J_l&_

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE METROPOLITAN
MUSEUM OF ART

SCULPTURES BY
AUGUSTE RODIN ,

MCMXII I

THE
COLLECTION OF
SCULPTURES BY
AUGUSTE RODIN

AUGUSTE RODIN
FROM A DRAW,NG BV WILLIAM ROTHENSTEiN

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
OF ART

THE COLLECTION OF
SCULPTURES BY
AUGUSTE RODIN

BY

JOSEPH BRECK

WITH EXTRACTS FROM AN ESSAY ON
AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
REPRINTED FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW

NEW YORK
M C M X I I I

COPYRIGHT, 19 1 3
BY METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

CONTENTS
PAGE
List of Illustrations  ix
The Collection of Sculptures by Auguste Rodin, by
Joseph Breck . . ... 13
Auguste Rodin and His French Critics. An extract
from the Edinburgh Review, with permission . 31

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Auguste Rodin. Drawing by William Rothenstein . iv
The Creation of Man, or Adam  4
Eve . .  5
The Old Courtesan  6
Bust of Madame X  7
The Tempest  7
Bust of Jules Dalou  1 1
Bust of Puvis de Chavannes  1 1
The Caryatid  13
Triton and Nereid . . . . . . . .14
The Bather  15
Study Head for the Statue of Balzac . . . 17
Study for a Head, presumably of Madame R. ... 19
Study for a Figure  20
Study for a Figure  21
Study for a Hand ........ 23
The Thinker ......... 24
Study for a Hand  44

ix

THE
COLLECTION OF
SCULPTURES BY
AU.GUSTE RODIN

THE COLLECTION OF
same material for the Triton and Nereid which the Museum,
in 1908, commissioned Rodin to execute in marble from the
original plaster model exhibited some fifteen or twenty

THE CREATION OF MAN, OR ADAM
years ago. The collection was further enriched by a notable
gift from the sculptor himself of eighteen signed plaster
casts made especially for this purpose from various small
clay studies in the sculptor's possession, of an original
4

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
study in baked clay of a female torso, and of a bronze por
trait bust of Mr. Ryan. The accessions consequently
number in all thirty-two pieces, of which seven are in bronze,

three in marble, four in baked clay, and eighteen in plaster.
With the exception of the bust of Mr. Ryan, which is not
yet on exhibition, these sculptures are shown in gallery
5

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
D 13, floor I, together with the works by Rodin previously
acquired by the Museum through purchase or gift.
Aside from their individual artistic value, the recent
accessions command attention in that they constitute a
representative collection made with the advice and approval

THE OLD COURTESAN

of the sculptor himself, who has further shown his interest
in the collection by the unusual character of his gift, unusual
since Rodin has rarely parted with any of the little studies
in clay or plaster which he keeps in his studios and private
museum at Meudon. As this is also true of his larger clay
models, the Museum has been fortunate in having been
able to acquire such fine examples as the Triton and Nereid,
6

MADAME X

THE TEMPEST

THE COLLECTION OF
the Balzac head, and the Caryatid, which, taken in connec
tion with the little plaster studies and the torso, give a
unique importance to this collection, numerically unsur
passed1, and both in the scope of its illustration and in
the beauty of individual pieces rivaled by few, possibly by
the Luxembourg alone.
Elsewhere in this catalogue there is reprinted from the
Edinburgh Review, through the courtesy of The Leonard
Scott Publication Company, the greater part of an excellent
article on Rodin and his work2 which permits the present
writer to dispense with the involved matter of an historical
and critical introduction and to confine the following notes
principally to a description of the recent accessions with
occasional comment along other lines, concluding with a
brief reference to the sculptures earlier acquired and to the
drawings by Rodin in the Museum's collection.

The celebrated Porte de l'enfer or Gate^Qf-J4e4L-Rx^diols
jinfiriisJi£xl_M^giTiinTT)plis^was commissioned by the
State in_..j88o, for thlTTvlusee des arts dgcoxali£s.__Jr-he_^
following year Rodin completed two heroic figures of Adam
and Eve which were intended to surmount the door or,
in another version, to stand in front on either side of this
monumental portal. The Adam was exhibited in plaster
at the Salon of 1881 under the title of La Creation de l'homme,
and later at the Paris Exposition in 1900. The bronze3 in
the Museum's collection was made to our order from the
original plaster retained by the sculptor at Meudon, and
is the first version in permanent material of this important
sculpture. The Eve was exhibited in bronze at the Salon
'Excepting, of course, in Rodin's private museum at Meudon.
2Auguste Rodin and his French Critics, in the Edinburgh Review, Jan
uary, 1912.
3Bronze statue. H. 76! in. Thomas F. Ryan Gift, 1912.
8

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
of 1899. Two copies in bronze and one in marble (reduced
size) were made before ours;1 other examples in marble
are in collections at Dresden, Hagen, and Copenhagen.
During his visit to Italy in 1875 Rodin_may first have
conceived the idea of paralleling in monumental sculpture
the terrible Inferno of the great Italian poet Dante, with
whom the sculptor may claim a spiritual kinship. Cer
tainly in the design of the Gate of Hell, in the little groups
or scenes separated one from the other by seething wisps of
vapor, and in the figured richness of the framework, there is a
reminiscence of the bronze doors of the Florentine Baptistry.
But MichelaiigdoJjHie_jTiay_Jma^irxe, was Rodin's great dis-
^OYefgjrrTrxrsyear of trayeJ:_JTo have studied hjm_in_the
Sistine Chapel, in the sacristy of SariTorenzo, was an experi
ence which left its permanent impression upon" The " young-
sculptor, rebellious, as was his great predecessor, against
ttie inanTfieT of a "faTse"classicism that was blind to the
beauty of living fonrTand to human sorrow and joy. Al
though it is easy to overestimate this relationship, still
it is impossible not to recognize in the Adam the direct
influence of Michelangelo. One need only call to mind
the Fettered Slave in the Louvre, the unfinished statues
of the Boboli Gardens, the Youths of the Sistine Chapel,
and above all, the beautiful figure in the Creation of Man,
that most wonderful of the Sistine frescoes, in which Adam
wakens to life at the touch of God. Michelangelo seizes
the climax of the episode of man's creation, but with Rodin,
the divine moment has just passed and Adam stands alone,
rising painfully with tense, stretching muscles from the
bleak earth out of which he was fashioned. The correlation:
of form to meaning which distinguishes this superbly modeled
figure, so beautiful in its intricate rhythm of line and mass,
is preeminently characteristic of Rodin. . . "at once
'Bronze statue. H. 68J in. Thomas F. Ryan Gift, 1912.
9

