YALE UNIVERSITY
ART LIBRARY

ART

¦&ppl<jU.1Slf/ydmi*/(. &yH-,U^i^&,H/u,,y X,r

ETERNAL SPRING,
. By Rodin

ART

BY

AUGUSTE RODIN

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF PAUL GSELL BY MRS. HOMILLY FEDDEN
WITH 106 ILLUSTRATIONS IN HALF-TONE AND
PHOTOGRAVURE

BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1913
By Small, Maynard & Company
(incorporated) '
Published November, 1912

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, TJ. S. A.

Auguste Rodin
From a photograph by Edouard J. Steichen, 1907

PREFACE
NOT far from Paris, on the Seine, near Meu-
don, is a hamlet bearing the delightful name
of Val-Fleury. Crowning the little hill above this
village rises a group of buildings which in their
charm and originality at once attract interest. You
might almost guess that they belonged to an artist,'
and it is there, in -fact, that Auguste Rodin has
made liis home.
Approaching, you find that the main buildings
are three. The first, a Louis XIII. pavilion of red
brick and freestone with a high-gabled roof, serves
as his dwelling. Close by stands a great rotunda;
entered through a columned portico, which is
the one that in 1900 sheltered the special exhibi
tion of Rodin's work at the angle of the Pont de
l'Alma in Paris; as it pleased him, he had it re-
5
£-/' ¦¦¦!'=" 1174

PREFACE
erected upon this new site and uses it as his atelier.
A little further on at the edge of the hill, which
here falls steeply away, you see an eighteenth-cen
tury chateau — or rather only a facade — whose
fine portal, under a triangular pediment, frames a
wrought-iron gate; of this, more later.
This group, so diverse in character, is set in the
midst of an idyllic orchard. The spot is certainly
one of the most enchanting in the environs ' of
Paris. Nature has done much for it, and the sculp
tor who settled here has beautified it with all the
embellishments that his taste could suggest.
Last year, at the close of a beautiful day in
May, as I walked with Auguste Rodin beneath the t
trees that shade his charming hill, I confided to
him my wish to write, from his dictation, his ideas
upon Art.
" You are an odd fellow," he said. " So you
are still interested in Art! It is an interest that
is out-of-date.
•" To:day, artists and those who love artists seem
6

The Flight of Love
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

PREFACE
like fossils. Imagine a megatherium or a diplodo-
cus stalking the streets of Paris! There you have
the impression that we must make upon our con
temporaries. Ours is an epoch of engineers and
of manufacturers, not one of artists.
" The search in modern life is for utility; the
endeavor is to improve existence materially. Every
day, science invents new processes for the feeding,
clothing, or transportation of man; she manufac
tures cheaply inferior products in order to give
adulterated luxuries to the greatest number —
though it is true that she has also made real im
provements in all that ministers to our daily wants.
But it is no longer a question of spirit, of thought,
of dreams. Art is dead.
I " Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the
mind which searches into nature and which there
divines the spirit by which Nature herself is ani-
imated. It is the joy of the intellect which sees
clearly into the Universe and which recreates it,
^with conscientious vision. Art is the most sublime
7

PREFACE
1 mission of man, since it is the expression of thought
Iseeking to understand the world and to make it
' understood. " But to-day, mankind believes itself able to do
without Art. It does not wish to meditate, to con
template, to dream; it wishes to enjoy physically.
The heights and the depths of truth are indiffer
ent to it ; it is content to satisfy its bodily appe
tites. Mankind to-day is brutish — it is not the
stuff of which artists are made.
" Art, moreover, is taste. It is the reflection of
the artist's heart upon all the objects that he cre
ates. It is the smile of the human soul upon the
house and upon the furnishing. It is the charm
of thought and of sentiment embodied in all that
is of use to man. But how many of our contem
poraries feel the necessity of taste in house or
furnishing? Formerly, in old France, Art was
everywhere. The smallest bourgeois, even the peas
ant, made use only of articles which pleased the
eye. Their chairs, their tables, their pitchers and
8

Auguste Rodin
From a drawing by William Rothenstein
Reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

