Oeuvres sur Papier - Works on Paper - Jean-Luc Baroni & Marty de Cambiaire - 2022

en dessin comme en sculpture, qui renvoient à ses
recherches <strong>sur</strong> les « vertus » du temps et les étapes
du processus créatif. Il faut rappeler qu’il fut le premier
à adopter comme des éléments constitutifs de
l’œuvre d’art les traces d’accidents <strong>sur</strong> ses modelages
en terre, les coutures des plâtres, les clous des
marbres et qu’il portait une attention particulière aux
patines des bronzes. On retrouve <strong>sur</strong> la chevelure
et la jambe droite de notre Marguerite ou Carmen,
ces effets délibérés de taches ou marbrures chargées
en pigment brun-rouge. Pour Rodin, les œuvres antiques
comme modernes sont belles avec et à cause
de leurs altérations et de leurs déformations accidentelles.
À l’inverse de l’idée académique que le
matériau – marbre, bronze, encre, aquarelle, papier
– doit s’effacer au profit de l’œuvre, Rodin a
incorporé le matériau, parfois dans ses aspects les
plus bruts, à l’œuvre elle-même.
Dans cette émouvante Marguerite ou Carmen, Rodin
réussit la synthèse paradoxale d’une ombre immatérielle
et d’un corps dense, charnel, tangible ;
ici, le pigment et l’eau deviennent un « milieu
d’immanence qui réunit la forme avec l’informe 4 ».
« Mes dessins, dit Rodin à Bourdelle, sont le résultat
de ma sculpture. » Cet aveu ne décrit pas seulement
une œuvre graphique qu’il entreprit <strong>sur</strong> le tard, mais
aussi l’aboutissement de ses réflexions <strong>sur</strong> la création.
Rodin a toujours travaillé en expérimentateur.
Les formes sont conçues et manipulées par lui avec
une liberté qui ne cesse de nous <strong>sur</strong>prendre à me<strong>sur</strong>e
qu’on pénètre plus avant dans la connaissance
de son œuvre. Ses dessins en couleur préfigurent
très tôt, en effet, les postulats de l’art contemporain
qui germaient dans l’inconscient des jeunes visiteurs
de son pavillon, place de l’Alma.
Christina Buley-Uribe
ochre in fact recalls of a bearer of gifts taken from an
Egyptian bas-relief. The very specific gesture of the
hands which are almost joined, also evokes – like in
another Marguerite in the Musée Rodin (Fig. 2; Inv.
D. 4709) – the praying heroine of Faust. Finally, this
figure can also be linked to a small group of drawings
called “Republique” or “Marseillaise”, probably due
to Rodin having transformed the models’ chignons
into Phrygian hats (Fig. 3).
The “terracotta” and “antique” effects of these
drawings impressed both artists and art critics. Clara
Quin had been the first to note these characteristics
in the July 1900 issue of The Art Journal: “For the
most part they [the drawings] are like old terra-cotta
in colour and like antiques in form.” Rodin was in
fact interested in imperfections on <strong>sur</strong>faces, how
they were altered, their grain, in drawings as well as
in sculpture, which refer to his investigations about
the “virtues” of time and the stages of the creative
process. It should be noted that he was the first to
use the trace of accidents in his clay modelling, the
seams of plaster and nails from marble as elements
integral to the work of art, and that he paid particular
attention to the patinas of his bronze works. These
deliberate effects of stains or marbling filled with
red-brown pigment appear on the hair and right leg
of our Marguerite or Carmen. For Rodin, ancient
and modern works are beautiful with and because
of their alterations and accidental deformations.
Unlike the academic idea that the material – marble,
bronze, ink, watercolour, paper – should disappear
to highlight the work, Rodin incorporated the
material, sometimes in its roughest aspects, with the
work itself.
In this moving Marguerite or Carmen, Rodin has
succeeded in the paradoxical synthesis of an
immaterial shadow and a dense, carnal, tangible
body; here the pigment and the water become a
“milieu of eminence that combines the form with
the formless” 4 (Didi-Huberman) “My drawings are
the result of my sculpture”, Rodin said to Bourdelle.
This <strong>sur</strong>prising confession does not just describe
the graphic work that he took up late, but also the
culmination of his reflections on creation. Rodin
always worked as an experimenter. The forms are
conceived and manipulated by him with a liberty
that continually <strong>sur</strong>prises us as we penetrate deeper
into our knowledge of his work. His colour drawings
foreshadow very early, in fact the assumptions of
contemporary art that were being planted in the
unconscious of young visitors to his pavilion in the
place de l’Alma.
139