Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is generally considered to be one of the founders of modern sculpture. While traditional sculpture prior to Rodin tended to be decorative, formulaic, or thematic, Rodin portrayed the human body with realism and celebrated individual character and physical features. Rodin was considered a naturalist who focused on character and emotion rather than on monumental expression. During his life, his works were often criticized and were somewhat controversial.
While Rodin showed artistic talent at a young age, he was a poor student. He attended the Ecolé Impériale Spéciale de Dessin et de Mathématique where he learned modeling and drawing. He applied to get in to the noted Ecole des Beaux-Arts and was rejected three times. Humiliated by this failure, Rodin went to work for commercial decorators and sculptors. However, he had a compulsion to sculpt and opened his own studio.
Rodin spent six years in Belgium during which time he journeyed to Italy to visit the fourth Michelangelo centennial. Rodin began to depart from the accepted style of French sculpture, focusing on investigating the human form as a vehicle to express human emotion.
The Portland Art Museum recently presented a special exhibit: Rodin: The Human Experience—Selections from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collections. This exhibit displayed 52 bronzes by the groundbreaking French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The exhibition was staged to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the artist’s death. Rodin insisted that a part of a figure—the torso or a hand—could itself convey meaning. Parts of a figure could, therefore, be complete works of art. Shown below are some of Rodin’s heads and busts which were displayed at this special exhibit.
Shown above: Monumental Head of Jean d’Aire. Modeled about 1908-1909.
According to the museum display:
“In the process of completing his Monument to the Burghers of Calais, Rodin made many studies of the models, both nude and clothed. He did entire figures and parts of the figures, such as hands and heads. When the finished monument proved to be very popular, there was a market for these studies, not only to-size but also enlarged and reduced in size.”
Shown above: Final Head of Eustache de St. Pierre. Modeled about 1886. Eustache de St. Pierre was one of the citizens commemorated in Rodin’s Burghers of Calais.
Shown above: Monumental Head of the Shade. Modeled about 1880.
Shown above: Head of Balzac.
Shown above: Bust of Victor Hugo. Modeled in 1885.
Shown above: Japanese Dancer
Shown above: Gustave Mahler. Modeled in 1909.
Shown above: Pope Benedict XV. Modeled in 1915.
Shown above: Bust of Mrs. Russell. Modeled in 1888. She was an Italian model and the wife of Australian painter John Peter Russell.