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
the most realistic and the most metaphysical poet in stone
or bronze."1
This intellectual purpose is again manifest in the sculp
tor's dramatic conception of Eve standing in shame and
remorse with her head bowed in her arms, aghast at the
consequences of her act. One turns again for a parallel
to the Sistine frescoes, but compared with this tragic figure
of Rodin's, the Eve whom Michelangelo has painted in
the Expulsion from the Garden, the woman cringing in
wretched terror before the flaming sword of the angel,
however beautiful as an aesthetic achievement, lacks the
wider significance which symbolizes in the graceful bending
body of the First Mother all the frailty of poor humanity
as the Adam does its aspiration.
Three despairing Shades, jsouls_of the damnedr^whe-4eok
down shu^enngly^jqrTjhe scenes_ of woe .and_.jdesolation
extendet"r~b"eiow, crown the pediment of the Gate of Hell;
"but dominating all, the synthesis" oE the world dramar_is_
the figure of The Thinker, "the prognathous savage be-
h^HingTfie crimes and passions .othis progeny unrolFtRgrrr-^.
/-.ielves below Jiim."2 JThe Thinker, enlarged in bronze to 
_colossaEsize from the original study for the Gate of Hell,
was exhibited by Rodin in the Salon of 1904, purchased by the
State, and placed in front of the Pantheon. A pTasteTcast~
oTThis figure was shown at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
in 1905, and afterwards presented to this Museum by the
Commissioners of the French Government through Andre
Saglio. The bronze statuette included among the recent
accessions3 is a replica in reduced size made by the sculptor.
The Thinker has been justly considered a masterpiece of
cjiaractmzaFTonTrrrce-- k—cafnpeh~cme^ to^lrecognizer _ witiu
'C. Mauclair. Auguste Rodin, London, 1905, p. 88.
Mdem, p. 23.
'Bronze statuette. H. 27I in. Thomas F. Ryan Gift, 1912.
10

JULES DALOU

PUVIS DE CHAVANNES

THE COLLECTION OF
_jhe intemil^-of-ar^ex^Qiml^xpfrrience, fjiejjathetic incflrrvrjre-^
^ensjpn^thB-irarfdted-savage_befQre the riddLe_olthejjni-^
verse. Although Rodin has executed many portrait busts of
extraordinary excellence, none perhaps is superior to the
bust of the sculptor Jules Dalou, first exhibited in plaster
at the Salon of 1884 and again in bronze in 1899. The
bust of Dalou in the 'Museum's collection1 is one of several
copies made by the sculptor. Wholly admirable in its
powerful, energetic modeling, revealing the most assured
knowledge of anatomical structure, the bust of Dalou
I is not less remarkable as an intimate and penetrating study
of character in which Rodin has recorded the combative
energy and determined will of the sculptor who was for
many years his friend.
In 1890 Rodin first exhibited the- bronze statuette of a
seated old woman known as La belle qui fut heaulmiere,
or, as it is sometimes called in English, the Old Courtesan.
La belle heaulmiere is the subject of a poem by Francois
Villon ; an old courtesan who. mourns the ruin of her once
fair body. The word heaulmiere is derived from the helmet-
shaped caps worn by light women in the fifteenth century,
and consequently does not justify the title of The Old
Helmet-maker sometimes incorrectly given to this dramatic
little figure. Rodin has here expressed the tragedy of old
age with an insight and sympathetic comprehension which
transform his realistic study into interpretative art. The
bronze of La belle heaulmiere2 in the Museum's collection
is an unnumbered copy made by the sculptor.
In the following year, 1891, Rodin exhibited one of his
most beautiful statues of women, The Caryatid crouching
beneath the weight of a rock which she supports on her
'Bronze bust. H. 2o| in. Thomas F. Ryan Gift, 1912.
2Bronze statuette. H. 19! in. Thomas F. Ryan Gift, 1912.
12

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
shoulder. Executed in stone, the statue was again exhib
ited in 1897; the original bronze was acquired for the
Luxembourg Museum. Among the most interesting of
the Ryan sculptures is the original model1 in baked clay
for this attractive figure. In this sketch the Caryatid
supports a vase instead of a stone, but otherwise the figure

THE CARYATID

is the same. The loveliness of the full rounded form, the
exquisite beauty of the pose, the delicacy with which the
mood of pensive sadness "is suggested constitute an achieve
ment in its way as great as the pitiless realism of The Old
Courtesan. It is by such contrasts as these that one realizes
the diversity of Rodin's technical procedure and the rich
variety of his emotional themes.
Prominent among the recent accessions is the portrait
'Statuette, baked clay. H. 16 in. Thomas F. Ryan Gift, 1912.
>3

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
bust1 in bronze of the famous painter, Pierre Puvis de
Chavannes, which was first shown in plaster at the Salon
of the Champs de Mars in 1891 and in the following year
exhibited in marble. A bronze reproduction was bought '
by the State a few years later for the Luxembourg; the original

TRITON AND NEREID

marble is now at Amiens. Like the bust of Dalou, that of
Puvis de Chavannes is primarily a study of character, a
most impressive chapter of biography.
To the year 1893 may be approximately assigned the
exquisite little sketch model2 purchased by the Museum,
of a Triton and Nereid, a study in baked clay for a group
exhibited in plaster some fifteen or twenty years ago. The
'Bronze bust. H. 20 in. Thomas F. Ryan Gift, 1912.
'Study in baked clay. H. 16 in. Rogers Fund, 1912.
'4

