François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture.
Rodin remains one of the few sculptors widely known outside the visual arts community. ==Biography== ===Formative years=== Rodin was born in 1840 into a working-class family in Paris, the second child of Marie Cheffer and Jean-Baptiste Rodin, who was a police department clerk.
The teacher's attention to detail and his finely rendered musculature of animals in motion significantly influenced Rodin. In 1864, Rodin began to live with a young seamstress named Rose Beuret (born in June 1844), with whom he stayed for the rest of his life, with varying commitment.
The 1897 plaster model was not cast in bronze until 1964. The Société des Gens des Lettres, a Parisian organization of writers, planned a monument to French novelist Honoré de Balzac immediately after his death in 1850.
It was at Petite École that he met Jules Dalou and Alphonse Legros. In 1857, Rodin submitted a clay model of a companion to the École des Beaux-Arts in an attempt to win entrance; he did not succeed, and two further applications were also denied.
He left the Petite École in 1857 and earned a living as a craftsman and ornamenter for most of the next two decades, producing decorative objects and architectural embellishments. Rodin's sister Maria, two years his senior, died of peritonitis in a convent in 1862, and Rodin was anguished with guilt because he had introduced her to an unfaithful suitor.
His first sculpture was a bust of his father in 1860, and he produced at least 56 portraits between 1877 and his death in 1917.
He left the Petite École in 1857 and earned a living as a craftsman and ornamenter for most of the next two decades, producing decorative objects and architectural embellishments. Rodin's sister Maria, two years his senior, died of peritonitis in a convent in 1862, and Rodin was anguished with guilt because he had introduced her to an unfaithful suitor.
The teacher's attention to detail and his finely rendered musculature of animals in motion significantly influenced Rodin. In 1864, Rodin began to live with a young seamstress named Rose Beuret (born in June 1844), with whom he stayed for the rest of his life, with varying commitment.
Claudel suffered an alleged nervous breakdown several years later and was confined to an institution for 30 years by her family, until her death in 1943, despite numerous attempts by doctors to explain to her mother and brother that she was sane. ==Works== In 1864, Rodin submitted his first sculpture for exhibition, The Man with the Broken Nose, to the Paris Salon.
Rodin worked as Carrier-Belleuse' chief assistant until 1870, designing roof decorations and staircase and doorway embellishments.
This is composed of two sculptures from the 1870s that Rodin found in his studio – a broken and damaged torso that had fallen into neglect and the lower extremities of a statuette version of his 1878 St.
Although Rodin was sensitive to the controversy surrounding his work, he refused to change his style, and his continued output brought increasing favor from the government and the artistic community. From the unexpected naturalism of Rodin's first major figure – inspired by his 1875 trip to Italy – to the unconventional memorials whose commissions he later sought, his reputation grew, and Rodin became the preeminent French sculptor of his time.
Having saved enough money to travel, Rodin visited Italy for two months in 1875, where he was drawn to the work of Donatello and Michelangelo.
Much of Rodin's later work was explicitly larger or smaller than life, in part to demonstrate the folly of such accusations. ===Artistic independence=== Rose Beuret and Rodin returned to Paris in 1877, moving into a small flat on the Left Bank.
The result was a life-size, well-proportioned nude figure, posed unconventionally with his right hand atop his head, and his left arm held out at his side, forearm parallel to the body. In 1877, the work debuted in Brussels and then was shown at the Paris Salon.
His first sculpture was a bust of his father in 1860, and he produced at least 56 portraits between 1877 and his death in 1917.
John the Baptist Preaching, was completed in 1878.
This is composed of two sculptures from the 1870s that Rodin found in his studio – a broken and damaged torso that had fallen into neglect and the lower extremities of a statuette version of his 1878 St.
The original was a high bronze piece created between 1879 and 1889, designed for the Gates' lintel, from which the figure would gaze down upon Hell.
John the Baptist Preaching. In 1880, Carrier-Belleuse – then art director of the Sèvres national porcelain factory – offered Rodin a part-time position as a designer.
Gambetta spoke of Rodin in turn to several government ministers, likely including , the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Fine Arts, whom Rodin eventually met. Rodin's relationship with Turquet was rewarding: through him, he won the 1880 commission to create a portal for a planned museum of decorative arts.
In 1880, Rodin submitted the sculpture to the Paris Salon.
The artistic community knew his name. ===The Gates of Hell=== A commission to create a portal for Paris' planned Museum of Decorative Arts was awarded to Rodin in 1880.
Soon, he stopped working at the porcelain factory; his income came from private commissions. In 1883, Rodin agreed to supervise a course for sculptor Alfred Boucher in his absence, where he met the 18-year-old Camille Claudel.
