounds like good practical
training, but how did the academic elite view
this background? Well, that practical training,
the very foundation of his later genius, was
actually held against him. He developed excellent
technical skills, sure, and a keen eye for 18th
century decorative art. But this clashed terribly
with the academic tastes of the day. And here
is where the setback truly defined him. Rodin
was denied entrance to the prestigious Ecole
des Beaux -Arts, the official gatekeeper of French
art, not once, but three separate times. Three
times. That's astounding. If he was already so
skilled, what was the reason for this repeated
rejection? Well, frankly, the entrance requirements
weren't exceptionally high, which makes the rejection
sting even more. The judges were just dominated
by neoclassical tastes. They wanted idealization,
smooth perfection, adherence to classical form.
Rodin's early attempts, rooted in that 18th century
style from the Petit École, were likely considered
too rough, maybe too earthy. Not refined enough.
Exactly. Entirely lacking in the idealized grand
manner they demanded. This rejection, while probably
crushing at the time, was a bizarre kind of blessing,
really. It forced him onto a different non -academic
track. So cut off from the academy, he became,
well, a pure laborer. He spent nearly 20 years.
from roughly 1857 to 1877, just trying to make
a living. He had no choice, really. He had to
function as a craftsman and ornamentor. He created
decorative objects, worked on architectural embellishments,
for instance, spending time in Belgium helping
with the ornamentation of the Brussels Stock
Exchange. This two -decade period of focused,
often grueling labor was absolutely indispensable.
It gave him an essential, comprehensive technical
mastery of materials, of scaling, of composition,
skills that, frankly, no academically trained
sculptor probably possessed to that degree. He
learned it all from the ground up. Exactly. Clay,
stone. Bronze. He knew it inside out. But in
the midst of this struggle, he experienced a
deeply personal crisis that made him nearly abandon
art altogether. Yes. In 1862, his older sister,
Maria, died. Rodin was utterly overcome by guilt,
believing he was somehow responsible because
he had introduced her to an unfaithful suitor.
Oh, wow. He abandoned sculpture completely and
joined a Catholic order, the Congregation of
the Blessed Sacrament, as a lay brother. He genuinely
intended to leave the world behind. What saved
him? What pulled him back from staying in the
Order? The founder, actually. St. Peter Julian
Aymard. Aymard was apparently a highly perceptive
man. He recognized Rodin's profound artistic
talent and also realized that his emotional temperament,
his intense creative drive, well, they were wholly
unsuited for the rigid life of the Order. He
saw it wasn't the right fit. Not at all. Aymar
gently but firmly encouraged Rodin to return
to his art, recognizing that his calling was
in the studio, not the cloister. This intervention
was just, well, a pivotal turning point. It returned
one of the world's great sculptors back to his
destiny. So having honed his craft and overcome
this personal trauma, Rodin finally saved enough
money to travel, leading to the next immense
influence, Italy in 1875. Yes. After about six
years working outside of France, mainly in Belgium,
he'd script together enough savings for this
pivotal journey. He visited Italy and the experience
just completely transformed his artistic trajectory.
He was profoundly affected by the works of the
Renaissance masters, especially Donatello and
most significantly Michelangelo. What was it
about Michelangelo's work that resonated so strongly
with him? He wasn't exactly known for smooth
perfection either. No, and that was the point.
Rodin later stated it quite plainly. It is Michelangelo
who has freed me from academic sculpture. Freed
him? Yes. Michelangelo's late work. particularly
the raw, powerful, sort of unfinished quality
of figures like the slaves, which showed struggle
and strain rather than effortless grace, that
spoke directly to Rodin's desire to inject real
raw emotion into form. It basically validated
his instinct to reject the static, idealized
perfection of the neoclassical school he'd been
bumping up against. And this raw power, this
new influence, led almost immediately to his
first major public piece, The Age of Bronze,
in 1877, and his first massive scandal. Right,
straight into controversy. The work was a life
-size male figure based on a Belgian soldier,
actually. Rodin posed him unconventionally with
his right hand reaching up and resting on his
head, a sort of pensive, almost ambiguous pose.
And Rodin worked... tirelessly to capture the
subtle reality of the human form. He studied
his model intensely, made numerous preparatory
clay models, and even used candlelight to observe
how shadows played across the muscle structure.