PREFACE
their pots were beautiful. To-day Art is banished
from daily life. People say that the useful need
not be beautiful. All is ugly, all is made in haste
and without grace by stupid machines. The artist
is regarded as an antagonist. Ah, my dear Gsell,
you wish to jot down an artist's musings. Let me
look at you! You really are an extraordinary,
man! "
" I know," I said, " that Art is the least con
cern of our epoch. But I trust that this book may
be a protest against the ideas of to-day. I trust
that your voice may awaken our contemporaries
and help them to understand the crime they com
mit in losing the best part of our national inherit
ance — an intense love of Art and Beauty."
"May the gods hear you!" Rodin answered.
• • • • •
We were walking along the rotunda which serves
as the atelier. There under the peristyle many
charming bits of antique sculpture have found
shelter. A little vestal, half -veiled, faces a grave
9

PREFACE
orator wrapped in his toga, while not far from
them a cupid rides triumphant upon a great sea-
monster. In the midst of these figures two Corin
thian columns of charming grace raise their shafts
of rose-colored marble. The collection here of
these precious fragments shows the devotion , of my
host to the art of Greece and Rome.
Two swans were drowsing upon the bank of a
deep pool. As we passed they unwound their long
necks and hissed with anger. Their savageness
prompted me to the remark that this bird lacks
intelligence, but Rodin replied, laughing:
"They have that of line, and that is enough!"
As we strolled on, small cylindrical altars in
marble, carved with garlands, appeared here and
there in the shade. Beneath a bower, clothed with
the luxuriant green of a sophora; a young Mithra
without a head sacrificed a sacred bull. At a
green crossway an Eros slept upon his lion-skin,
sleep having overcome him who tames the beasts.
! "Does it not seem to you," Rodin asked, "that
10

The Creation of Man, or Adam
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art

PREFACE
5 verdure is the most appropriate setting for antique
sculpture? This little drowsy Eros — would you
not say that he is the god of the garden? His
dimpled flesh is brother to this transparent and
luxuriant foliage. The Greek artists loved nature
so well that their works bathe in it as in their
element." Let us notice this attitude of mind. We place
statues in a garden to beautify the garden. Rodin
places them there that they may be beautified by
the garden. For him, Nature is always the sov
ereign mistress and the infinite perfection.
A Greek amphora, in rose-colored clay, which in
all probability had lain for centuries under the
sea, so encrusted is it with charming sea-growths,
lies upon the ground at the foot of a box-tree.
It seems to have been forgotten there, and yet it
could not have been presented to our eyes with
more grace — for what is natural is the supreme
of taste.
Further on we see a torso of Venus. The
11

PREFACE
breasts are hidden by a handkerchief knotted be
hind the back. Involuntarily one thinks of some
Tartuffe who, prompted by false modesty, has
felt it his duty to conceal these charms.
" Par de pareils objets les ames sont blessees
Et cela fait venir de coupables pensees."
But surely my host has nothing in common with
Moliere's prude. He himself explained his reason.
" I tied that around the breast of this statue,"
he said, " because that part is less beautiful than
the rest."
Then, through a door which he unbolted, he led
me on to the terrace where he has raised the eigh
teenth-century facade of which I have spoken.
Seen close to, this noble fragment of architec
ture is imposing. It is a fine portal raised upon
eight steps. On the pediment, which is supported
by columns, Themis surrounded by Loves is carved.
" Formerly," said my host, " this beautiful
chateau rose on the slope of a neighboring hill at
12

EVE
By Rodin

PREFACE
Issy. I often admired it as I passed. But the
land speculators bought it and tore it down." As
he spoke his eyes flashed with anger. " You can
not imagine," he continued, " what horror seized
me when I saw this crime committed. To tear
down this glorious building! It affected me as
much as though these criminals had mangled the
fair body of a virgin before my eyes!"
Rodin spoke these words in a tone of deep
devotion. You felt that the firm white body of
the young girl was to him the masterpiece of
creation, the marvel of marvels!
He continued:
" I asked the sacrilegious rascals not to scatter
the materials and to sell them to me. They con
sented. I had all the stones brought here to put
them together again as well as I could. Unfor
tunately, as you see, I have as yet raised only one
wall." In fact, in his impatience to enjoy this keen
artistic pleasure, Rodin has not followed the usual
13