Xh<I

THE COLLECTION OF
sensuous beauty of the nereid, wistful and lovely, contrasts
effectively with the impetuous ardor of the sea-god who
presses his lips to her in an eager embrace. In these enlaced
figures Rodin has personified desire with the mythopoeic
sincerity of a Greek bard.
Not less important is the other purchase made by the
Museum, the study head1 for the statue of Balzac, com
missioned by La Societe des Gens de Lettres in 1891 and
finally exhibited in plaster at the Salon of 1898. It is
hardly necessary to recall here the storm of derision and
abuse which the exhibition of this monument aroused.
Whether or not one admires Rodin's "colossal menhir,"
one is compelled to admit its importance in the history
of art. In its reaction from academic puerility, modern
sculpture has produced perhaps no more widely significant
monument than this statue of Balzac. The absurd charge
of technical incompetence brought against Rodin by those
who did not understand his purposeful simplification of
form, on the one hand, and exaggeration on the other,
intended to heighten the expression of character, is disproved
by the evidence of Rodin's preparatory studies. The clay
model acquired by the Museum is a case in point. The
rounded, thickset head, with the smoldering eyes and the
lips parted as if in eager speech, has the startling reality of
certain Roman portrait busts in terracotta, or, to choose
a more modern comparison, of such busts as the Voltaire
and Rousseau by Houdon.
The Tempest2 is a repetition in marble of a bronze first
exhibited in 1902. It represents in high relief the head and
shoulders of a shrieking woman with streaming hair and
staring eyes who seems to burst forth from the marble, the
very personification of fury and storm. In this, as in the
'Study in baked clay. H. 9! in. Rogers Fund, 1912.
'Marble relief. H. 13! in. Thomas F. Ryan Gift, 1912.
16

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
two marble sculptures following, Rodin displays the most
exquisite perception of differences in surface texture.
The portrait bust of Madame X.,1 made in 1907, has
the charm and distinction of Rodin's masterpiece of feminine
portraiture in the Luxembourg, the well-known bust of
Madame Morla Vicuna. The type is different, less se-

STUDY HEAD
FOR THE STATUE OF BALZAC

ductive in physical beauty, but aristocratic, sensitive, and
subtly refined. Here, as in the Luxembourg bust, "there is
warmth, as well as life, and an atmosphere of enchantment
''round it, as though the atoms of the marble had grown by
self-readjustment into the grace of throbbing flesh."2
The Bather,3 completed shortly before its purchase in
1910, is an important example of Rodin's recent work.
The statue represents a nude girl seated and bending over
'Marble bust. H. iq] in. Thomas F. Ryan Gift, 1912.
2F. Lawton. The Life and Work of Auguste Rodin, 1907, p. 85.
'Marble statue. H. 23J in. Thomas F. Ryan Gift, 1912.
17

THE COLLECTION OF
as she plays with the sand of a beach, idly drawing the back
of her hand along the pitted shore. There is little of the
ideal type of feminine beauty in this sullen girl with the
heavy ankles and the lovely arms, but on the other hand
there is the sincere expression of emotion in the presence of
nature, not the clear radiant gladness of the Greek in his
recognition of kinship with primeval things, but one a little
wan, tinged with the high-wrought sensibility of our modern
temper, attuned to sorrow and skeptical of joy.
The eighteen plaster casts made for the Museum from
Rodin's clay studies and given by the sculptor are exhibited
in two cases at the west end of the gallery. Many of these
little models are studies of arms, legs, and hands; note in
particular the dramatic effectiveness of two miniature
hands with tensely clutching fingers.1 Besides these, there
are several figure studies. One2 represents a young woman
standing with her right arm extended, her head turned to
look over her left shoulder. A second3 is the study of an old
woman with folded arms, recalling the grim realism of La
belle heaulmiere. In a third,4 a young woman is kneeling,
bending forward with a lovely droop to her head in a posture
of repose. Two other figures, a few inches only in height,
are studies5 in rhythmic composition, modeled rapidly in
the hand as a painter might improvise in his note book.
A small head6 of a woman is distinguished by an archaic
directness of expression. One of the most interesting
of these models is the life-size head7 of a young woman,
modeled with an admirable feeling for structure, and par-
'Plaster studies. H. 2§ in. and 2 in. Gift of the Sculptor, 1912.
'Piaster study. H. 12J in. Gift of the Sculptor, 19 12.
sPIaster study. H. I2f in. Gift of the Sculptor, 19 12.
'Plaster study. H. 8r\ in. Gift of the Sculptor, 1912.
'Plaster studies. H. 5 J and 4! in. Gift of the Sculptor, 19 12.
'Plaster study. H. 4 in. Gift of the Sculptor, 19 12.
'Plaster study. H. 10J in. Gift of the Sculptor, 19 12.
18

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
ticularly in such a passage as the delicate, mobile mouth,
with the most sensitive fineness. It would appear to be a
preparatory study for the portrait head in silver of Madame
R., exhibited in 1890. With these casts there is included
a study1 in baked clay of a female torso. Thr is evidently

STUDY FOR A HEAD,
PRESUMABLY OF MADAME R
a sketch for the reclining tomb figure of which a more
advanced plaster model is reproduced by Mile. Judith Cladel
in her book on Rodin (opposite page 79).
The importance of Rodin's gift of casts made from his
original studies has already been indicated. In this con
nection, however, it may be interesting to quote the following
•Study, baked clay. L. 12/s in. Gift of the Sculptor, 1912.
19

THE COLLECTION OF
passage from the book on Rodin by Camille Mauclair (page
109): "It is chiefly at Meudon that he (Rodin) prepares
his rough drafts; the lines of his compositions; and in order
to see an effect he will often hastily put together with clay
some of the plaster limbs that he keeps in a number of glass

STUDY FOR A FIGURE
cases — quite an anatomical museum in fact, filling a whole
story and containing hundreds of pieces and of attitudes
piled together."
A brief description of the" eight sculptures previously
acquired by the Museum will conclude this review of the
recent accessions. The earliest of these in point of style
is the bronze replica of the Age of Brass, given in 1907
by Mrs. John W. Simpson. This statue is also known as
The Awakening of Humanity or L'Homme qui s'eveille
20

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
a la nature, under which title it was first exhibited in plaster
by Rodin at the Salon of 1877 where it met with the strange
reception recorded in the article reprinted from the Edin
burgh Review. The statue was again exhibited, this time
in bronze, at the Salon of 1880 and was acquired by the
State for the Luxembourg. The accusation that this statue

STUDY FOR A FIGURE

was cast from life is eloquent testimony to Rodin's knowledge;
of anatomy and technical competence. But other qualities
as well distinguished this early masterpiece, and in the ex
pression of movement and in the insistence that form should
have intellectual meaning, there is indicated the line along
which Rodin's art was to develop.
In 1879 Rodin was at work upon the statue of Saint John
the Baptist, the bronze figure now in the Luxembourg.
He was able, however, to finish only the head in time for
the Salon of that year, and this was exhibited in bronzed
21