Really obsessive attention to detail. And this
mastery of light shadow anatomy, it was so convincing
that it led to that infamous accusation. The
accusation of Sir Millage. Casting directly from
a living model. Which, you have to understand,
was like a capital offense in 19th century academic
art. It wasn't just cheating in a minor way.
No, no. It wasn't just an accusation of taking
a shortcut. It was an accusation that he lacked
the fundamental intellectual skill necessary
to translate the living body into art. Academic
sculptors believe the artistry lay in the transition,
the modeling, the intellectual interpretation,
not mere replication. So that accusation completely
dismissed his 20 years of intense craftsmanship.
It must have been infuriating. Absolutely. Rodal
was furious. He vigorously denied the charges,
writing letters to newspapers, arranging for
photographs of the live model to be compared
with the sculpture, pointing out subtle differences
in size and posture. Trying to prove it wasn't
a direct copy. Exactly. The controversy was intense.
It really polarized the art world. Fortunately,
the Minister of Public Instruction at the time,
Edmund Turquette, recognized the work's genuine
quality. The state purchased it for 2 ,200 francs.
Which wasn't much, right? No. While it offered
validation, it only barely covered the cost of
casting the bronze. But it was something. That
validation and the purchase proved crucial. But
Rodin wasn't finished responding to the critics,
was he? His next work was a kind of technical
retort. Indeed. He felt he had to prove definitively
that he was a master sculptor, not just some
clever caster. That record was St. John the Baptist
preaching. Completed in 1878. Okay. And to preempt
any further ceremonialized charges, he deliberately
made this second male nude explicitly larger
than life, standing almost six feet, seven inches
tall. The size alone basically declared this
could not have been cast from a man. Right. A
clear statement. But the true technical genius
seems to lie in the movement of St. John. It's
a figure that suggests dynamic action while remaining
firmly planted. How did he do that? Ah, that's
the real shift toward modernism. Unlike the static
poses of previous centuries, St. John seems to
gesture and stride forward. But you're right,
the feet are both entirely on the ground, yet
the figure suggests a walk in progress. It's
contradictory. It is. Rodin used this contradictory
position intentionally, aiming, as he described
it, to display simultaneously. views of an object
which in fact can be seen only successively.
It was about capturing the sensation of movement,
the feeling of it, not just freezing a single
pose. And the model for this piece wasn't some
idealized figure from mythology either. No, not
at all. The initial model was an Italian peasant
who apparently possessed this idiosyncratic,
rough, powerful sense of movement. Rodin was
so compelled by this raw energy that he felt
he had to capture it. So the form came first.
Absolutely. The title St. John the Baptist Preaching
was only applied after the figure was modeled.
This really emphasizes Rodin's focus shifting
towards spontaneous, naturalistic movement over
preordained religious or historical subject matter.
This was a monumental departure from academic
rules. So the critical acclaim, however grudging,
for St. John and the state purchase of the Age
of Bronze brought Rodin his defining opportunity.
A massive commission in 1880 that became his
artistic laboratory, didn't it? The gates of
hell. It was a defining moment, yes, though deeply
ironic in the end. Rodin was commissioned to
create this magnificent bronze portal for a planned
museum of decorative arts in Paris. Sounds prestigious.
Hugely. The profound irony, though, is that the
museum was never actually built. Yet Rodin dedicated
the bulk of the next four decades of his life
to this colossal monumental group. Four decades
on a project for a... building that never existed?
What was the sheer scale of the work? It was
staggering. The portal was intended to depict
scenes from Dante's Inferno in high relief. Over
the years, the piece just evolved and grew, ultimately
comprising an astonishing 186 figures in its
final, albeit technically unfinished, form. 186
figures? Yeah, and Rodin's vision was revolutionary.
He completely rejected the ordered, balanced
compositions of tradition. Instead, he created
this visually disordered, chaotic, almost untamed
depiction of hell. The figures aren't interacting
in classical groups. They're physically and morally
isolated in their own private torment. So if
the museum was never built and the piece remained
technically unfinished, why is it so important
to his legacy? Why do we talk about it so much?
