Incredibly fast int'l shipping, wow!, and lovely item, i'll be back...thank you!
Teresa Kaltenbacher
(United States)
Teresa Kaltenbacher
(United States)
Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin Biography
Auguste Rodin (born François-Auguste-René Rodin; November 12, 1840–November 17, 1917) was a French artist, most famous as a sculptor. Auguste Rodin was the preeminent French sculptor of his time, and remains one of the few sculptors widely recognized outside the visual arts community.
Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, Auguste Rodin did not set out to rebel against the past. Auguste Rodin was schooled traditionally in Paris's École des Beaux-Arts system, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition. Sculpturally, Auguste Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, deeply pocketed surface in clay.
Auguste Rodin and critisism
Many of Rodin's most notable sculptures were roundly criticized during his lifetime. They clashed with the predominant figure sculpture tradition, in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodin's most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, modeled the human body with high realism, and celebrated individual character and physicality. Rodin was sensitive to the controversy about his work, but did not change his style, and successive works brought increasing favor from the government and the artistic community.
From the unexpected realism of his first major figure—inspired by his 1875 trip to Italy—to the unconventional memorials whose commissions Auguste Rodin later sought, Rodin's reputation grew. By 1900, Auguste Rodin was a world-renowned artist. Wealthy private clients sought Rodin's work after his World's Fair exhibit, and Auguste Rodin kept company with a variety of high-profile intellectuals and artists. Auguste Rodin married his life-long companion, Rose Beuret, in the last year of both their lives. His sculpture suffered a decline in popularity after his death in 1917, but within a few decades his legacy solidified.
Auguste Rodin 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. Auguste Rodin was largely self-educated, and began to draw at ten. Between ages 14 and 17, Auguste Rodin attended the Petite École, a school specializing in art and mathematics, where Auguste Rodin studied drawing and painting. His drawing teacher, Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, believed in first developing the personality of his students such that they observed with their own eyes and drew from their recollections. Rodin still expressed appreciation for his teacher much later in life.
Auguste Rodin - entering school
Rodin submitted a clay model of a companion to the Grand École in 1857 in an attempt to win entrance; Auguste Rodin did not succeed, and two further applications were also denied. Given that entrance requirements at the Grand École were not particularly high, the rejections were considerable setbacks. Rodin's inability to gain entrance may have been due to the judges' Neoclassical tastes, while Rodin had been schooled in light, eighteenth-century sculpture. Leaving the Petite École in 1857, Rodin would earn a living as a craftsman and ornamenter for most of the next two decades, producing decorative objects and architectural embellishments.
Auguste Rodin and death of his sister
Rodin's sister Maria, two years his senior, died of peritonitis in a convent in 1862. Her brother was anguished, and felt guilty because Auguste Rodin had introduced Maria to an unfaithful suitor. Turning away from art, Rodin briefly joined a Catholic order. Father Peter Julian Eymard recognized Rodin's talent and, sensing his lack of suitability for the order, encouraged Rodin to continue with his sculpture. Auguste Rodin returned to work as a decorator, while taking classes with animal sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye. The teacher's attention to detail—his finely rendered musculature of animals in motion—significantly influenced Rodin.
Auguste Rodin and Rose Beuret
In 1864, Rodin began to live with a young seamstress named Rose Beuret, with whom Auguste Rodin would stay—with ranging commitment—for the rest of his life. The couple bore a son, Auguste-Eugene Beuret (1866–1934). That year, Rodin offered his first sculpture for exhibition, and entered the studio of Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, a successful mass producer of objects d'art. Rodin worked as Carrier-Belleuse' chief assistant until 1870, designing roof decorations and staircase and doorway embellishments. With the arrival of the Franco-Prussian War, Rodin was called to serve in the National Guard, but his service was brief due to his near-sightedness. Decorators' work had dwindled because of the war, yet Rodin needed to support his family—poverty was a continual difficulty for Rodin until about the age of 30. Carrier-Belleuse soon asked Rodin to join him in Belgium, where they would work on ornamentation for Brussels' bourse.