THE COLLECTION OF
plaster. A replica in bronze was given to the Museum in
1893 by Mr. George A. Lucas. The entire figure of the
Baptist was exhibited in bronze at the Salon of 1881, and
by its extreme and, at that time, revolutionary realism again
aroused a storm of opposition. Rodin's model was an
Italian peasant who had never posed before and "was quite
unacquainted with the various noble gestures, imposed by
'academic stylists." When he first came to pose, he was told
merely to raise his arm and commence to walk. "The
simplicity of the procedure comes out strikingly in the statue.
So spontaneous is the gesture, and so accurately has the
position of the body between two seconds of movement
been marked and caught, that it creates an illusion of mo
tion."1 Not less convincing is the religious fervor which
irradiates the gaunt face of the Preacher in the Wilderness.
Among Rodin's smaller works, perhaps none has enjoyed
a greater popularity than the bronze statuette, first exhibited
in 1890, of Brother and Sister, a nude girl seated and holding
on her knee a restless little boy. A bronze replica of this
charming group, which exists in several copies both in marble
and bronze, was purchased by the Museum in 1908.
In 19 10 the Museum received as a gift from Mr. Ryan,
in memory of William M. Laffan, the marble group of
Pygmalion and Galatea; and a few months later, from the
same donor, two marble groups, Orpheus and Eurydice, and
Cupid and Psyche, formerly in the Charles T. Yerkes Col
lection. On the authority of a letter from Rodin, dated
July 23, 1894, it is stated in the catalogue of the Yerkes
Collection that these two statues were the first original
works by Rodin acquired in this country. The Pygmalion
and Galatea is signed and dated 1893. The other two given
by Mr. Ryan are signed but not dated. The Orpheus and
Eurydice, however, would appear to have been executed
'F. Lawton, p. 51. 22

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
at approximately the same period as the Cupid and Psyche.
In these three sculptures Rodin has chosen subjects from
(^Classical mythology, interpreting in his own way the familiar
fables of Cupid and frail Psyche, of Pygmalion's love for the

STUDY FOR A HAND

l^

statue he had fashioned, and of the great love of Orpheus
for Eurydice his wife. With a proper abhorrence of il-
stration pursued for its own end, Rodin has transmuted
these fables into emotional themes. In one, it is the cruelty
of love; in another, the struggle between love and desire;
in a third, the active power of love.
With the same originality of conception, Rodin has
figured the creation of Adam and Eve as a colossal hand
holding in its palm the embracing bodies of a man and woman
emerging from the clay that had served to make them.
23

SCULPTURES BY AUGUSTE RODIN
The Hand of God, as this statue is called, was exhibited
in 1902 in both marble and bronze. An example in marble
is owned by a private collector in Paris, and the bronze
version in the Luxembourg is well known. The marble
in the Museum's collection was presented in 1908 by Mr.
Edward D. Adams.
The plaster_cast of The Thinker, the gift of the Com
missioners of the French GTjverrrmerTf' to trieLoiuSigTm-^
Purchase ExposiTiOTHn- 1905, has alreadyHbeen mentioned"^
in connection with the bronze statuette among the recent
accessions. There only remain to be noted the seven draw
ings in pencil, ink, and color, purchased by the Museum
in 1 910. Executed with an extreme simplicity of means,
they record the fugitive charm of a gesture or of an attitude
with surprising completeness. In some of the drawings,
.color is used symbolically to accentuate the sculptor's
meaning; in others, with a little pencil dust Rodin has given
to a figure the solidity of marble. These drawings are not
the least witness to Rodin's genius. Joseph Breck.

THE THINKER

AUGUSTE RODIN
AN D
HIS FRENCH CRITICS

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
EXTRACTS FROM AN
ARTICLE IN THE EDINBURGH REVIEW
OF JANUARY, I912
FEW artists during the last forty years have been
subjected to more extreme contrasts of opinion
among critics than Auguste Rodin. In fact, it
is difficult to find among the many articles and books
written upon this great modern sculptor and his works, any
via media between excessive abuse and equally excessive
admiration; anything worthy of the name of sober criticism,
in which the scales of justice are fairly and honestly
balanced. It has, however, been interesting to watch the steady
growth of appreciation of Rodin's work in France since
1889 among the most enlightened members of the official
art world; even some of those who were not at first ready to
accept him and his methods without demur. The day of
what one may indeed term ruthless abuse is now over; and
without going to the extreme lengths of certain English as
weJTas foreign writers, it is safe to say that Auguste Rodin —
^'*the Walt Whitman of modern sculpture' — has by sheer
force of genius so imposed himself on the world at large, that
he is frankly acknowledged as the most powerful of living
sculptors. 27

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
Among the general public one has only to mention Rodin's
works to discover that they are either intensely admired or
as intensely disliked. As a distinguished French authority
said in our presence a few weeks ago. ' Rodin is detested
'or worshipped.*
Auguste Rodin is far too strong, too prmrnantier, to
please those who merely take pleasure in accepted rules
of academic art; who resent, because they fear, profound
emotion whether it is found in plastic art or in literature.
They do not wish to be shaken out of the vain belief that
statues and pictures are meant solely to please the eye by a
prettiness which makes no demand on the intelligence.
And they shrink in angry disgust from what is strong.
original, and living, from that which sounds the depths and
rises to the heights, because it disturbs their self-complacent
comfort, and forces them to feel vaguely that there may be
more in it than they can understand or wish to understand.
Whilst among those who are capable of judging works of
art with intelligence and knowledge, we further discover
that this vehement dissension between those who worship
and those who detest is grounded upon an old feud which
wjll last, one imagines, as long as art lasts — namely,
'fhe dislike on one hand, or admiration on the other, of
academic as against independent art — the belief in those
who submit with docility to the received formulas of the
schools, and the fear of those who, feeling that they are
strong enough to work out their own salvation, dare to
stand alone and be themselves. That these latter suffer
for their temerity is a natural sequence to their revolt
against received canons, cramping authority, and tradition.
The talented, well-behaved pupils who follow the lines laid
down for them find that these lines lead to pleasant places.
to ' Prix de Rome, bourses, mentions honorables, commandes
'de TEtat.' to praise and popularity," and they are too often
38