Because the gates of hell served as Rodin's ultimate
artistic incubator. It was like a repository
of forms, a laboratory where he experimented
constantly with human emotion, with composition,
with movement. Many of his most famous self -contained
sculptures that we recognize today. Like The
Thinker. Exactly. They began life as small, sometimes
almost overlooked, designs for the gates. They
are masterpieces that emerge, almost like spinoffs,
fully formed, the turbulent conceptual framework
of that great portal. Okay, let's discuss the
most famous example then, The Thinker. When people
see it, they usually associate it with deep intellectual
reflection, right? But what was its humble initial
role on the gates? Well, it was originally placed
right on the lintel, that's the horizontal support
above the doorway, and initially titled The Poet.
The Poet, not The Thinker. No. It was intended
to represent Dante himself, gazing down, contemplating
the damned soul swirling below him in the inferno.
Over time, though, its meaning broadened. Observers
have also ascribed the anguish of the biblical
Adam, maybe the defiance of the mythological
Prometheus to the figure. So it became more universal.
It holds this universal appeal because it seems
to embody multiple forms of existential struggle,
not just Dante's specific observation. But you
argue that the power of the thinker is less about
the brain and more about the body. How does Rodin
communicate that emotional tension? Right. This
connects back to Rodin's core belief. The total
body expresses the mind. He intentionally gave
the thinker this rough, muscular physicality
stressing emotional tension over purely abstract,
Quiet thought. He made thinking look like hard
work. Exactly. Rodin explicitly confirmed this.
He said, 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. The
struggle of thought is physicalized. It's externalized
in every fiber of his being. And remember, the
original piece for the Gates was much smaller.
About 27 .5 inches high in bronze. Not the huge
monumental versions we often see in museums today.
It's incredible to think that The Kiss, another
work known for its, well, almost smooth romantic
perfection, also derived from the chaotic scenes
of The Gates. It speaks volumes about the creative
freedom this commission must have offered him.
It really does. The commission provided a crucial
professional boost. Not only a stipend, but also
a free studio. This finally allowed Rodin to
leave his steady but maybe restrictive part -time
design position at the Sèvres National Porcelain
Factory. So he could dedicate himself fully?
Yes, fully to a sculpture. This artistic freedom,
however, well, it deeply complicated his personal
life around the same time. Right. This new environment
led directly to his intense and often, well,
destructive relationship with Camille Claudel.
Exactly. In 1883, Rodin met Camille Claudel.
He was supervising a sculpture course for another
sculptor, Alfred Boucher, and she was a student
there. He was just 18 and already a supremely
talented artist in her own right. Just 18? Yeah.
What followed was a passionate and extremely
stormy relationship that lasted about 15 years.
And it wasn't just a relationship between an
older master and a young model. Sources say she
was a genuine artistic partner, maybe even a
rival. Oh, she was far more than just a muse.
Claudel assisted him on numerous large -scale
commissions, including potentially helping model
figures for the Gates and the Burgers of Calais.
So she was in the workshop, hands -on. Definitely.
Their influence was symbiotic. It went both ways.
Rodin introduced her to his expressive naturalism,
sure, but she arguably injected greater classical
discipline and maybe polished into some of his
forms. And her own work was acclaimed. Her magnificent
bust of Rodin, for example, received high praise
at the 1892 Salon. So why did this powerful partnership
eventually fracture? It sounds like they were
creatively aligned. It fractured because of the
immense emotional conflict created by Rodin's
refusal to fully commit to her. He maintained
what was essentially a double life. Rodin had
a lifelong companion, Rose Bure, who was the
mother of his son, Auguste Eugene. Rose had stood
by him during all those years of poverty and
rejection. The Hurley Struggles. Exactly. Rodin
felt an immense loyalty to Rose and refused to
relinquish those ties for Claudel, even though
his relationship with Claudel was incredibly
intense. That refusal must have had a devastating
impact on Claudel, who is presumably looking
for full commitment, especially from someone
like Rodel. It was absolutely crushing for her.
The strain of this conflict, which involved,
you know, immense jealousy, professional rivalry,
simmering beneath the surface, and just sheer
emotional exhaustion eventually became too much.
The relationship soured completely. and Rodin
and Claudel finally parted ways around 1898.
A difficult end. A profound personal loss for
both, I think, even though he remained loyal
to Rose. He wrote to Rose during one absence,
reflecting on her enduring fidelity. I think
of how much you must have loved me to put up
with my caprices. I remain in all tenderness,
your Rodin. Shows the complexity, doesn't it?
Rodin may have been finding artistic freedom
in his studio, working on the gates, but it seems
every time he brought a major public commission
into the light, he faced outright hostility.