PREFACE
and logical method which consists in raising all
parts of a building at once. Up to the present
time ; he has rebuilt only one side of the ..chateau^
and when you approach to look through the iron
entrance gate, you see only broken ground " where
lines, of stones indicate the plan of the building to
be:, , Truly a chateau of dreams ! An artist's . chateau !
" Verily," murmured my host, " those old archi7
tects were great men, especially when one com
pares them with their unworthy successors of
to-day! "
So speaking, he drew me to a point on the ter
race from which the outline of the facade seemed
to him most beautiful.
"See," he cried, "how harmoniously the sil
houette cuts the silvery sky, and how it dominates
the valley which lies below us." ;:
: Lost in ecstasy, his loving gaze enveloped . this
monument of a day that is past and all the land-1
scape. From the height on which we stood our eyes*
14

Eve
By Rodin

„,,>

PREFACE
took in an immense expanse. There, below, the
Seine, mirroring long lines of tall poplars, traces
a great loop of silver as it rushes towards the solid
bridge at Sevres. . . . Still further, the white
spire of Saint-Cloud against a green hillside, the
blue heights of Suresnes and Mont Valerian seem
powdered with a mist of dreams.
To the right, Paris, gigantic Paris, spreads away
to the horizon her great seed plot, sown with in
numerable houses, so small in the distance that
one might hold them in the palm of one's hand.
Paris, vision at once monstrous and sublime, colos
sal crucible wherein bubbles unceasingly that strange
mixture of pains and pleasures, of active forces and
of fevered ideals! Paul Gsell.

15

CONTENTS

Page
Preface  5
CHAPTER I
Realism in Art  25
CHAPTER II
To the Artist all in Nature is Beautiful .... 37
CHAPTER III
Modelling  53
CHAPTER IV
Movement in Art  65
CHAPTER V
Drawing and Color  93
CHAPTER VI
The Beauty of Women  Ill
17

V

CONTENTS
CHAPTER VH
Page '
Of Yesterday and of To-day  121
CHAPTER VHI
Thought in Art . .  151
CHAPTER IX
Mystery in Art  175
CHAPTER X
Phidias and Michael Angelo  191
CHAPTER XI
At the Louvre  211
CHAPTER XII
On the Usefulness of the Artist  227
Translations  249
Index  255

18

ILLUSTRATIONS
Eternal Spring. By Rodin  Frontispiece facing page
Auguste Rodin. From a photograph by Edouard J.
Steichen, 1907  5
The Flight of Love. By Rodin  6
Augusts Rodin. From a drawing by William Rothen-
stein  8
The Creation of Man, or Adam. By Rodin .... 10
Eve. By Rodin  12
Eve. By Rodin  14
Plaster Casts of The Gate of Hell. By Rodin . 26
Study for a Figure. By Rodin  28
Study for a Hand. By Rodin  28
Study. By Rodin  30
Study. By Rodin  SO
Invocation. By Rodin  32
Study. By Rodin  34
Study. By Rodin  34
The Old Courtesan. By Rodin  38
The Magdalene. By Donatello  38
A Hand in Bronze. By Rodin  40
Sebastian, Fool of Philip IV. By Velasquez .... 42
The Man with the Hoe. By Millet  44
The Danaid. By Rodin  52
Venus di Medici  54
Antique Torso  56
A Drawing. By Michael Angelo. See page 98 . . . 56
19

ILLUSTRATIONS
PACING PAGE
Crouching Venus  58
Faun. By Praxiteles  60
The Age of Iron. By Rodin  64
Man Walking. By Rodin  66
The Tempest. By Rodin  68
Marshal Ney. By Rude  70
Saint John the Baptist. By Rodin  72
Saint John the Baptist. By Rodin. (Two different
aspects)  74
Europa. Italian School of the Fifteenth Century ... 76
Epsom Races. By Gericault  76
The Embarkation for the Island of Cythera. By
Watteau  78
The Marseillaise. By Rude  80
The Burghers of Calais. By Rodin  82
Eustache de Saint-Pierre. By Rodin  84
One of the Burghers of Calais. By Rodin .... 84
One of the Burghers of Calais. By Rodin .... 86
One of the Burghers of Calais. By Rodin .... 86
One of the Burghers of Calais. By Rodin .... 88
Cupid and Psyche. By Rodin  92
The Embrace. Study-sketch by Rodin  94
Study of the Nude. By Rodin  94
Torso of a Woman. By Rodin  98
A Drawing. By Michael Angelo  100
A Drawing. By Rembrandt  102
Study. By Rodin  104
Study for a Figure. By Rodin  104
Triton and Nereid. By Rodin  106
The Caryatid. By Rodin  106
The Bather. By Rodin  110
Torso of a Woman. By Rodin  112
20

LLLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE
Torso of a Woman. By Rodin  112
Pygmalion and Galatea. By Rodin  114
Study of Hanoko, the Japanese Actress. By Rodin . 116
Study of the Nude. By Rodin  116
Madame X. By Rodin  118
Mlle. Brongniart. By Houdon  124
Egyptian Sparrow-Hawk. See page 180  124
Voltaire. By Houdon  126
Mlrabeau. By Houdon  126
Francis I. By Titian  130
Henri Rochefort. By Rodin  138
Jean-Paul Laurens. By Rodin  140
Jules Dalou. By Rodin  140
Puvis de Chavannes. By Rodin  142
The Sculptor Falguiere. By Rodin  144
Study for a Head, presumably Madame R. By Rodin 146
Study Head, for the Statue of Balzac. By Rodin . . 146
The Statue of Victor Hugo. By Rodin  154
Bust of Mlle. Claudel (La Pensee). By Rodin . . 156
The Shipwreck of Don Juan. By Delacroix .... 158
Ugollno. By Rodin  160
Illusion, the Daughter of Icarus. By Rodin . . . 162
Nymph and Faun. By Rodin  164
The Centauress. By Rodin  166
Italian Landscape. By Corot  168
An Old Man. By Rembrandt  170
Laura Dianti. By Titian  170
The Thinker. By Rodin  174
The Hand of God. By Rodin  176
The Statue of Balzac. By Rodin  178
The Gleaners. By Millet  182
The Three Fates. From the Parthenon  184
21

ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
The Kiss. By Rodin  186
Bust of Madame Morla Vicuna. By Rodin .... 188
A Captive. By Michael Angelo  198
The Three Graces. By Raphael  200
Diadumenes. By Polycletus  212
Venus of Milo  214
The Victory of Samothrace  216
A Captive. By Michael Angelo  218
La Pieta. By Michael Angelo  222
Orpheus and Eurydice. By Rodin  226
La France. By Rodin  228
The Broken Lily. By Rodin  230
Ceres. By Rodin  234
The Torn Glove. By Titian  236
Victor Hugo Offering his Lyre to the City op Paris.
By Puvis de Chavannes 
Mother and Babe. By Rodin 
Sister and Brother. By Rodin  242
Bust of Mr. Thomas Fortune Ryan. By Rodin . . . 244

CHAPTER I
REALISM IN ART

CHAPTER I
REALISM IN ART,
AT the end of the long rue de l'Universite,
close to the Champ-de-Mars, in a corner, so
deserted and monastic that you might think your
self in the provinces, is the Depot des Marbres.
Here in a great grass-grown court sleep heavy
grayish blocks, presenting in places fresh breaks
of frosted whiteness. These are the marbles re
served by the State for the sculptors whom she
honors with her orders.
Along one side of this courtyard is a row of a
dozen ateliers which have been granted to different
sculptors. A little artist city, marvellously tran
quil, it seems the fraternity house of a new order.
Rodin occupies two of these cells; in one he houses
the plaster cast of his Gate of Hell, astonishing
25

REALISM IN ART
even in its unfinished state, and in the other he
works. More than once I have been to see him here
towards evening, when his day of toil drew to its
close, and taking a chair, I have waited for the
moment when the night would oblige him to stop,
and I have studied him at his work. The desire
to profit by the last rays of daylight threw him
into a fever.
I see him now, rapidly shaping his little figures
from the clay. It is a game which he enjoys in
the intervals of the more patient care which he
gives to his big figures. These sketches flung off
on the instant delight him, because they permit him
to seize the fleeting beauty of a gesture whose fugi
tive truth would escape deeper and longer study.
His method of work is singular. In his atelier
several nude models walk about or rest.
Rodin pays them to furnish him constantly with
the sight' of the nude moving with all the freedom
of life^ He observes them without ceasing, and it

,**#-

*E

#w/

Plaster Casts of The Gate of Hell
By Rodin

REALISM IN ART
is thus that he has long since become famihar
with the sight of muscles in movement. The nude,
which for us moderns is an exceptional revelation
and which even for the sculptors is generally only
an apparition whose length is limited to a sitting,
has become to Rodin a customary sight. The con
stant familiarity with the human body which the
ancient Greeks acquired in watching the games —
the wrestling, the throwing of the discus, the box
ing, the gymnastics, and the foot races — and
which permitted their artists to talk naturally on
the subject of the nude, the creator of the Penseur
has made sure of by the continual presence of un
clothed human beings who come and go before his
eyes. In this way he has learned to read the feel
ings as expressed in every part of the body. The
face is generally considered as the only mirror of
the soul; the mobility of the features of the face
seems to us the only exterior expression of the
spiritual life. In reality there is not a muscle of
the body which does not express the inner varia-
27