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
content with such, good things, which are, indeed, bv no
means to be despised. Whilst the independent artist
may for years struggle against poverty, misrepresentation,
malicious and unjust criticism, until the world one day
wakes up to the fact that the man it has despised, neglected
and thwarted is indeed a great artist, who by sheer genius
and patient determination has at last won his way, emerged
from the crowd of his contemporaries, and now stands a
head and shoulders above them.
We need only look back on the history of art for the
last hundred, nay, even the last fifty years, to see case after
case of these early struggles among French artists, whether
painters or sculptors. And among these Auguste Rodin
is one of the most striking examples. But he is in goodly
company. For the greatest of French sculptors, since the
deadening blight of pseudo-classic, academic art fell upon
France, have always been those who have dared to be true ''
to themselves and to French ideals, rather than to Italian
influence. And in any consideration of Auguste Rodin
and his work, it is of the first importance that we should
never lose sight of the fact, so often forgotten, that he is
essentially a French sculptor, a legitimate and worthy
descendant of that long line of artists who have been the
glory of their native land, from the nameless genius to whose
chisel we owe that enchanting woman's head on the central
doorway at Rheims, to Rude's 'Depart' and Carpeaux's
' Danse.' One of the most persistent criticisms brought against
Rodin's work by artists, critics, and the general public
has been, and still is, that he has 'introduced' a new and
illegitimate sense of movement and action into statuary,
instead of that immobility, that death-like repose, which
they seem to consider an essential attribute of the highest
attainment in sculpture. They resent the fact that his
29

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
statues are living human beings, not dead carven images —
human beings whose physical action displays the result
of some strong, even at times violent, impulse of the mind
or the senses. For instance, the outcry was loud and fierce
and is not yet wholly stilled, when Rodin exhibited his
'St. Jean Baptiste' in 1880, because he had represented him
in the act of walking. Why hot, we ask? Did the great
ascetic, the great forerunner, sit still on a rock, staff in
hand and forefinger uplifted in admonition, waiting for the
world to come and listen to his message? Did he not
wander to and fro, ' the voice of one crying in the wilderness'
to the children of men, 'Repent ye, for the kingdom of
"heaven is at hand'? Which gives the truer idea of the
Baptist and his mission — the old view, so commonly
accepted in painting and sculpture, or this strange, spare,
wild man from the desert, with a touch of the 'illumine'
about him, moving slowly forward with half-open mouth,
prescient of his divine mission and of his own coming
fate? But we may well ask in all seriousness whether action, or
what we may rather call life, is after all an innovation in
sculpture? Surely not. Setting aside some of the great
examples of the antique which are undoubtedly as full of
movement as Rodin's work — the Elgin Marbles, for instance,
the immortal 'Sword-grinder,' the 'Discobolus,' the 'Vic-
'toire de Samothrace,' as with a rush she alights triumphant
on her ship's prow — a moment's reflection shows that
Rodin, who, as we have pointed out, is an essentially French
sculptor, is but carrying on the traditions of the greatest
French sculptors of the past. All through that long and
famous line of artists we find that those whose names will
live rejoice in depicting action as the evidence and result
of the character, the passions, the emotions, the aspirations
of the human being. 30

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
We need only look at the lovely, despairing little figure of
'Fortune' below Admiral Chabot's fine statue in the Louvre
flung at full length beside her broken wheel — a figure
which one must believe came from none other than the
matchless chisel of Jean Goujon — to see how closely she
is related to Rodin's exquisite ' Danaid' quivering with sobs
of hopeless despair. Whilst the intensely realist and pathetic
outspread hands of Germain Pilon's 'Henri II' in St.
Denis remind us instantly of Rodin's singular preoccupa-i
tion with hands, using them with rare skill to express by
their action some inner meaning, some impulse of the human
being; as, for instance, the reverent, almost awe-struck
tenderness of the man's hands in ' Le Baiser ' — a triumph
in themselves of the sculptor's insight and poetic thought.
Movement we find again in Pierre Bontemps' superb bas-
reliefs on the stylobate of Francois Premier's tomb in St.
Denis, while French sculpture becomes yet more realist
and full of action in the hands of Pujet the Marseillais.
The robust and fearless Lyonnais, Coysevox, in his magni
ficent decorative sculpture at Versailles is surely another
ancestor of Rodin, not only in sculpture but in spirit. For
if Colbert, Le Brun, and Mansart made his fortune, he was
great artist enough to be able, when needful, to break free
from that worship of rigid, official, pseudo-classicism of
which they were the high priests.
When the 'Grand Siecle' ended, and France, kept for
sixty years within the paralysing bonds of officialism, cried
aloud for light, for life, for amusement, even then we find
amidst the graceful charm of her art, men who dared to be
true to their own nobler instincts, and ready to show by their
works that life was something more than a pretty pastime.
And it is of deep interest and significance that Rodin himself
cherishes an ardent enthusiasm for eighteenth-century art
as rendered by the enchanting Watteau.
3i

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
Besides Coustou's restive, plunging 'Chevaux de Marly,'
Robert Le Lorrain in his ' Chevaux du Soleil a l'Abreuvoir'
on the H6tel de Rohan, a work of remarkable verve and
vigour, displayed a novel sentiment full of free, spirited and
living execution quite outside the pseudo-classic lines.
Pigalle, too, who at eight years old was Le Lorrain's pupil,
was no slave to official art though he worked in Rome; for
the piece he brought back from the Villa Medicis was the
vigorous 'Mercure attachant ses Talonnieres.' While
in the extraordinary 'Voltaire nu' of the Institute and the
fine nude figure of ' Commerce' at the base of the Louis XV
monument at Rheims — a countryman, gravely contem
plative, sitting on a sack of corn, the wolf and lamb lying
together at his feet — we easily recognize a close relation
ship with much of Rodin's work. Still closer is this affinity,
given the difference of period, in Houdon's famous 'Vol
taire assis' of the Comedie Francaise, and in his busts, a
series of human documents which alone would make his
name immortal.
The decadence of French sculpture during the Empire
and the early part of the nineteenth century was not due
to any lack of training or opportunity, but to the chilling
of the national genius, naturally warm, generous and
fearless, by the dominating pedagogy of Louis David's
false ideal of classic beauty, aided and abetted by the
seductive Canova's Italian influence. We have but to
glance at early nineteenth-century sculpture in the Louvre
to recognise the results of these influences on every side.
Some artists show much grace. All show singular facility.
Here and there, face to face with a human subject, we get a
certain amount of life. But for the most part, if not frigidly
classic, all is utterly unconvincing, correct and elegant to
the point of exasperation.
But help was at hand. 32

