The Life And Works Of Auguste Rodin
Ask anyone to name a famous artist and you'll receive a wide variety of answers
. Leonardo, Picasso, Van Gogh and Rembrandt are all well known as are their most famous works. Ask for the name a of a sculptor however and the result is different. We see statues and monuments wherever we go, but who can name the artist? The subject is almost always more famous.There are exceptions. Michelangelo is one, Rodin is another. His statues are amongst the most famous in the world today and although they received a lot of criticism during his life, Rodin was the most famous artist of his time. Almost everyone has heard the name.
Rodin took his work seriously and never set out to challenge the establishment or be deliberately different, but His life was full of intrigue and scandal and his works, especially his nude statues, were at the time regarded as revolutionary, beautiful, and sometimes too erotic.
Rodin's aim was realism, something which set him at odds with the neoclassical tastes of the time and he was clearly successful. His very first work, a nude sculpture called 'the age of bronze' resulted in a charge of surmoulage, using a plaster cast from life to create his statue. He was eventually cleared, but as a result often worked in sizes which were clearly not taken from life.
The most famous Rodin sculpture is known as 'The Kiss', a nude statue showing two lovers interrupted as their lips are about to meet. 'The Kiss' began as part of 'The Gates of Hell' a design Rodin worked on for many years which was intended to form the gates of a new museum. Many of his most famous statues began in that way but he removed 'The Kiss' because it didn't seem to fit with the overall theme. A relief version of Rodin's 'Young Mother With Child' can be seen on the lower left side of the Gates of Hell. It seems likely the mother is modelled on his mistress, Rose Beuret and the child of their son.
Other Rodin statues had a quite different source of inspiration. At the age of forty three Rodin met Camille Claudel who was then 18. They had a passionate affair, but Rodin always refused to make a complete break with Rose and after some 12 years Camille ended their relationship. Three years later Rodin returned to Rose.
Camille was herself a sculptor and according to many a genius in her own right. She helped Rodin with many of his works and was also the inspiration for his famous nude sculpture, 'Eternal Idol'. The is also thought to be the model for 'The Bather', another nude statue by Rodin which began as a faun in 'The Gates of Hell'. Camille was successful as a sculptress but a few years after her breakup with Rodin she appeared to have a nervous breakdown, destroyed many of her statues and accused Rodin of stealing her work and trying to kill her. Although she recovered, in 1913 her family had her committed to an institution where she remained for 30 years. The staff wrote repeatedly, advising her family that Camille was not mentally ill , but her mother would not agree and so Camille remained in the mental hospital until she died in 1943. Rodin finally married Rose in 1917, the year they both died.
Rodin made his statutes by creating them at a much smaller size in a medium which was relatively easy to manipulate. He had assistants copy the smaller statute in marble and then made the finishing touches himself. One result of this is that there is no definitive version of many Rodin statues. There are three large (about 6 feet) marble versions of 'The Kiss': The first was commissioned by the French government and is now in the Muse Rodin in Paris, the second was commissioned by an eccentric Englishman and can now be found in the Tate Modern in London while the third and last, made in 1903 can be found in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.
Rodin worked for over 50 years and in that time produced thousands of statues, busts, oil paintings and watercolors. He died in 1917.
In a strange twist, works by Camille Claudel often sell for far more than similar works by Rodin, but her name is almost unknown. Her face and figure, immortalized by her famous lover, will always be remembered.
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