The Burghers of Calais depicts the men as they are leaving for the king's camp, carrying keys to the town's gates and citadel. Rodin began the project in 1884, inspired by the chronicles of the siege by Jean Froissart.
Still, Rodin was gaining support from diverse sources that propelled him toward fame. In 1889, the Paris Salon invited Rodin to be a judge on its artistic jury.
The original was a high bronze piece created between 1879 and 1889, designed for the Gates' lintel, from which the figure would gaze down upon Hell.
Rodin indicated his willingness to end the project rather than change his design to meet the committee's conservative expectations, but Calais said to continue. In 1889, The Burghers of Calais was first displayed to general acclaim.
It is one of Rodin's best-known and most acclaimed works. ===Commissions and controversy === Commissioned to create a monument to French writer Victor Hugo in 1889, Rodin dealt extensively with the subject of artist and muse.
Rodin, however, would have multiple plasters made and treat them as the raw material of sculpture, recombining their parts and figures into new compositions, and new names. As Rodin's practice developed into the 1890s, he became more and more radical in his pursuit of fragmentation, the combination of figures at different scales, and the making of new compositions from his earlier work.
For a monument to French author Honoré de Balzac, Rodin was chosen in 1891.
The society commissioned Rodin to create the memorial in 1891, and Rodin spent years developing the concept for his sculpture.
Her Bust of Rodin was displayed to critical acclaim at the 1892 Salon. Although busy with The Gates of Hell, Rodin won other commissions.
In 1895, Calais succeeded in having Burghers displayed in their preferred form: the work was placed in front of a public garden on a high platform, surrounded by a cast-iron railing.
The 1897 plaster model was not cast in bronze until 1964. The Société des Gens des Lettres, a Parisian organization of writers, planned a monument to French novelist Honoré de Balzac immediately after his death in 1850.
Rodin and Beuret's modest country estate in Meudon, purchased in 1897, was a host to such guests as King Edward, dancer Isadora Duncan, and
During one absence, Rodin wrote to Beuret, "I think of how much you must have loved me to put up with my caprices...I remain, in all tenderness, your Rodin." Claudel and Rodin parted in 1898.
Rodin's intent had been to show Balzac at the moment of conceiving a work – to express courage, labor, and struggle. When Balzac was exhibited in 1898, the negative reaction was not surprising.
By 1900, he was a world-renowned artist.
A prime example of this is the bold The Walking Man (1899–1900), which was exhibited at his major one-person show in 1900.
It was the freedom and creativity with which Rodin used these practices – along with his activation surfaces of sculptures through traces of his own touch and with his more open attitude toward bodily pose, sensual subject matter, and non-naturalistic surface – that marked Rodin's re-making of traditional 19th century sculptural techniques into the prototype for modern sculpture. ==Later years (1900–1917)== By 1900, Rodin's artistic reputation was entrenched.
Gaining exposure from a pavilion of his artwork set up near the 1900 World's Fair (Exposition Universelle) in Paris, he received requests to make busts of prominent people internationally, while his assistants at the atelier produced duplicates of his works.
As Rodin's fame grew, he attracted many followers, including the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and authors Octave Mirbeau, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Oscar Wilde. Rilke stayed with Rodin in 1905 and 1906, and did administrative work for him; he would later write a laudatory monograph on the sculptor.
As Rodin's fame grew, he attracted many followers, including the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and authors Octave Mirbeau, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Oscar Wilde. Rilke stayed with Rodin in 1905 and 1906, and did administrative work for him; he would later write a laudatory monograph on the sculptor.
Commenting on Rodin's monument to Victor Hugo, The Times in 1909 expressed that "there is some show of reason in the complaint that [Rodin's] conceptions are sometimes unsuited to his medium, and that in such cases they overstrain his vast technical powers".
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture.
His sculptures suffered a decline in popularity after his death in 1917, but within a few decades his legacy solidified.
His first sculpture was a bust of his father in 1860, and he produced at least 56 portraits between 1877 and his death in 1917.
Only in 1939 was Monument to Balzac cast in bronze and placed on the Boulevard du Montparnasse at the intersection with Boulevard Raspail. ===Other works=== The popularity of Rodin's most famous sculptures tends to obscure his total creative output.
Claudel suffered an alleged nervous breakdown several years later and was confined to an institution for 30 years by her family, until her death in 1943, despite numerous attempts by doctors to explain to her mother and brother that she was sane. ==Works== In 1864, Rodin submitted his first sculpture for exhibition, The Man with the Broken Nose, to the Paris Salon.
The 1897 plaster model was not cast in bronze until 1964. The Société des Gens des Lettres, a Parisian organization of writers, planned a monument to French novelist Honoré de Balzac immediately after his death in 1850.
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