Auguste Rodin was a famous French sculptor of marble and bronze figures. His most notable works include The Thinker, The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais and monumental figures of Honore de Balzac and Victor Hugo. He never idealized his subjects, but always portrayed them realistically, which is why he is considered to be the father of modern sculpture. He faced harsh criticism early in his career and only gained the fame he deserved later on.
Background
Auguste Rodin was born to a working-class family in Paris, France. His father, Jean-Baptiste Rodin, was a police clerk, while his mother Marie Cheffer was a housewife. He had a sister named Maria, who was two years older than him. There is no reliable data that anyone in Rodin's family showed great affection for art until Auguste.
Education
Rodin’s childhood was marked by the fact that he was extremely nearsighted, which caused him a lot of troubles, especially during his early schooling. He struggled in math and science because he couldn’t see the numbers on the blackboard. He was not aware that he had a sight problem, so he became depressed. He found consolation in drawing as here, he could have clearly seen his progress as he draws.
His parents noticed his talent and decided to enroll him at the Petite Ecole (Ecole Imperiale de Dessin), a school for design and craft. Rodin was a very diligent student, attending classes regularly and visiting museums to study Roman and Greek sculpture. He also studied drawing at the Gobelins tapestry workshops. Soon he found out that he is even better with clay than he is in drawing. Rodin’s early sculptures clearly showed that he had a great gift and he was soon given two prizes for modeling and drawing.
His dream was to enter the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Grande Ecole), which was a higher education establishment. However, although he tried to apply three times, he was rejected each time, probably due to the fact that Ecole des Beaux Arts was rather conservative, while Rodin’s work was deemed quite modern.
Career
Realizing that he won’t be accepted by the Grande Ecole, in 1858 Rodin decided to start working so he can help his father to support his family. He found work quite easily as the sculpture workshops were in need of workers at the time because monumental sculptures were being placed across numerous courtyards and parks of Paris.
A huge shock for Rodin came in 1862 when his sister Maria died tragically after suffering from peritonitis. He had big troubles coping with the grief so he decided to stop his art career and join the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, a Catholic order founded by Father Peter Julian Eymard. It was father Eymard who noticed his great talent for art and advised Rodin to leave the church and pursue his career.
Encouraged by his words, Rodin decided to rent a studio in 1863 and work on a portrait bust of a local handyman called Bibi, which was Rodin’s first paid model. Later on, he offered the bust to the Salon exhibit, one of the most prestigious exhibitions in Paris, but it was rejected due to the realism of the portrait. In 1864, he met Rose Beuret, his life companion who he never married but they stayed together until the end of his life.
At the time Rodin was working with Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, a commercial sculptor. Rodin was drafted in the army during the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71) but was quickly dismissed due to sight problems. He and Carrier-Belleuse were invited to Brussels to work on sculptural decorations on public locations, which was a major project. Rodin left his family and moved to Brussels in 1871. Although he was supposed to stay for only a couple of months, he was there for six years, so his wife soon joined him.
The time spent in Brussels helped Rodin to secure his family financially. He even saved money to travel so he visited Italy in 1875. During this trip, he was attracted to the works of Michelangelo and Donatello, which inspired him greatly. He returned to Paris and decided to work on a life-size male nude, using an army soldier as a model. Rodin named the sculpture The Vanquished but the piece was so realistic that many artists accused Rodin that he simply made a mold from a human body. Even when he changed the name of the figure to The Age of Bronze and submitted it to the Paris Salon in 1877, he was criticized that he made a casting from a real-life model. On the other side, the sculpture was praised for its great beauty.
Rodin didn’t have a problem to secure his income upon his return in Paris, getting himself a job at the Sevres porcelain factory. In the following years, he created Saint John the Baptist Preaching, one of his most amazing sculptures. In order to avoid getting accused of making a cast out of a live model, Rodin made a figure bigger than life-size. However, when the figure was exhibited in 1880, it shocked the community as it presented the Saint as a non-idealized nude, without any of the attributes he is known for (cross, leather belt…).
Although he raised a lot of controversies, the French Ministry of Fine Arts hired Rodin for his first big public project. His task was to design the door which will serve as the entrance to a museum of decorative arts. Rodin was inspired by the Divine Comedy written by Dante and Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire, creating the sculpture he named The Gates of Hell.
Despite the fact that the museum was never built, Rodin used this sculpture for several of his figures. In fact, a couple of pieces that Rodin is most known for, including, The Kiss, The Thinker, and The Three Shades, are a derivation from smaller reliefs that were part of The Gates of Hell. Rodin often exhibited figures from The Gates of Hell as freestanding and independent pieces.
Rodin finally got the recognition he wanted in the 1880s. Many people that were known in the society of the day asked him to make portrait busts for them, so Rodin’s activity started growing every day. He hired numerous assistants to help him in his studio and transform the clay piece he has done into a cast bronze or a marble. Inspired by the young Camille Claudel, who he met at the time, Rodin created The Kiss and other pieces that showed couples in love.