REALISM IN ART
tions of feeling. All speak of joy or of sorrow,
of enthusiasm or of despair, of serenity or of mad
ness. Outstretched arms, an unconstrained body,
smile with as much sweetness as the eyes or the
lips. But to be able to interpret every aspect of
the flesh, one must have been drawn patiently to
spell out and to read the pages of this beautiful
book. The masters of the antique did this, aided
by the customs of their civilization. Rodin does
this in our own day by the force of his own will. ';
He follows his models with his earnest gaze, he
silently savors the beauty of the life which plays
through them, he admires the suppleness' of this
young woman who bends to pick up a chisel, the
delicate grace of this other who raises her arms to
gather her golden hair above her head, the nervous
vigor of a man who walks across the room; and
when this one or that makes a movement that
pleases him, he instantly asks that the pose be
kept. Quick, he seizes the clay, and a little
figure is under way; then with equal haste he

Study for a Hand
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

Study for a Figure
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

REALISM IN ART
passes to another, which he fashions in the same
manner. One evening when the night had begun to darken
the ateher with heavy shadows, I had a talk with
the master on his method.
" What astonishes me in you," said I, " is that
you work quite differently from your confreres.
I know many of them and have seen them at work.
They make the model mount upon a pedestal called
the throne, and they tell him to take such or such
a pose. Generally they bend or stretch his arms
and legs to suit them, they bow his head or
straighten his body exactly as though he were a
lay figure. Then they set to work. You, on the
contrary, wait till your models take an interesting
attitude, and then you reproduce it. So much so
that it is you who seem to be at their orders rather
than they at yours."
Rodin, who was engaged in wrapping his figur
ines in damp cloths, answered quietly:
" I am not at their orders, but at those of
29

REALISM IN ART
Nature! My confreres doubtless have their rea
sons for working as you have said. But in thus
doing violence to nature and treating human beings
like puppets, they run the risk of producing life
less and artificial work.
"As for me, seeker after truth and student of
life as I am, I shall take care not to follow, their
example. I take from life the movements I ob
serve, but it is not I who impose them. i
" Even when a subject which I am working on
compels me to ask a model for a certain fixed
pose, I indicate it to him, but I carefully avoid
touching him to place him in the position, for I
will reproduce only what reality spontaneously
offers me.
\ "I obey Nature in everything, and I never pre
tend to command her. My only ambition is to be
servilely faithful to her."
" Nevertheless," I answered with some malice,
"it is not nature exactly as it is that you evoke in
your work." 30

' -"''"S:l- BialaSHfHflR

i ^

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¦¦¦¦¦ § I : ..:,' ..¦ :-¦.,, 9 1 Eg .. :. . .;. .,
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Study
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Study
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
REALISM IN ART
He stopped short, the damp cloth in his hands.
"Yes, exactly as it is!" he replied, frowning.
" You are obliged to alter — "
" Not a jot! "
" But, after all, the proof that you do change it
is this, that the cast would give not at all the same
impression as your work."
He reflected an instant and said: " That is so!
Because the cast is less true than my sculpture!
" It would be impossible for any model to keep
an animated pose during all the time that it
would take to make a cast from it. But I
keep in my mind the ensemble of the pose and I
insist that the model shall conform to my memory
l/of it. More than that, — the cast only reproduces
the exterior; I reproduce, besides that, the spirit
iwhich is certainly also a part of nature.
"I see all the truth, and not only that of the
outside. " I accentuate the lines which best express the
spiritual state that I interpret." 31

REALISM IN ART
As he spoke he showed me on a pedestal near
by one of his most beautiful statues, a young man
kneehng, raising supphant arms to heaven. All
his being is drawn out with anguish. His body is
thrown backwards. The breast heaves, the throat
is tense with despair, and the hands are thrown
out towards some mysterious being to which they
'long to cling.
"Look!" he said to me; "I have accented the
swelling of the muscles which express distress.
Here, here, there — I have exaggerated the strain
ing of the tendons which indicate the outburst of
prayer." And, with a gesture, he underlined the most
vigorous parts of his work.
"I have you, Master!" I cried ironically; "you
say yourself that you have accented, accentuated,
exaggerated. You see, then, that you have changed
nature." i He began to laugh at my obstinacy.
" No," he replied. " I have not changed it. Or,
32