Let's look at the incredible battles over the
Burghers of Calais, commissioned between 1884
and 1889. Oh yes, the Burghers. This was a monument
commissioned by the town of Calais to commemorate
one of the great stories of, well, English and
French history. Six leading citizens of Calais
offered their lives to King Edward III to save
their besieged city during the Hundred Years'
War. A heroic tale. So the local committee had
a very clear traditional expectation, I imagine.
Exactly. They wanted an epic, probably allegorical
monument celebrating the central hero, Eustache
de Saint -Pierre, the leader. One guy on a pedestal
looking noble. Precisely. They expected a single
traditional heroic figure, probably mounted on
a tall pedestal, conveying stoic, unified sacrifice.
Rodin, well, he conceived something entirely
different. He presented a collective study in
human struggle and doubt. How so? He deliberately
ensured that all six men were given equal weight.
There's no single hero dominating. And he conceived
the sculpture as a study of the complex, varying
emotions under which they were laboring. Fear.
resignation, defiance, profound spiritual isolation.
Each man is individualized, isolated in his own
struggle, even while they're standing together.
That individualization and emotional complacency
must have been utterly confusing, maybe even
offensive, to a public expecting straightforward
heroics. It was confusing and unsettling, yes.
But the truly revolutionary proposal that angered
the committee the most concerned, the display
itself. Rodin didn't just sculpt a radical piece.
He proposed a radical spatial relationship between
the art and the viewer. Okay, tell us more about
that. What did he want them to do with it? He
wanted the monument's traditional high pedestal
eliminated entirely. Gone. Rodin argued that
the work should be placed at ground level, without
any railing or barrier. So people could walk
right up to them. Exactly. So that viewers could
walk directly among the figures, experiencing
their scale and suffering intimately. He wanted
the viewer to penetrate to the heart of the subject,
as he put it. And he designed the positioning
of the six figures to subtly guide the viewer
around the group, forcing a full 360 -degree
confrontation with their plight. He was challenging
the whole notion that public sculpture must be
remote, monumental, untouchable, something you
look up at. Absolutely. He wanted intimacy and
confrontation, not distance and awe. The Calais
committee was incensed by this untraditional
concept. They saw it as a gross lack of respect
for the heroes, frankly. So they ignored him.
Completely. In 1895, they overrode him and displayed
the work on a tall classical platform surrounded
by a railing precisely what he didn't want. It
completely neutralized Rodin's intended effect.
That's frustrating. It's a tragic footnote, really,
that only after the work suffered damage during
World War I and years after Rodin's death was
the sculpture finally displayed as he originally
intended at ground level near the town hall.
It took decades. If the Burgers' controversy
was challenging, the battle over the monument
to Balzac seems like it was a complete artistic
disaster, at least in his lifetime. Oh, the Balzac.
Yeah. The commission began in 1891. It came from
the Société des Gens des Lettres, the Society
of Men of Letters, and was meant to honor the,
well, famously massive, rotund French novelist
Honoré de Balzac. Not an easy subject to make
heroic in the traditional sense. No. Rudas struggled
immensely with the challenge of representing
such a complex, physical, and intellectual figure.
This struggle is really visible in the huge number
of studies he produced over several years. What
were some of the different approaches he tried
in those studies? He didn't just jump to the
final version. Not at all. He produced dozens
of small studies in larger figures, figures nude,
showing Balzac's famously large stomach and rough
form. Really? Nude studies? Oh, yes. Then figures
wearing a traditional frock coat and figures
wrapped in a loose dressing gown or robe, a replica
of which Rodin had actually requested the society
send him so he could study the drapery properly.
He was really wrestling with it. This struggle
just demonstrated his relentless pursuit of the
subject's essence, not just his physical likeness.
What was Balzac, really? And what was the essence
he finally settled on for the final piece? Well,
he depicted Balzac cloaked in that drapery. the
author's robe, which concealed much of the physical
body but exaggerated the head and the powerful
stance. The face was deeply gouged, forceful,
almost monumental, looking intently into the
distance. What was he trying to capture? Rodin
intended to capture Balzac not in a static pose,
but at the very moment of creative conception,
to express the immense courage, the exhausting
labor, and the intellectual struggle required
for genius, the sheer effort of creation. But
the public and the very society that paid for
it did not see genius or struggle. They saw,
well, a punchline, apparently. The reaction when
the plaster was exhibited in 1898 was overwhelmingly
hostile, just brutal. The society rejected the
work outright, claiming it simply did not represent
the novelist. The press ran vicious parodies,
calling it a huge comic mass crowning a bathrobe.