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
The same regeneration which Gericault, Delacroix and
the landscape painters wrought in painting, was brought
about in sculpture by three great artists, David d 'Angers,
Rude and Barye. The desires, the ambitions, the question
ings and searchings for a nobler, more true and living art,
which were at once the glory and the torment of the leaders
of Romanticism in letters and painting, haunted these three
great sculptors likewise — the first two brought up in the
strictest sect of artistic Pharisees — for both came under
Louis David's personal influence. Out of the heart, there
fore, of the classic school came these pioneers, who swept
away the deadening, cramping formulas of a false classic
ideal by their profound respect for the higher ideals of pure
Greek art, and brought life, truth, imagination and pa
triotism to the renaissance of French sculpture. By them
the barriers were overthrown which had so long imprisoned
their native art. The way was opened once for all for original
thought and individual effort. And although rewards
and encouragement are still the attribute of the Institute
and the State, even they no longer refuse to recognise
new talent, though that talent may have sprung into being
outside the walls of the Ecole.
With Barye we come into actual contact with Auguste
Rodin; for as a boy of fourteen, while attending a school
of art in the rue de la Medecine where he learnt the ele
ments of drawing and modelling, he went twice a week to
Barye's classes in the Jardin des Plantes.
But though Barye — the sculptor par excellence of move
ment, lithe, swift, fierce and beautiful, in his tigers and /
panthers, his alligators and writhing serpents — was for
a time the lad's class-master, his influence on Rodin was
slight compared with that of the forceful Burgundian, [/
Rude. The sympathies between Rodin and the great
master of the adorable 'Petit Pecheur,' the 'Cavaignac,'
33

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
the 'Monge,' are great. And especially do we find them
in works so replete with life and action as 'Le Depart,'
in which one almost hears the voice of Liberty shouting
'Aux Armes! citoyens!' or in the 'Ney' roaring 'En Avant!'
to his men, as he brandishes the sword he has at that very
moment drawn from its scabbard. M. Rodin considers
this statue an extremely interesting example of the pro
gression of dramatic movement, in which one may per
ceive the actual passage from one pose to another.
With such a line of French forerunners it is easy to see
that the accusations of his opponents and the acclamations
of his blind admirers, who both, for totally different rea
sons, declare that Rodin is an 'innovator,' who has 'intro
duced' movement into statuary, fall to the ground as
not only false but absurd. For we may look and look
almost in vain to find in any of his works more violent
action than in Rude's 'Depart,' or more vigorous and life
like motion than in Carpeaux's 'Danse.'
This, however, though the chief and most persistent, is
by no means the only criticism brought against him by his
detractors, as may be seen if we follow his career.
To quote M. Mauclair's interesting book, 'Auguste
' Rodin was born in Paris, in the Val de Grace quarter, on
'the 14th of November 1840, of a family of humble employes.
'The child at first attended a day-school in the rue Saint-
' Jacques, then went to a boarding-school at Beauvais,
'kept by his uncle. At fourteen he returned to Paris
'and entered the school of art in the rue de la Medecine.'*
In this little school he learned the elements of drawing and
modelling, and, as already mentioned, he attended Barye's
classes twice a week in the Jardin des Plantes. His life
from fourteen to seventeen was a strenuous one. At 6 a.m.
he was drawing the animals, then copying anatomical
*' Auguste Rodin,' by Camille Mauclair, p. 1.
34

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
studies in the Museum. After his classes 'he would lunch
'on a bit of bread and some chocolate and hasten to the
'Louvre, and in the evening he would go to draw and study
'at the Gobelins'. But it was also necessary to earn some
thing towards his living. He therefore worked for a de
corative sculptor. And here, as he himself says, he came to
understand the 'science du modele' which one of his com
panions, Constant, revealed to him.
Gaining a scanty living by his daily labour in the decora
tor's atelier, Rodin lived on, working ceaselessly meanwhile
at sculpture of his own, till he was twenty-four, when he
entered the studio of Carrier-Belleuse as assistant and pupil,
where he remained for six years. It was in the same year,
1864, that his first exhibit, 'L'homme au nez casse,' was
refused at the Salon. Three times he endeavoured to
enter the Ecole des Beaux Arts — for he was fully alive
to the admirable teaching and the many advantages he
would have received there — and three times he was
refused admission. Disgusted by the third refusal, his
natural independence of character made him determine to
renounce all further endeavours and to work out a career
for himself. He therefore took a commission in Brussels
which Carrier-Belleuse, then at the height of his success,
did not care to accept; and in 1870 he went to the Belgium
capital, where he spent seven years, working first with Van
Rasbourg on the pediment of the Bourse, on Caryatids of
a house in the Boulevard d'Anspach, and other such works.
And while here he and M. Alphonse Legros, who has re
mained his closest friend ever since, took drawing lessons
from Lecoq de Boisbaudran.
But of far greater import to his career was an overwhelm
ing influence he encountered in Belgium — an influence
which all must experience in greater or less degree when they
find themselves in those old Flemish cities, with their
35

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
treasures of art. For here Rodin ' gained a thorough knowl
edge of the Flemish Primitives, and of the Gothic masters,
'who were so strongly to influence him.'*
Those seven long years of patient, unrecognised work,
of deep, quiet study and reflection, were a time of probation
which formed the master's talent — 'a sort of spiritual
/retreat.' His great individuality had been gradually
ripening in poverty, in silence, in ceaseless, strenuous work,
not only in his own art but in self-cultivation. And from
this he emerged in the fulness of his strength. In 1876
one of his most penetrating works, now in the Luxembourg,
'L'homme au nez casse,' the bust which in 1864 had been
refused as something too repulsive to be permitted to shock
the delicate susceptibilities of the public, was sent to the
Salon in bronze, and grudgingly accepted. One can only
suppose that in 1876 the public had grown less sensitive.
Encouraged by this first success, Rodin sent his statue
'L'Age d'Airain' to the Salon of 1877. The jury accepted
it; and M. Turquet, then Secretary of Fine Arts, bought it
for the State. To many of us this is the noblest of all
Rodin's works. Here is the primitive man just awaking
out of the condition of a perfect and beautiful but unthink
ing animal, to the life of the mind and the soul. The head
thrown back, with nearly closed eyes and slightly open
mouth, the tense muscles, the hands — those wonderful
clenched hands that are a tragic poem in themselves —
all betray the intensity of effort to understand what it
can mean, this world in which he finds himself — all the
wonder, the mystery, the terror of life gradually dawning
upon him.
j But so perfect was the modelling of the statue that the
Inspectors of Fine Arts repudiated the purchase, declaring
that this almost unknown sculptor, Auguste Rodin, must
*Mauclair, p. ^. 36