Invocation By Rodin

REALISM IN ART
rather, if I have done it, it was without suspecting
it at the time. The feehng which influenced my
vision showed me Nature as I have copied her.
" If I had wished to modify what I saw and to
make it more beautiful, I should have produced
nothing good."
An instant later he continued:
" I grant you that the artist does not see
Nature as she appears to the vulgar, because his
emotion reveals to him the hidden truths beneath
appearances. " But, after all, the only principle in Art is to
[copy what you see. Dealers in aesthetics to the
contrary, every other method is fatal. There is no
recipe for improving nature.
" The only thing is to see.
" Oh, doubtless a mediocre man copying nature
will never produce a work of art; because he
really looks without seeing, and though he may
have noted each detail minutely, the result will be
flat and without character. But the profession of
33

REALISM IN ART
artist is not meant for the mediocre, and to them
the best counsels will never succeed in giving
talent. .'
" The artist, on the contrary, sees; that is' to
say, that his eye, grafted on his heart, reads deeply
into the bosom of Nature.
" That is why the artist has only to trust to his
eyes."

34

Study
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Study
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

CHAPTER II
TO THE ARTIST ALL IN NATURE IS
BEAUTIFUL

CHAPTER II
TO THE ARTIST ALL IN NATURE IS
BEAUTIFUL
IN Rodin's great ateher at Meudon stands a cast
of that statuette, so magnificently ugly, which
the great sculptor wrought upon the text of
Villon's poem, La Belle Heaulmibre.
The courtesan, once radiant with youth and
grace, is now repulsive with age and decrepitude.
Once proud of her beauty, she is now filled with
shame at her ugliness.
"Ha, vieillesse felonne et nere,
Pourquoi m'as tu si tot abattue?
Qui me tient que je ne me fiere (frappe)
Et qu'a, ce coup je ne me tue!"1
1 See page 249.
37

TO THE ARTIST
The sculptor has followed the poet step by step.
The old hag, more shrivelled than a mummy,
mourns her physical decay. Bent double, crouch
ing on her haunches, she gazes despairingly upon
her breasts so pitiably shrunken, , upon her hide
ously wrinkled body, upon her arms and legs more
knotty than vine stocks.
" Quand je pense, las! au bon temps,
, Quelle fus, quelle devenue,
Quand me regarde toute nue
Et je me vois si tres changee.
Pauvre, seche, maigre,x menue,
Je suis presque tout enragee!
Qu'est devenue ce front poli,
Ces cheveux blonds. . . .
Ces gentes epaules menues,
Petite tetins, hanches charnues,
Elevees, propres, faictisse (faites a, souhait)
A tenir d'amoureuses lices;
C'est d'humaine beaute l'issue!
Les bras courts et les mains contraictes
(contractees), 38

The Old Courtesan
By Rodin

The Magdalene
By Donatello

ALL IN NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL
Les epaules toutes bossue.
Mamelles, quoi! toutes retraites (dessechees)
Telles les hanches et que les tettes!
Quant aux cuisses,
Cuisses ne sont plus, mais cuissettes
Grivelees comme saucisses ! " 1
The sculptor does not fall below the poet in
realism. On the contrary, his work, in the horror
which it inspires, is perhaps even more impressive
than the truculent verses of Maitre Villon. The
skin hangs in flaccid folds upon the skeleton; the
ribs stand out beneath the parchment that covers
them, and the whole figure seems to totter, to
tremble, to shrivel, to shrink away.
Yet from this spectacle, at once grotesque and
heartrending, a great sorrow breathes.
For what we have before us is the infinite dis-
: tress of a poor foohsh soul which, enamoured of
! eternal youth and beauty, looks on helpless at the
! ignominious disgrace of its fleshly envelope; it is
1 See page 249.
39