Ouch. A bathrobe. Yeah. Even critics who were
generally supportive noted that such an unconventional
representation struck many viewers as artistic
slang, almost an insult to the author's memory.
Imagine the emotional toll this took on him personally
after putting years of intellectual and creative
energy into it. Seven years, wasn't it? Seven
years of struggle. It was a monumental public
failure, a huge slap in the face from the institution
that commissioned him. Rodin, in what must have
been one of the most disheartening moments of
his career, actually repaid the commission fee.
He gave the money back? He gave it back and moved
the colossal plaster figure to his own garden
at Muton. He was so disillusioned by the whole
experience that he never completed another public
commission afterward. That was it for him. But
what's fascinating here is the complete turnaround
in critical opinion over time. It wasn't universally
hated forever. No, absolutely not. The initial
hostility was extreme. But Rodin had fervent
supporters from the start, including major figures
like the painter Claude Monet, the composer Claude
Debussy, and the powerful politician Georges
Clemenceau, who signed a manifesto defending
him and the work. Some people got it. Some people
got it. And eventually, art history vindicated
him entirely. The renowned art historian Kenneth
Clark later praised the Balzac as the greatest
piece of sculpture of the 19th century, perhaps,
indeed, the greatest since Michelangelo. I praise
indeed. Wow. From bathrobe to Michelangelo. Right.
But it took time. It wasn't even cast in bronze
and placed on the Boulevard du Montparnasse until
1939, over 40 years after its rejection, long
after Rodin was dead. Okay, so this whole litany
of rejection from the Beaux -Arts right through
to the Balzac, it leads us to the core question.
Why was Rodin so disruptive? Why is he, above
all others, credited with founding modern sculpture?
What was he actually doing differently? Well,
it really comes down to a radical shift in aesthetic
focus. Yeah. Rodin fundamentally rejected the
idealism of the ancient Greeks and the decorative
polish of the baroque or neo -baroque movements
that were still influential. He wasn't aiming
for pretty. No. He was a naturalist. He was concerned
not with idealized perfection, but with raw emotional
character. He prioritized expressing inner life.
psychological complexity, the stuff going on
inside. So if the Academy wanted smooth, idealized
skin, Rodin gave us rough, textured flesh that
captured the play of light and shadow, the feeling
of muscle underneath. Exactly. His work emphasized
the individual and the palpable, tangible concreteness
of flesh. He used textured, sometimes deliberately
unfinished surfaces to suggest internal emotion
and vitality. And he believed profoundly that
an individual's character was revealed by every
physical feature. Not just the face. Right. That
every part of the body, not just the face, spoke
for the whole. And we saw that perfectly articulated
in his quote about the thinker, remember? Where
the contemplation is carried by the clenched
fist and gripping toes. That concept. The total
body as expression is absolutely central. He
saw suffering and conflict as fundamental to
modern existence, and therefore they had to be
the hallmarks of modern art. He was echoing the
raw, sometimes turbulent vision of poets like
Charles Baudelaire, whom he admired. So he took
the physical form and made it a mirror for existential
struggle, for the modern condition. You could
say that, yeah. He made the body think, feel,
suffer visibly. This leads us to his most radical
methodological innovation, maybe. The idea of
the fragment as an autonomous work. This is the
concept that sounds revolutionary even today.
A piece missing parts being complete. It was
utterly radical at the time. Rodin views sculptural
fragments pieces intentionally lacking arms,
legs, or sometimes even a head. Not as failed
attempts or damaged studies, but as complete
autonomous works in themselves. Why? What was
the point? Well, this moves sculpture away from
the necessity of portraying an accurate likeness
or telling a complete narrative story. It moved
into a realm where forms existed purely for their
own expressive potential, for the power of the
gesture or the tension in the torso itself. So
when we see a piece like The Walking Man, which
is basically just a torso and legs, the missing
parts are a statement, not an unfortunate omission.