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
have taken a cast from life — one of the most malicious
and injurious accusations that can be brought against any
artist. In vain did Rodin protest. His model had been a
Belgian soldier, of whom he sent photographs to the jury.
But they 'did not even open the packet, and persisted
'in their accusations.'* Discouraged, though strong in his
innocence, Rodin remained silent, when a mere chance saved
him. He had to live, and was working as an assistant to
Boucher, the author of 'Les Courreurs' and 'Le Repos,'
when Boucher happened to see him execute a group of
children for one of his own compositions in a few hours.
And this was done with such amazing facility and rapidity,
that the astonished sculptor went instantly to his friends
and told them that any man who could do this could very
certainly produce 'L'Age d'Airain.' Chapu, Thomas, Fal-
guiere, Delaplanche, Chaplain, and Rodin's old employer
Carrier-Belleuse, loyally insisted with the authorities, and
Rodin's cause was won. For Turquet was now free to act
in support of Rodin, for whom he had conceived a sincere
friendship, and thereby endeavour to efface the unjust
and damaging accusation brought against the 'Age of
Brass.' The year 1880 must be regarded as the final point of emer
gence of the sculptor we know now. In this year he sent in
a fine design to the competition for the 'Monument de
'la Defense Nationale' : but it was not accepted, as the powers
that were at that moment considered it too dangerously
vigorous, an eternal menace to the possible peace of nations.
Rodin's much-discussed 'St. Jean Baptiste' was, however,
accepted by the jury of the Salon and bought by M. Turquet
for the State. And he now gave Rodin an important com
mission — a great gateway for the Trocadero. This was
the famous 'Gate of Hell,' on which Rodin has been lavishing
*Mauclair, p. 7. 37

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
ideas and work ever since. It is not finished. Will it
ever be? Who knows? -tJ
The ' Gate of Hell' was intended originally to be a door
in high relief, with frieze, tympanum and wide lateral
capitals, after the manner of the gates of the Baptistery
at Florence; and on the door and the uprights were groups
of small figures, mainly taken, at first, from Dante. The
three tragic Shades crowned the highest plane, while below
the fateful three sat the ' Penseur,' meditating on the endless
confused drama of love, sorrow, passion, and distress of
human life. But Rodin in the course of the last twenty
years and more has used the great doors for what he has
smilingly called his 'Noah's Ark' — a sort of amazing
playground, in fact, in which to sketch out his superabundant
ideas. Here, while he breaks out one group to form the
basis of a single work, often on a much larger scale — such as
'Le Baiser,' which has developed out of a small group of
'Paolo et Francesca,' or the 'Ugolino,' and many more —
he replaces it by some fresh group of little figures just
improvised, that seems to correspond with the general idea
of the whole. It was not until 1886 that his first drawings
for the 'Gate of Hell' were exhibited. Among the detached
groups of the uprights and the doors, besides the ' Paolo et
'Francesca' and the 'Ugolino', were centaurs, fauns, and
'abstract personifications of vices,' and in all we perceive
that his desire at that period seems to be to demonstrate
by intensity of movement and attitude a sense of drama in
his art which should break down the cold, false, 'neo-Greek
'nobility,' which too often merely meant a frigid immobility
which the taste of the day considered the highest art.
From 1880 we see that two distinct camps were formed,
for and against the great sculptor. Though Rodin's rela
tions with the official world were still somewhat strained,
his position now was that 'of an exceptional artist, cele-
38

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
' brated but envied, isolated and challenged,' yet at the same
time wa.mly upheld by a strong minority who had fully
recognised his genius and power; while each year his exhibits
in the Salon were keenly discussed, bitterly criticised, and
as vehemently applauded.
In 1883, after Victor Hugo's death, Rodin received a
commission from the Government for the poet's monument.
The scheme for the monument was modified many times
before it was completed and placed, in July, 1909, in the
garden of the Palais Royal — a most unfortunate and incon
gruous position, it would seem. The idea is that the poet,
nude and half-draped, sits on a rock at the edge of the sea,
and with his outstretched left arm he silences the waves
and the Nereids, while he listens to the Muse of his Inner
Voice. Without doubt the figure is a very noble and im
pressive one: but the fact that the outstretched left hand
has to be supported on an upright bar of stone certainly
detracts greatly from the dignity of the statue. One
can but hope that, as in one of the earlier schemes, the pro
jected Nereids and the Muses of the Inner Voice and of
Anger may some day be added.
The majestic bust of 'Victor Hugo' was exhibited in
1885. But already that series of portraits which form so
remarkable a portion of Rodin's work had begun in 1882
with a bust of his old friend 'Legros.' And this aroused
sincere enthusiasm in England, where from the first Rodin
has been thoroughly ^appreciated. That of 'J. P Laurens'
was exhibited in the same year. ' Dalou,' perhaps one of
the finest, followed in 1884. And in 1885, the same year
as the 'Victor Hugo' bust, Rodin exhibited that of 'M.
Antonin Proust,' then Director of Fine Arts.
Any list of these great human documents would be far
too long to give here. But some of the finest have fortunate
ly been acquired for the Luxembourg by its enlightened
39