The French city of Calais hired Rodin to create a monument in honor of Eustache de Saint-Pierre. He studied the history surrounding the event and was impressed with the story, so he gave his best. The Burghers of Calais, which was the name of the monument, was finished in 1888 and first exhibited in Paris in 1889, along with the paintings of Claude Monet. In 1895, the city of Calais erected the monument.
Rodin worked for Claude Lorrain, Victor Hugo and other respectable people of the time, when in 1891 the Society of Men of Letters (the Societe des Gens of Lettres) hired him to make a monument in honor of Honore de Balzac, their founder. The task was tricky as Balzac died several decades before that, so Rodin studied him carefully, finally finishing the model in 1898 and presenting the Monument to Balzac to the public. However, this nine-foot plaster was met with ridicule and outrage, leading to the Literary Society refusing to accept it.
The international recognition for Rodin arrived in 1900 when his work was presented at the Paris World Fair. More than 150 pieces of Rodin’s work were displayed for people from all around the world to see them. This lead to him getting requests to exhibit not only throughout Europe but also in Canada and Japan. In 1908, he moved his studio to the Hotel Biron in Paris, where many of his contemporaries also held their showrooms, like Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau, and Isadora Duncan.
He continued working hard and finished a couple of large projects, such as enlarging The Thinker, his most famous sculpture, and making the Monument to Victor Hugo. He also expressed his interest in dancers, desiring to capture their spontaneous movement. Shortly before his death, he made a proposition – he will bequeath everything to France and in return, when he dies, Hotel Biron would be converted to a museum where his work will be displayed. The French Parliament agreed.
Rodin died in 1917, less than a year after his lifelong partner, Rose Beuret, passed away.
Rodin was baptized as a Catholic. When his sister died in 1862, he sought consolation in faith and even joined a Catholic Order. Despite his respect for religion, he realized that his place was not at the Church and he left the following year to pursue his dreams of becoming a successful artist.
Politics
Rodin never actively engaged in politics but he had numerous encounters with it. In the 1880s the French Ministry of Fine Arts hired him for their public project, his numerous works were bought by the French government, and near the end of his life, he even made a deal with the country of France. He would bequeath all his belongings to the country and France will in return make Hotel Biron a museum to honor his work. The French Parliament approved this deal,
Views
Rodin’s work significantly changed art, especially in France. He particularly transformed sculpture into an art that spoke to the viewer’s imaginations and emotions. There were no right or wrong ways to interpret the stories that were told by the sculptures. This is why he is considered a pioneer of modern art and a father of modern sculpture.
He was also a pioneer when it comes to thinking that one part of a figure can pose independently as a complete work of art. Rodin noticed the great beauty that fragments of Classical Roman and Greek sculptures possessed and applied that in his work. This inspired many other artists, such as Matisse, Archipenko, and Brancusi. He would also often started working on a piece not knowing exactly how it will look when he’s done with it. He was used to changing his intentions based on the inspiration that was coming to him at the moment.
Rodin wanted to get approval from the public and the harsh criticism he received affected him significantly. When he was accused of making a mold out of a real-life model when he created his piece The Age of Bronze, he strongly defended. Finally, he decided that his next sculpture will be bigger than a normal life-size, so he can silence the critics.
Despite the bad comments, Rodin pursued his style of making his models to be incredibly realistic. Unlike Greeks, who emphasized musculature, he believed that everything should be portrayed in accordance with real life. This is why he portrayed his models faithfully, even if they are wrinkled and old. Rodin believed that an artist lies when he idealizes his subjects.
However, he believed that heads should be emphasized with people that possessed high intellect. This is what he tried to apply when he was studying Balzac in order to make the Monument to Balzac. Although he created a brilliant nine-foot plaster, the public didn’t like the portrayal and the Literary Society that ordered the monument was forced to refuse it.
Quotations:
"The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms. Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him"
Membership
Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts
,
France
Personality
Rodin’s work caused a lot of controversies, especially early in his career, and he was not immune to critics. The fact that he was so struck with grief after his sister died that he joined a Catholic Order also goes along with the presumption that he didn’t possess a strong character. However, he compensated by being devoted to his work and working hard during his entire career.
Interests
Reading, Drawing
Philosophers & Thinkers
Honore de Balzac
Politicians
Emile Zola
Writers
Octave Mirbeau, Jean Cocteau, Victor Hugo
Artists
Michelangelo, Donatello, Henri Matisse
Connections
Rodin married a seamstress Rose Beuret in 1917, less than a year before he died. However, he met her and started to live with her in 1864 and they were lifelong companions. They had a son together in 1866 but Rodin never officially recognized the paternity of Auguste-Eugene Beuret.
During the 1890s, Rodin met the young Camille Claudel. Although she was only 19 years old at the time, she became his lover and a muse and served as inspiration for many of his sculptures, including The Kiss. However, he didn’t want to leave Rose, so he broke up with Camille in 1898.
Father:
Jean-Baptiste Rodin
Wife:
Rose Beuret
Lover:
Camille Claudel
colleague:
Michelangelo
References
Auguste Rodin Biography | artble.com
François-Auguste-René Rodin was born on the 12th of November 1840 to a family of modest means in Paris, France.....