Auguste Rodin - 1891
This is part two of this article; the link to part one is below
In Brussels, After returning from Italy in 1875, Rodin created his first full-scale work, The Age of Bronze. Modeled after a 22-year-old Belgian soldier, Auguste Neyt. Rodin chose Neyt because he sought a more natural pose than what professional models could provide. The figure drew inspiration from The Dying Slave, by Michelangelo, which Rodin had observed at the Louvre. Attempting to create naturalistic sculptures, he combined Michelangelo's mastery of the human form with his own sense of human nature. Rodin studied his model from all angles, at rest and in motion; he mounted a ladder for additional perspective, and made clay models, which he studied by candlelight. The result was a life-size, well-proportioned nude figure, posed unconventionally with his right hand atop his head, his left arm held out at his side and forearm parallel to the body.
Rodin is known for the boldly expressive, emotive physicality of his sculptures including Monument to Balzac, The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais and The Gates of Hell, a sculptural composition that includes a figure later known as The Thinker.
Balzac is a bronze statue made in 1898. It was commissioned in 1891 by the Societé des Gens des Lettres, and was presented at the Salon of 1898. The Symbolist representation of Honoré de Balzac caused an outrage at the Salon, and was not cast in bronze until after Rodin died. (Source: Musée Rodin).
The Kiss (French: Le Baiser) is an 1882 marble sculpture. Originally titled Francesca da Rimini, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalised in Dante's Inferno (Circle 2, Canto 5) who falls in love with her husband's younger brother Paolo. Having fallen in love while reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, the couple are later discovered and killed by Francesca's husband, Giovanni Malatesta. In the sculpture, the book can be seen in Paolo's hand. The lovers' lips do not touch in the sculpture, creating further tension within the work, alluding to the potentiality of either the imminent murder of Francesca in her lovers arms or the act of lust itself (her hamartia), existing fleetingly before her infidelity. Rodin indicated that his approach to sculpting women was of homage to them and their bodies, not just submitting to men but as full partners in ardor. The consequent eroticism in the sculpture made it controversial. The embracing nude couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of reliefs decorating Rodin's monumental bronze portal The Gates of Hell, commissioned for a planned museum of art in Paris. The couple were later removed from the Gates and replaced with another pair of lovers located on the smaller right-hand column.
The Burghers of Calais (French: Les Bourgeois de Calais) is a sculpture in 12 original castings and numerous copies. It commemorates an event during the Hundred Years' War, when Calais, a French port on the English Channel, surrendered to the English after an 11-month siege. The city commissioned Rodin to create the sculpture in 1884 and the work was completed in 1889.
The Burghers of Calais - 1889
The Gates of Hell is a monumental bronze sculptural group work that depicts a scene from the Inferno, the first section of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. It stands at 6 metres high, 4 metres wide and 1 metre deep (19.7×13.1×3.3 ft) and contains 180 figures.
Several casts of the work were made, which are now in various locations around the world. Rodin's original plaster model is in the Musée D'Orsay, Paris. The figures range from 15 centimetres (6 in) high up to more than one metre (3 ft). Several of the figures were also cast as independent free-standing statues. The sculpture was commissioned by the Directorate of Fine Arts in 1880. Rodin worked on and off on this project for thirty-seven years, continuously adding, removing, or altering over two hundred human figures on the doors, until his death in 1917.
