rodin - Royal Academy of Arts

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Cat. 123
The Burghers of Calais, 1908
Bronze
231 x 245 x 200 cm
Presented to the nation by The Art Fund, 1914. Restored
and set on a new plinth in Victoria Tower Gardens through
the generosity of Nicholas and Judith Goodison, 2004.
Loaned by The Royal Parks.
Photo The Royal Parks/Roy Fox
feet were done and these could be attached to the body to
experiment with expression and gesture. He had been to Calais to
sketch and study local physiognomies, and while this may suggest a
‘naturalistic’ approach, what strikes us is the imaginative leap that Rodin
made to enter into the emotional response of each burgher as they
contemplated their fate.
Cat. 132 Seen from the front of the final monument Pierre de Wissant
stands to the left of Eustache de St Pierre. His fragile, youthful body
with its turning, sinuous shape and freely expressive arms contrasts
strongly with the heavy strength of Eustache de St Pierre and his other
neighbour, Jean d’Aire, who carries a key to the city. In an almost dancelike
pose, Rodin conjures up a sense of hesitant advance as the bent,
bony leg prepares to move forward, while the raised hand, with spread
fingers, plucks a gesture of farewell from the lowered head.
How does the alignment of hips and shoulders convey the sense of
movement?
In his 1900 exhibition Rodin placed this statue at the very entrance, but
without the hands or head. How would this change it’s meaning and how
would you read it?
In 1886, the financial collapse of one of the Calais banks
responsible for raising money for the monument and difficulties with
the committee led to delays in completion. Rodin showed the full-sized
plaster cast in 1889 at an exhibition held jointly with Claude Monet
(1840–1926), but it was not till 1895 that the monument was erected
in Calais. In the intervening years Rodin had toyed with various
possibilities for displaying his work. At one time he favoured a groundlevel
installation, strung out in front of the Hôtel de Ville, so that
‘passers-by would have elbowed them, and they would have felt
through this contact the emotion of the living past in their midst’.
Rodin had the opportunity to try out another idea for its display
when the National Art Collections Fund in England purchased a cast in
1911. Harking back to raised equestrian monuments in Venice and
Padua, he hoped to place The Burghers directly in front of the Houses
of Parliament, silhouetted against the sky. In the end. The Burghers were
placed on a fifteen-foot-high plinth in nearby Victoria Gardens. In
response to public demand the plinth was removed in 1956.
Cat. 124 The Burghers of Calais invite the passage of time.What Rodin
is proposing is the slow movement past us of six individuals wrapped in
their own private reaction to approaching death. Of course it is the
spectator who has to move to reveal the unfolding drama. As we
proceed to walk around, Rodin lays out his individual characters in
pairs, trios and even a quartet, allowing us to compare and contrast the
reactions of stoic determination, defiance, despair, resignation, protest
and fear.The heavy fall of drapery with its deep recessions and
projections creates a unifying rhythm that binds the group together.
The hands and feet are much enlarged.Was Rodin doing this because the
figures might be seen at a distance? Or was the exaggeration for artistic
purposes?
In his treatment of Pierre de Wissant’s clothing, how has Rodin preserved
the fragile nature of his body?
THE STATUE OF BALZAC
In 1891 the Société des Gens de Lettres approached Rodin with a
commission to sculpt a statue of the novelist Honoré de Balzac
(1799–1850), author of the Comédie Humane, a series of interconnected
novels that examined French society with an almost
scientific precision.The committee’s original choice of sculptor had died
without completing his work, and the chairman, Emile Zola
(1840–1902), may have had difficulty in persuading them to award
Rodin the commission by twelve votes to eight.To set a time limit of
eighteen months for the notoriously over-worked sculptor, already
grappling with a monument to Victor Hugo, was also asking for trouble.
‘Balzac is before everything a creator and this is the idea I would
wish to make understood in my statue … As of now I would want to
execute a figure standing rather than seated.’ Rodin’s initial response
went straight to the heart of the matter, but the process of
investigation and experimentation would be as long drawn out as in his
other major projects. Balzac had been dead for over forty years, but
there were portraits, daguerreotypes and caricatures that Rodin could
draw on.Visiting Balzac’s home town of Tours, he found a coachman
who resembled the author, and ordered a suit of clothes from Balzac’s
‘The figures do not touch one
another, but stand side by side
like the last trees of a hewndown
forest united only by the
surrounding atmosphere. From
every point of view the gestures
stand out clear and great from
the dashing waves of the
contours; they rise and fall back
into the mass of stone [sic] like
flags that are furled.’
RAINER MARIA RILKE, 1903
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