Auguste Rodin
From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids
-
"Rodin" redirects here. For Rodan, see
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
Contents |
[edit] Life
[edit] 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,
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,
[edit] Main works
Many of his best-known sculptures, such as
[edit] 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.
[edit] Personal life
Rodin's personal life has captured the attention of history almost as much as his sculpture.
In 1883, Rodin agreed to supervise
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.
[edit] 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.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, as President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, had invited the Rodin to display some of his work at the Society's 1898 exhibition. This did not occur without some small difficulties however: some of the pieces proposed by Rodin did not find favour with Whistler, and there was also some damage sustained by some of the works whilst in transit.
After Whistler's death in 1903, Rodin himself was elected to become President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers. His election to this prestigious position was largely due to the efforts of Albert Ludovici (the father of
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.
[edit] 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
[edit] Locations of Rodin sculpture
- Boulevard Raspail, near Boulevard Montparnasse, in the
- Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- National Museum of Western Art,
- the World Room, Journalism Hall,
[edit] 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