rodin - Royal Academy of Arts

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16 ‘Less a statue than a kind of strange monolith, an age-old menhir, one of those rocks on which the caprice of some prehistoric volcanic explosion has etched a human face by chance.’ GEORGES RODENBACH, 1898. Cat. 160 The Earth and the Moon, 1898–99 Marble 122.5 x 72.5 x 65 cm National Museum of Wales, NMW A 2509. Bequeathed by Gwendoline David, 1940 Photo © National Museum of Wales moody, symbolist image that emphasises Rodin’s link with that movement.‘You will make the world understand my Balzac through these pictures.They are like Christ walking in the Desert.’ THE MARBLE SCULPTURES In the twentieth century Rodin’s marble sculptures have been negatively criticised on the grounds that he didn’t make them. Rodin modelled in clay and while he regarded plaster as the most appropriate material for the development of his ideas and display in exhibitions, bronze and marble were seen as the most permanent materials with commercial potential. Although Rodin did not carve the marble versions himself, he certainly supervised the output of the many skilled carvers who worked for him, often in their own studios. Rodin had built up a vast collection of figures and objects from all over the world and from many different periods. Naturally there were many Roman marble copies of Greek works, and he admired the limpid, transparent quality of the stone, its variety of colour and the possibility of achieving a silky smooth finish that made it ideal for one kind of representation of human flesh.This could be particularly effective in his later portraits of women where the smoothly modelled features have a veiled, almost dream like quality in contrast to the rougher unfinished surroundings. Cat. 160 Rodin’s marble sculptures of the 1890s, using single or newly combined small figures from The Gates of Hell or after, frequently carry classical titles or vaguer symbolic ones. For the sculptor it was the formal relationship of the figures to the block of marble they would be embedded in that came first. A contrast is made between the smoothly carved figures and the varied rougher, non-finito treatment of the stone, which suggests an environment that the spectator is free to interpret. The title of this work, The Earth and The Moon, invites us to transpose the large marble block, with its many types of mark, into some kind of cosmic space inhabited by the figures, drawn together by a force of erotic gravity. How has Rodin created a sensation of floating? THE LATE DRAWINGS From about 1895 Rodin resumed the practice of drawing, working exclusively from the model. Faced with the many demands to oversee reproductions of his work, this essentially personal activity enabled him to escape the quasi-industrial aspect of his studio and work without assistance. In over 7,000 sheets he obsessively recorded the female body with models whose poses flagrantly explored different aspects of female sexuality. Concentrating entirely on the figure and with no sense of studio context, the five-foot-seven-inch, short-sighted artist adopted a close vantage-point and drew rapidly with a continuous flow of the pencil. He never took his eyes off the model and this mode of working 17
18 became a way of sustaining the emotions inspired by her body.To some he would later add a pale wash to bring out a sense of volume and differentiate the figure from the background, often cutting out and re-pasting the isolated figure on a new piece of paper or combining it with another drawing. Cat. 265 Rodin was fascinated by movement and its sense of implied action. In this study of a woman with her arms crossed, the pose owes much to his love of dance, particularly the more formal and restrained movements of Oriental dancers.The curving arabesque from her lowered left shoulder down to waist and buttock and thigh provides the pivotal force of energy reflected in the swelling belly and raised arms. The model appears to be wearing a cape, which billows out to right and left. Do you think she was actually wearing one or do you think that Rodin added it, along with the fluid lines across and around her thighs, to suggest the sense of movement implicit in the pose? The late drawings can be seen as a celebration of feminine sexuality.What might have been the reaction if one reversed the gender of artist and model? THE PARTIAL FIGURES Rodin felt that one part of the sculpture, usually the torso, contained the core of energy that radiated out into the rest of the figure, and it was not unusual for him to make studies of only part of the figure. Given his propensity to mix and match, using one part of a figure combined with part of another, the idea of sculptural form as a direct representation of nature was subverted in favour of artistic manipulation. Rodin felt free to exhibit his studies as well as radically altering existing figures by the removal of extremities. Cat. 205 This figure, known as The Muse,The Inner Voice or Meditation, demonstrates how Rodin used and reused a figure in different ways, finding new creative possibilities over an extended period of time. Originally a small figure in the right-hand side of the tympanum of The Gates of Hell, she can be seen with that characteristic twist of the body, head lowered and her right hand touching her hair. Detached from The Gates and enlarged, the right hand now cradles the face and the left hand touches the upper breast. It has been suggested that the inspiration for the sculpture was Camille Claudel’s body and attitude, which may account for its use in a proposed monument to Victor Hugo as one of three muses, initially with the arms but later without, and with the knee and upper leg covered in drapery. By severing this drapery Rodin arrived at the figure before us. The calm, classical head suggests an antique Venus, while the torsion in the pose of the body reminds us more of Michelangelo. Removal of the arms has created a more flowing, continuous silhouette and opens up the face to light.The feeling is of withdrawal into the self; Cat. 265 Woman with Folded Arms and Flexed Legs Dancing with Fluttering Veils, c. 1898 Graphite and stump on cream-coloured paper 30.6 x 19.9 cm Musée Rodin, Paris/Meudon, D. 2363. Donation Rodin, 1916 Photo © Musée Rodin/Jean de Calan ‘A work of art is always noble, even when it translates the stirrings of the brute, for at that moment the artist who has produced it had as his only objective the most conscientious rendering possible of the impression he has felt.’ RODIN, 1907 19
Page 1 and 2: This guide is given out free to tea
Page 3 and 4: 2 ‘What is modelling? The very pr
Page 5 and 6: 6 Cat. 80 Crouching Woman, c.1881-8
Page 7 and 8: 10 Cat. 132 Pierre de Wissant, Monu
Page 9: 14 Cat. 143 Balzac, Study of Nude

rodin - Royal Academy of Arts

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