Auguste Rodin abroad
Rodin planned to stay in Belgium a few months, but Auguste Rodin spent the next six years abroad. It was a pivotal time in Rodin's life. Auguste Rodin had acquired skill and experience as a craftsman, but no one had yet seen his art, which sat in his workshop, Rodin not able to afford castings. Though his relationship with Carrier-Belleuse deteriorated, Auguste Rodin found other employment in Brussels, displayed some works at salons, and his companion Rose soon joined him there. Having saved enough money to travel, Rodin visited Italy for two months in 1875, where Auguste Rodin was drawn to the work of Donatello and Michelangelo. Their work had a profound effect on his artistic direction. Rodin said, "It is [Michelangelo] who has freed me from academic sculpture." Returning to Belgium, Auguste Rodin began work on The Age of Bronze, a life-size male figure whose realism brought Rodin attention but led to accusations of sculptural cheating.
Auguste Rodin and Artistic independence
Rose Beuret and Rodin returned to Paris in 1877, moving into a small flat on the Left Bank. Misfortune surrounded Rodin: his mother, who had wanted to see her son marry, was dead, and his father was blind and senile, cared for by Rodin's sister-in-law, Aunt Thérese. Rodin's eleven-year-old son Auguste, possibly developmentally delayed, was also in the ever-helpful Thérese's care. Rodin had essentially abandoned his son for six years, and would have a very limited relationship with him throughout his life. Father and son now joined the couple in their flat, with Rose as caretaker. The charges of fakery surrounding The Age of Bronze continued. Rodin increasingly sought more soothing female companionship in Paris, and Rose stayed in the background.
Rodin earned his living collaborating with more established sculptors on public commissions, primarily memorials and neo-baroque architectural pieces in the style of Carpeaux. In competitions for commissions Auguste Rodin submitted models of Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Lazare Carnot, all to no avail. On his own time, Auguste Rodin worked on studies leading to the creation of his next important work, St. John the Baptist Preaching.
Auguste Rodin and his job as designer
In 1880, Carrier-Belleuse—now art director of the Sevres national porcelain factory—offered Rodin a part-time position as a designer. The offer was in part a gesture of reconciliation, and Rodin accepted. That part of Rodin which appreciated eighteenth-century tastes was aroused, and Auguste Rodin immersed himself in designs for vases and table ornaments that gave the factory renown across Europe. The artistic community appreciated his work in this vein, and Rodin was invited to Paris salons by such friends as writer Léon Cladel. During his early appearances at these social events, Rodin seemed shy; in his later years, as his fame grew, Auguste Rodin displayed the loquaciousness and temperament for which Auguste Rodin is better known. French statesman Leon Gambetta expressed a desire to meet Rodin, and when they met at another salon, the sculptor impressed him. In turn, Gambetta spoke of Rodin to several government ministers, likely including Edmund Turquet, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Fine Arts, whom Rodin eventually met.
Auguste Rodin and The Kiss and The Thinker
Rodin's relationship with Turquet was rewarding: through him, Auguste Rodin won the 1880 commission to create a portal for a planned museum of decorative arts. Rodin dedicated much of the next four decades to his elaborate Gates of Hell, an unfinished portal for a museum that was never built. Many of the portal's figures became sculptures in themselves, including Rodin's most famous,The Thinker and The Kiss. With the museum commission came a free studio, granting Rodin a new level of artistic freedom. Soon, Auguste Rodin stopped working at the porcelain factory; his income came from private commissions.
Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel
In 1883, Rodin agreed to supervise a course for sculptor Alfred Boucher in his absence, where Auguste Rodin met the 18-year-old Camille Claudel. The two formed a passionate but stormy relationship and influenced each other artistically. Claudel inspired Rodin as a model for many of his figures, and she was a talented sculptor, assisting him on commissions.
Although busy with The Gates of Hell, Rodin won other commissions. Auguste Rodin pursued an opportunity to create a monument for the French town of Calais depicting an important moment in the town's history. For a monument to French author Honoré de Balzac, Rodin was chosen in 1891. His execution of both sculptures clashed with traditional tastes, and met with varying degrees of disapproval from the organizations that sponsored the commissions. Still, Rodin was gaining support from diverse sources that continued his path toward fame.
Auguste Rodin and his double-life
In 1889, the Paris Salon invited Rodin to be a judge on its artistic jury. Though Rodin's career was on the rise, Claudel and Beuret were becoming increasingly impatient with Rodin's "double life". Claudel and Rodin shared an atelier at a small old castle, but Rodin refused to relinquish his ties to Beuret, his loyal companion during the lean years, and mother of his son. 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, and Claudel's mental health deteriorated.
