Masterpieces and Mistresses: The life of Auguste Rodin
Ask anyone to name a famed artist and you will get an array of answers. Leonardo, Picasso, Van Gogh and Rembrandt are all famous much like their most memorable works. Look for the name of a sculptor however and the result is completely different. Most of us see statues along with monuments anywhere we go, but can you identify the artist? The subject is nearly always much more recognized.
There are exceptions. Michelangelo is one, Rodin is another. His statues are regarded along with the most legendary in the world today and although they had been given a great deal of criticism in the course of his life, Rodin was by far the most famous artist of his time. Almost everyone has heard the name.
Rodin took his work seriously and did not set out to challenge the establishment or be purposely different, but his life was brimming with intrigue and scandal and his works, especially his nude sculpture, were at the time considered to be innovative, breathtaking, and also occasionally overly erotic.
Rodin's intention was realism, an element which in turn put him at odds against the neoclassical tastes of the time and he was plainly successful. His earliest work, a nude sculpture named 'the age of bronze' resulted in a charge of surmoulage, utilizing a plaster cast of a person in order to create his sculpture. After some time he was found innocent of the charge, but because of this he commonly worked in measurements that were obviously not obtained from a real person.
Quite possibly the most famous Rodin sculpture is known as 'The Kiss', a nude statue exhibiting two lovers interrupted just as their mouths are on the verge of meeting. The Kiss Rodin started out within the 'The Gates of Hell' a structure Rodin worked on for many years that was meant to form the gates of a new museum. A lot of his most well-known statues started in this way but he eliminated 'The Kiss' as it didn't seem to match along with general design. A relief version of Rodin's 'Young Mother With Child' may be seen on the lower left side of the Gates of Hell. It seems probable the actual mother is modelled on his mistress, Rose Beuret and the child on their son.
Other Rodin statues were imagined from a rather different source of creativity. At the age of forty three Rodin met Camille Claudel who was then eighteen. They had a passionate affair, but Rodin continually declined to make a complete break with Rose and after about 12 years Camille concluded their relationship. Three years after Rodin returned to Rose.
Camille was herself a sculptor and according to many a genius in her own right. Camille aided Rodin with many of his most well know sculptures and was also the inspiration for many of his most well-known nude statues, like 'Eternal Idol'. She can also be regarded as the model for 'The Bather', another nude statue by Rodin that started being a faun in 'The Gates of Hell'. Camille was skillful as a sculptress however a couple of years following her breakup with Rodin she appeared to have a nervous breakdown, demolished many of her statues and falsely accused Rodin of taking her work and trying to kill her. Although she recovered, in 1913 her family members had her committed to an institution where she stayed for 30 years. The staff wrote continuously, counseling her friends and family that Camille wasn't mentally ill , but her mother would not consent and thus Camille stayed in the mental hospital until she died in 1943. Rodin eventually married Rose in 1917, the year that they both passed away.
Rodin made his statues by way of producing them in a much smaller dimension in a medium which was relatively easy to manipulate. He had assistants replicate the smaller statue in marble after which he made the finishing details himself. One consequence of this is that there is simply no definitive version of many Rodin statues. You will find 3 large (about 6 feet) marble variations of 'The Kiss': The first was commissioned by the French government and is now in the Musée Rodin in Paris, the next was commissioned by an unconventional Englishman and can now be found in the Tate Modern in London and the third and final, created in 1903 is exhibited in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.
Rodin created art for over half a century and in the period composed thousands of statues, busts, oil paintings and watercolors including his famous the Thinker Statue. He passed away in 1917.
In a peculiar twist, works by Camille Claudel often sell for much more than comparable works by Rodin, yet her name is nearly anonymous. Her face and figure, immortalized through her famous lover, will always be remembered.