It is the essence of his statement. And to understand
how he achieved this, how he thought this way,
we need to look into his workshop practice. It's
quite revealing. Rodin's primary focus, personally,
was the handling of clay. He would make quick,
expressive sketches in clay. These would then
be refined and, crucially, cast in plaster. He
relied heavily on highly skilled assistants.
called partitions, to carry out the often laborious
scaling up or down and the carving into marble
or casting into bronze based on his plasters.
So the plaster casts were key. They weren't just
an intermediate step. They became the foundation
of his revolutionary process. This is the genius
of his method, really. Because clay deteriorates
quickly, plaster casts were necessary just to
preserve the form. Standard practice. Standard
practice. But Rodin's innovation was recognizing
that these casts were not just molds or preservation
tools. They were raw material. He would accumulate
dozens, sometimes hundreds, of plaster parts
in his studio arms, legs, torsos, heads from
different projects, different times. Like a library
of body parts. Exactly. And then he would recombine
them, mixing and matching parts from different
figures, to create entirely new compositions,
often giving them entirely new names. That sounds
like an almost architectural or collage approach
to the human body building new structures from
existing components. Let's use The Walking Man
as the ultimate case study. for this radical
approach. The Walking Man, created around 1899
-1900, is the perfect example of this composite
method. It wasn't scarped from scratch as a single
idea. Right. Rodin apparently found two neglected,
maybe even damaged fragments from the 1870s lying
around in his studio, a broken armless torso
study and the lower extremities, the legs, from
a statuette version of his earlier St. John the
Baptist preaching. The one he made bigger to
avoid the cheating accusations. That's the one.
He fused these two disparate pieces together.
The old torso, the old legs. So two forgotten
fragments were united to create this singular,
incredibly powerful statement of aggressive forward
momentum. Yes. It's an act of reassembly that
gives the fragments a new, fierce, and totally
autonomous life. The very fact that it lacks
arms and a head only serves to enhance its focus
on the sheer physical force of the stride, the
musculature of the torso and legs. It's a bold
piece of anti -academic defiance, literally created
from the detritus, the leftovers. of his earlier
work his process for working with live models
was also quite revolutionary compared to the
stiff required poses in the academic studios
he was denied access to absolutely he totally
rejected the traditional academic postures rodin
preferred his models to move naturally even spontaneously
around the studio despite their nakedness which
was still quite shocking to some he wanted to
capture life not poses exactly he wanted to capture
motion not stillness. He would sketch them rapidly
in clay or on paper, often without taking his
eyes off the model or his pencil from the paper,
just seeking to capture that instantaneous vital
force, that spark of movement. We have that fantastic
anecdote from George Bernard Shaw, the playwright,
when he sat for his portrait. He described the
rapid changes in the bust Rodin was creating
right in front of him. Shaw was apparently amazed.
He described the bust's rapid evolution in just
15 minutes, noting how Rodin's hands seemed to
take the work through all the stages of art's
evolution. In 15 minutes? Yeah. He said it began
as a rough Byzantine masterpiece, then morphed
into a form intermingled with the energy of Bernini,
and then achieved the elegance of Houdon, another
great sculptor. Shaw concluded that Rodin's hand
worked not like a typical sculptor's, but like
the work of Élan Vidal, the vital force itself,
shaping the clay. That concept, Ilan Vital, the
life force, it really speaks to the kinetic living
quality he injected into the clay. And while
he became famous or infamous for these dramatic,
controversial figures, it was portraiture that
ultimately ensured his financial survival, wasn't
it? Portraiture was his anchor, financially and
sometimes critically. Rodin created thousands
of figures and drawings, but portraiture was
essential for winning acceptance among the powerful
in achieving financial independence. Good, the
light's on. Pretty much. What? He produced at
least 56 documented portraits between 1877 and
his death, depicting major figures of the day.
We mentioned George Bernard Shaw, also the composer
Gustav Mahler, and the powerful French politician
Georges Clemenceau. These commissions provided
the consistent income necessary to fund the massive,
decades -long, non -earning project like the
Gates of Hell. Okay, so by the turn of the century,
around 1900, despite all the battles, all the
controversies, Rodin was finally an established
international figure. The scale of his recognition
seemed to balloon almost overnight. Yeah, his
reputation just exploded around the time of the
1900 World's Fair, the Exposition Universelle,
in Paris. He did something quite clever. He actually
bypassed the official fair structure. Instead,
he funded and operated his own pavilion of his
art nearby. A solo show right next to the main
event. Bold move. Very bold. Yeah. And it captured
massive attention. His income from portrait commissions
alone reportedly reached an astonishing 200 ,000
francs a year around this time, making him properly
financially independent for the first time in
his life. Wow. This success attracted tremendous
admirers, including, famously, the young poet
Rainer Maria Rilke, who actually served as Rodin's
secretary for a time, and wrote a highly laudatory,
very influential monograph about the sculptor.