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
Directeur — among them one of Rodin's most beautiful
works, the portrait of 'Mme. V.' It is difficult to realise
that the firm white flesh is not warm with life, that the
eyes, half-veiled by drooping eyelids, are not dreaming of
some tender, far-away memory, which must soon bring a
sigh from the lovely mouth. Though Rodin's touch is
strong, rugged, even trop beurtee in some of his portraits,
such as ' Puvis de Chavannes, ' Dalou,' ' Falguiere,' and others,
in the savage energy of ' Balzac's' head, or in such a bust
as the 'Douleur' of the Luxembourg — the head thrown
back, the eyes closed, the nostrils compressed, and the cheeks
drawn in with anguish of grief — yet no one knows better
how to caress the marble of delicate flesh, as in this portrait,
in the ' Minerva' of Lyons, and in many others. And all
his portraits of men, though strong and dignified, are by no
means rugged and tormented, as may be seen in the majestic
('Victor Hugo,' the 'Henri Rochefort,' 'Mr. George
Wyndham,' and the unnamed 'Portrait d'Homme,' gathered
together in interesting contrast in the Luxembourg. The
collection of Rodin's works at this moment in that delightful
museum may indeed be described as an epitome of his art.
For besides the busts already mentioned, we may learn how
many-sided is this great artist when we compare the three
earliest of his works, 'L' Homme au nez casse,' the noble
'Age d'Airain,' and the much-discussed 'St. Jean Baptiste,'
with the perfect and tender beauty of 'Le Baiser' and the
'Danaide.' Or the grave charm of 'La Pensee,' with the
tragic realism of that wonderful little bronze, 'La Vieille
t ' Heaulmiere,' in which the psychologic idea of decrepitude
is even more present than in the words of Villon's poem,
which was the text on which the terrible little statue was
founded. At a joint exhibition in 1889 at the Georges Petit galleries
of Rodin's and Claude Monet's works — a rare combination
40

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
of artists of the chisel and the brush, which created a pro
found sensation — the great group of the 'Bourgeois de
"Calais' -was seen complete for the first time in plaster. It
was finished in 1802 and set up in 1895. Of this group,
or rather procession of half-starved, half-naked, voluntary
martyrs for the sake of their fellow-men, it is difficult to
speak without exaggeration. Whether one has seen them
in the original plaster, or as now in bronze set up (on a very
hideous and incongruous base) in their own town of
Calais, the impression is the same. We must feel that it
is a great work, worthy to rank with the great of all time —
a work to which one goes back again and again, unable to
satisfy one's desire of carrying away even- detail, of pene
trating the inmost workings of the soul of each of those six
superb figures walking forth to their fate, Tes chefs et les
'pieds nus, la hart au col, et les clefs du chastel et de la
'cite entre les mains.' For they are six real men, individual
in character, individual in the manner the sacrifice affects
each one of them, but united by one idea, which transfigures
them with a strange, haunting grandeur.
During the next few years, while working on the Victor
Hugo monument, making studies for a monument of Presi
dent Sarmiento with a fine low relief of Apollo and the
Hydra on the base, Rodin finished other detached works,
such as 'L'Etemel Idole' and many of the small groups in
marble and bronze in which he delights. He considers
that there should be no 'front view' of a statue — that one
should be able, as with the ancients, to look at it from all
sides. Therefore these small groups, which enable one to
pass round them, to live with them, in fact, are a favourite
form with him, as they were with many of the eighteenth-
century French sculptors. And for these his touch, so
large and strong in his big works, is exquisitely delicate and
caressing — 'minute but never mannered."
4i

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
We now reach a work which aroused a storm that is not
yet calmed. The Societe des Gens de Lettres had given
Rodin a commission for a statue of 'Balzac' In 1895 he
had made studies for it in the nude, using daguerreotypes
and a well-known portrait of Balzac, 'in his shirt-sleeves
'with one brace and folded arms,' for the head. And when
the statue was first seen in the Salon of 1898, public events
of burning interest were utterly forgotten for a time in
the wild tempest that raged around it. The most prac
tical criticism, however, was that of the Societe des Gens
de Lettres who, 'already irritated by Rodin's delay in
'finishing the statue, declared plainly that they refused the
' " Balzac" ' — a distinct breach of agreement, for which Rodin
might easily have made them liable at law. But he pre
ferred the more dignified course of withdrawing his work
without claiming its price or discussing the matter.
Certainly to many of us, warm and honest admirers of
the sculptor, our impression when we first saw the ' Balzac' in
the Salon was extremely unpleasant. It was that of some
formless monster risen in graveclothes from the tomb —
the head alone was alive. One already knew that, as La-
martine said, ' His was the countenance of an element, with
' a torso that was joined to the head by an enormous neck,
'short legs, and short arms.' One already knew that
Balzac did work in a dressing-gown. But even Balzac's
dressing-gown, bath-wrap, or whatever it was, cannot have
been quite so formless; nor was there, one ventures to
think, any necessity for this deliberate simplification, one
may almost say obliteration, of all folds and lines in order
to force the spectator's thought to concentrate on the magni
ficent head. For magnificent it truly is — thrown back,
with a bitter smile on its scornful mouth, its deep-set eyes
dwelling on some fresh fact or idea of the Human Comedy
that passes before its mental vision.
42

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
Yet all the same the monstrous monolith exercised an
irresistible fascination. It made everything else in the
Salon appear weak. Men went back to it again and again;
for even its bitterest adversaries had to admit its power.
And if, as Mauclair says, they returned ' in order to attack
'it, they did return inevitably. Plenty of hostile faces
"were to be seen. But many of them showed a secret fear
'of being in the wrong. . . . This same fear might
'have been read as early as 1867 upon the faces of the de-
' tractors who stood in a ring round Manet's first works.'*
In the Paris Exhibition of 1900, Rodin's works were
collected in a special pavilion at the Rond-point de 1'Alma,
while he also sent eight more to the gallery of French sculp
ture in the Exhibition itself. This pavilion, containing a
magnificent collection of the artist's finest work, created
a profound impression in his own country and proved a great
international success. His fame was now world-wide;
and from that moment the master's position has been so
firmly established that, as has been said, 'he now holds the
'rank that Puvis de Chavannes held in the estimation of
'all artists.'
One point, however, remains to be noticed. Although,!
as we have endeavoured to show, Rodin is an essentially)
French sculptor, true to the ideals and genius of his native1
land and his great predecessors, and a severe critic of the
methods of the neo-Greek school, his profound reverence
and admiration for the antique, for pure Greek art, is
unbounded. In his home at Meudon, under the peristyle
of his great atelier, a much-prized collection of precious frag
ments of the antique testifies to his intense love for the art
of Greece and Rome. And when accused of 'inventing'
new methods, he replies, 'I invent nothing; I rediscover.
'I do not imitate the Greeks; I try to put myself in the
*Mauclair, p. 52. 43

AUGUSTE RODIN AND HIS FRENCH CRITICS
spiritual state of men who have left us the antique statues.
The "Ecole" copies their works; the thing is to recover
their methods.'* For, as he affirms, 'Non, jamais nul
artiste ne surpassera Phidias. ' Car le progr&s existe dans
le monde, mais non dans l'art.'t
*MaucIair, p. 60
fGsell, p. 280.

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