Edward Steichen, Auguste Rodin in his Studio, 1907
Rodin and the Fragmenta;on of the Figure
Hiram Powers, Greek Slave, 1846
Lorenzo Bartolini, Trust in God, 1835
Jean-‐Bap;ste Carpeaux 1827-‐1875 Charles Carpeaux, terracoRa, 1873
Rodin, Man with a Broken Nose, 1864
Michelangelo, Unfinished Atlas Slave for tomb of Julius II, 1520-‐23, Gall. Accademia, Florence
Non-‐finito = unfinished
Michelangelo, Dying Slave, Louvre, Paris, 1514
Rodin, Age of Bronze, 1876, with model Alexandre Neyt
“Inscription above Gate to Hell “THROUGH me you pass into the city of sorrow: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me you journey among the lost ... I was made by God Eternal, and eternal I endure. Abandon all hope, you who enter here.” Dante, Divine Comedy, Hell, Canto 3.
Rodin, Gates of Hell, 1880-‐1917
Rodin, Gates of Hell, 1880-‐1917 Lorenzo Ghiber;, East Doors, Floren;ne Bap;stry 1425
Rodin, Gates of Hell, 1880-‐1917
“He conjured all the forms of Dante’s dream as though from out the s;rrings depths of personal remembrance and gave them one a`er another the silent deliverance of material existence. Hundreds of figures and groups were thus created. The visions of the poet who belonged to another age awakened the ar;st who made them rise again to the knowledge of a thousand other gestures…. Alongside of the whole history of mankind was this other history that did not know disguises, conven;ons, differences of rank, that only know strife.” Ranier Maria Rilke, 1903
The Thinker 1882
“In the midst of life, I found myself in a dark wood, For the true path had been lost. … I can’t remember how I got here I was so heavy with sleep, at the ;me I abandoned the right way. Dante, Divine Comedy, Hell, Canto 1.
Michelangelo, Tomb of Lorenzo de Medici, Florence, 1523
The Thinker 1882
“I conceived another thinker, a naked man, seated upon a rock, his feet drawn under him, his fist against his teeth, he dreams. The fer;le thought slowly elaborates itself with his brain. He is no longer dreamer, he is creator.” Rodin, 1904
The Thinker 1882
Rodin, The Prodigal Son, 1886
Modeling in clay
Rodin, Squaeng Woman 1882
A burning ember
"Ah, wicked old age Why have you struck me down so soon? [You] have s=ffened me so that I cannot strike And with that kill myself! When I think, alas! of the good =mes, What [I] was, what [I] have become, When [I] look at myself completely naked And I see myself so changed. Poor desiccated thin, shriveled, I nearly go mad! What has happened to my smooth brow, My blond hair... . My slender shoulders, Small breasts, firm thighs High, clean, perfectly made For love's pleasures; (.....) This is the fate of human beauty! Shrunken arms and clenched hands [And] completely hunchbacked. What breasts! All wizened Like my hips... .” François Villon (d. 1462)
Rodin, Helmet Maker’s Wife, 1882
“No amount of hypocri;cal argumenta;on under the cry of ‘liberty in art’ will condone the represen;ng of the body of a woman in any other than its most perfect form, and then only in a spirit of utmost chas;ty and reverence of the ineffable beauty with which the creator has invested that form… This work by Rodin has shocked the normal public … because it is intellectually monstrous and spiritually degenerate, and its exhibi;on in the public museum is a social abomina;on.” Petronius Arbiter, “A degenerate work of art. Rodin’s Helmet Maker’s Wife”, The Art World, 1916.
Donatello Penitent Magdalen painted ;mber c.1455, Mus dell’ Opera del Duomo, Florence
Honore Balzac (1799-‐1850), photo. C. 1848 Rodin, model for Balzac monument, 1894
Eugène Guillaume, Monument to Blaise Pascal, 1879, Clermont Ferand
Rodin, Eugène Guillaume (1822-‐1905), 1903 (photo by Rodin, 1915)
Rodin, Balzac, 1897
Balzac photographed by Edward Steichen, 1898
Rodin, Squaeng Woman 1882
Rodin, Iris, Messenger of the Gods, 1890
Rodin, Flying Woman, 1891
“Completeness is conveyed in all the armless statues of Rodin: nothing necessary is lacking. One stands before something whole. The feeling of incompleteness does not rise from the mere aspect of a thing, but from the assump;on of a narrow-‐minded pedantry, which says that arms are a necessary part of the body and that a body without arms cannot be perfect.” Ranier Maria Rilke, Rodin, 1903
Miletus Torso, c. 480 BC, Louvre Museum Paria
Apollo's Archaic Torso Ranier Maria Rilke “We cannot know his incredible head, where the eyes ripened like apples, yet his torso s;ll glows like a candelabrum, from which his gaze, however dimmed, s;ll persists and gleams. If this were not so, the bow of his breast could not blind you, nor could a smile, steered by the gentle curve of his loins, glide to the centre of procrea;on. And this stone would seem disfigured and stunted, the shoulders descending into nothing, unable to glisten like a predator's pelt, or burst out from its confines and radiate like a star: for there is no angle from which it cannot see you. You must change your life.” From New Poems, 1907, translated Sarah StuR
Ranier Maria Rilke (1875-‐1926), German poet, Rodin’s secretary 1902-‐07 Author of Rodin, 1903
Constan;ne Brancusi (1876-‐1957), Sleep, marble, Muz de Arte Bucharest, 1908
Rodin, Squatting Woman, 1882 Picasso, The Young Ladies of Avignon, MOMA New York, 1907
“Hands that rise, irritated and in wrath; hands whose five bristling fingers seem to bark like the five jaws of a dog of hell. Hands that walk, sleeping hands, and hands that are awakening… hands are a complicated organism, a delta into which many divergent streams of life rush together in order to pour themselves into the great storm of ac;on.” Ranier Maria Rilke, Rodin, 1903
The gestured body