It's interesting, though, to note the contrast
between his growing acceptance in certain European
circles and the difficulty he apparently faced
cracking the American market. Yeah. Acceptance
of the United States was initially quite fraught.
It was primarily due to prevailing moral standards,
you know, sort of puritanical streaks that clashed
violently with the frankness of Rodin's technique
and especially his frequent use of the nude form.
Too much skin for the Americans. Basically, yes.
This contrast was starkly illustrated at the
1893 Chicago World Fair. Rodin's nudes pieces
like Cupid and Psyche, Sphinx and Andromeda caused
such a public uproar. What uproar? Oh yeah, such
an uproar that they were ultimately hidden behind
a heavy drape in a separate area. You needed
special private permission just to view them.
So his work was literally deemed too scandalous
for public consumption in America at that point.
Pretty much. It took the dedicated efforts of
curators like Sarah Tyson Halliwell, who acted
as an advisor and promoter, to introduce his
work carefully to major American collectors like
the Palmers in Chicago and Isabella Stewart Gardner
in Boston. Charles Yerkes, the transit magnate,
was likely the first American to own a major
Rodin sculpture, purchasing two large marbles.
But American acceptance remained slow and tentative
for many years. Conversely, he developed a significant
and loyal following in Great Britain much earlier,
didn't he? Yes, thanks largely to friends and
champions there, like the artist Alphonse Le
Gros and the influential poet and editor William
Ernest Henley, who recognized his genius early
on. Rodin became a regular visitor to Britain
after 1900. He felt welcome there. He seemed
to. And this culminated in a major act of generosity
during a time of international crisis. In 1914,
at the outbreak of World War I, Rodin donated
a significant selection of his work, I think
about 18 pieces to the British nation, as a gesture
of solidarity. Significant gift. Huge. He had
truly cemented his place in the Anglo -American
art world by then, even briefly serving as president
of the International Society of Painters. sculptors
and engravers in London in 1903. As he entered
his later creative years, what occupied his artistic
attention? Did his focus shift? It did seem to
shift, yeah. His focus turned intensely toward
the female form and themes of overt masculinity
and femininity, often expressed through dynamic
movement. He concentrated on small dance studies,
capturing motion with incredible spontaneity.
More movement studies. Yes. And he also produced
thousands of erotic drawings. often executing
them very loosely, in the same rapid style he
used for his model studies, famously drawing
without lifting his pencil or taking his eyes
from the model. Just pure observation flowing
onto the page. We hear about his fascination
with dancers in particular during this late period.
Dancers were definitely key muses for these kinetic
studies. He was utterly enchanted by the Royal
Ballet of Cambodia dancers during their performance
in Paris in 1906. Cambodian dancers? Yes, quite
exotic for Paris then. He produced some of his
most famous, fluid, almost frenetic drawings
from that experience, capturing their unique
movements. He also sketched the American modern
dancer Isadora Duncan and, well... Reflecting
his lifelong passionate temperament, he apparently
attempted, rather unsuccessfully, to seduce her.
Always the artist, always the man. His personal
life saw a final, brief moment of closure after
that lifetime of complexity with Rose Bure, his
companion. Yes. After 53 tumultuous years together,
through thick and thin, Rodin finally married
Rose Bure on January 29, 1917. This gesture of
lifelong fidelity. though incredibly late, perhaps
provided some form of reconciliation or peace
for them both. 53 years. Tragically, though,
she died just two weeks later, on February 16.
Oh, no. Rodin, who was already frail and suffering
from illness himself, possibly the flu pandemic
that was starting, followed her later that same
year. He died on November 17, 1917, at age 77.
