Rodin, Auguste

(1840-1917)

   sculptor, watercolorist

   Regarded as the foremost sculptor of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Auguste Rodin was born in Paris. He studied art in a free school for artists and on his own at the louvre, after his L'Homme au nez casié (1864) was rejected and he was refused admittance to the École des beaux-arts. To earn a living, he worked with other sculptors in France and Belgium until 1871. In 1875, he traveled to Italy, where he was greatly influenced by the works of Donatello and Michelangelo. Rodin finally gained recognition when his male nude figure, L'Âge d'airain, was exhibited at the Salon of 1877. The work aroused controversy and provoked the accusations that Rodin had made plaster casts from living models. But in 1879, with his Saint Jean-Baptiste, his talent was fully recognized. in 1880, he received a commission from the Musée des arts décoratifs to do a monumental bronze door with the theme Gates of Hell, inspired by Dante. But he found it difficult to integrate his sculpture into the architectural setting and finally left the work unfinished. Although he did not complete Gates of Hell, he created models or studies of many of its components, all of which were acclaimed as independent achievements. These include the most famous The Thinker, The Kiss, Fugit amor, Adam, Eve, Paolo and Francesca, and Les Océanides. in 1884, he completed a separate work, Bourgeois de Calais, a monumental bronze group in which the historical figures are represented with great psychological insight. Rodin also produced numerous portraits, including monuments to Claude Lorrain (1889), Victor Hugo (1890), and Honoré de Balzac (1891-97), as well as several busts of the artist Jules Dalou (1883), the political figure Georges Clemenceau (1911), and others. Rodin's work was always done with great personal force, expressed largely through modeling, and he sought to show a truthful representation through his technique of often subtly disturbing anatomy, most characteristically shown by a roughness of texture and surface.

   See also bourdelle, antoine; claudel, camille.