Auguste Rodin
Encyclopedia : A : AU : AUG : Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin (November 12, 1840 – November 17, 1917) was a French sculptor.
Born François-Auguste-René Rodin, to a working class family in Paris, he is 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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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 his time, who 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.