And his physical legacy, his work, is cemented
in France, thanks to his careful planning before
his death. It is. Rodin had the immense foresight,
really, to will his entire studio, all of his
plaster casts, his drawings, his collection,
and crucially, his casting rights to the French
state. Everything. Everything. This incredibly
generous decision led directly to the founding
of the Musée Rodin in 1916, which opened shortly
after his death in 1919 at the Hotel Blanc, the
beautiful Parisian mansion where he had lived
and worked. Today, the museum holds the largest
collection, over 6 ,000 sculptures alone, plus
drawings and more. It's dedicated to maintaining
the authenticity of his output. And as his ultimate
epitaph, What marks his grave? As he himself
wished, a cast of the Thinker was placed next
to his tomb in Udon, just outside Paris, serving
as his headstone. It's a fitting end, isn't it,
for a man who dedicated his life to showing that
the entire body is merely an expression of the
conflicted, powerful human mind. Rodin's influence
is just undeniable. He is recognized, really,
as the single most important sculptor of the
modern era. He restored sculpture's ancient power
to capture not just likeness, but physical and
intellectual force. His influence spread globally,
shaping a whole new generation of artists who
came after him. Sculptors like Antoine Brudel,
Constantin Brancoy, even Henry Moore later on,
all owe a debt to Rodin. Brocuse, in fact, initially
worked briefly as one of Rodin's assistants.
Oh, really? I didn't know that. Yeah, though
he famously left after only about a month, saying,
nothing grows in the shadow of a great tree.
He felt compelled to find his own path, but significantly,
he only sought his path after studying the master
up close. But the very method that helped preserve
his legacy, the ability to make multiple authorized
bronze casts from the plasters, also created
one of his greatest modern challenges. The huge
problem of forgery. Yes. Rodin is reliably among
the top 10 most faked artists globally. It's
a huge issue. His unique workshop method, which
relied on those authorized bronze reproductions
cast from the original plaster models he left
to the state. Well, it made forgery a tempting
proposition. Because plaster is relatively easy
to copy. Exactly. Unauthorized copies, sometimes
made from legitimate casts, sometimes from newly
made molds, became widespread. The Musée Rodin
has spent decades trying to research, catalog,
and manage this problem, which is why the French
government eventually had to step in with legislation.
How did they try to control... this market for
casts. Well, it's 1956. France has promulgated
laws that limit authorized editions of an artist's
work, meaning casts made after the artist's death
under the state's authority to a maximum of 12
casts. Maybe 12. 12 numbered casts, plus usually
a few artist proofs. This ensures that any piece
beyond that limited edition cannot be considered
a genuine, authorized, posthumous work and helps
control the supply and maintain value. Despite
the challenge of fakes, verified Rodin works,
of course, command massive prices, like that
Bronze Eve grand model version Saint -Rochet,
a large E figure it sold for $18 .9 million back
in 2008. Wow. What an incredible journey, from
being rejected three times by the academic establishment
and basically living as a mere craftsman for
decades, to fundamentally inventing a new, emotional,
and fragmented way of sculpting that continues
to influence art today. Rodin survived early
rejection and poverty by mastering the craft.
Only to completely revolutionize that very craft,
based on the powerful lesson he took from Michelangelo,
that truth and emotion were more important than
polish. Yeah. And if we look back at the core
innovations, what truly distinguishes him, I
think, is threefold. First, that absolute commitment
to radical naturalism over tired idealism. Second,
the revolutionary use of the fragment as an autonomous,
expressive, artistic statement, perfectly exemplified
by the reassembly of the walking man. Right,
the fragments. And third, the transformation
of a failed commission, the gates of hell, into
a four -decade laboratory for exploring modern
psychological and physical expression. He succeeded
because he insisted, against all odds, on modeling
the body to express the complexity of the conflicted
human mind. Rodin's life and art are just so
defined by struggle, the fight for recognition,
the emotional toll of controversies like Balzac,
the chaotic, unfinished beauty of the gates.
It leaves us with a really provocative final
thought, doesn't it? I think so. Consider this
for yourself. Rodin's most profound modern legacy
rests significantly on works that were either
technically unfinished, like The Gates of Hell,
or were deliberately presented as fragments,
like The Walking Man. They challenged the very
definition of what a complete sculpture even
was. So maybe in a world like ours, full of continuous
information and constant change, is the true
power of knowledge or art, sometimes found not
in the polished, final, perfect product, but
in the incomplete, in the turbulent process,
in the struggle itself. Rodin's career teaches
us that the highest acclaim, the most lasting
impact, can emerge directly from what was originally
deemed a failure, a controversy, or just a fragment.
Something to think about.