TO THE ARTIST
the antithesis of the spiritual being which demands
endless joy and of the body which wastes away,
\ decays, ends in nothingness. The substance perishes,
the flesh dies, but dreams and desires are immortal.
This is what Rodin has wished to make us
(understand. And I do not think that any other artist has
ever pictured old age with such savage crudity,
except one. In the Baptistery at Florence you
see upon an altar a strange statue by Donatello —
an old woman naked, or at least draped only in the
long, thin hair which clings foully to her ruined
body. It is Saint Magdalene in the desert, bowed
with age, offering to God the cruel mortifications
to which she subjects her body as a punishment
for the care which she formerly lavished upon it.
The savage sincerity of the Florentine master is
so great that it is not even surpassed by Rodin
himself. But, aside from this, the sentiment of the
two works differs completely, for, while Saint Mag
dalene in her voluntary renunciation seems to grow
40

A Hand in Bronze
By Rodin

ALL IN NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL
more radiant as she sees herself growing more re
pulsive, the old Heaulmiere is terrified at finding
herself like a very corpse.
The modern sculpture is, therefore, much more
tragic than the older work.
One day, having studied this figure in the ateher
for some moments in silence, I said:
" Master, no one admires this astonishing figure
more than I, but I hope you will not be annoyed
if I tell you the effect it produces upon many of
the visitors to the Musee du Luxembourg, especially
upon the women."
" I shall be much obliged to you if you will."
" Well, the public generally turn away from it,
crying, ' Oh, how ugly it is! ' and I have often seen
women cover their eyes with their hands to shut
out the sight."
Rodin laughed heartily.
" My work must be eloquent," he said, " to make
such a vivid impression, and doubtless these are
people who dread stern philosophic truths.
41

TO THE ARTIST
" But what solely matters to me is the opinion of
people of taste, and I have been dehghted to gain
their approbation for my Vieille Heaulmiere. • I
am like that Roman singer who replied to the jeers
of the populace: Equitibus cano. I sing only for
the nobles! that is to say, for the connoisseurs. V
V " The vulgar readily imagine that what they con
sider ugly in existence is not fit subject' for the
i ...¦-•
artist. They would like to forbid us to represent
what displeases and offends. them in nature. -
"It is a great error on their part.
i" What is commonly called ugliness in naturei
ah in art become full of great beauty.
t "In the domain of fact we call ugly whatever is
deformed, whatever is unhealthy, whatever suggests
the idea ? of disease, of debility, or of suffering,"
whatever is contrary to regularity, which is; the
sign and condition of health and strength: a
hunchback , is ugly, one who is bandy-legged is
ugly, poverty in rags' is ugly.
" Ugly, also are the soul and the conduct of the
42

Sebastian, Fool of Philip IV
By Velasquez

ALL IN NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL
immoral man, of the vicious and criminal man, of
the abnormal man who is harmful to society; ugly
the soul of the parricide, of the traitor, of the
unscrupulously ambitious.
" And it is right that beings and objects from
Which we can expect only evil should be called by
such an odious epithet. But let a great artist or a
great writer make use of one or the Other of these
uglinesses, instantly it is transfigured: with a touch
of his fairy wand he has turned it into beauty; it
is alchemy; it is enchantment!
" Let Velasquez paint Sebastian, the dwarf of
Philippe IV. He endows him with such a touch
ing gaze that we instantly read in it all the painful
secret of this poor afflicted creature, forced, for
his livelihood, to lower his human dignity, to be
come a plaything, a living bauble. And the more
poignant the martyrdom of the conscience lodged
in this grotesque body, the more beautiful is the
artist's work.
" Let Francois Millet represent a peasant rest-
43

TO THE ARTIST
ing for a moment as he leans on the handle of his
hoe, a wretched man worn by fatigue, baked by
the sun, as stupid as a beast of burden dulled by
blows — he has only to put into the expression of
this poor devil a sublime resignation to the suffer
ing ordained by Destiny, to make this creature of
a nightmare become for us the great symbol of all
Humanity. " Let Beaudelaire describe a festering corpse,-.
unclean, viscid, eaten by worms, and let him but
imagine his beloved mistress under this frightful
aspect, and nothing can equal in splendor his pic-
turd of this terrible juxtaposition of beauty which
we could wish eternal and the atrocious disintegra-l
tioh which awaits it.
" ' Et, pourtant vous serez semblable a, cette ordure,
A cette horrible infection.
Etoile de mes yeux, Soleil de ma nature,
0 mon ange et ma passion!
Oui, telle vous serez, o la reine des Graces
Apres les derniers sacrements. 44

ALL IN NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL
Quand vous irez sous l'herbe et les- floraisons grasses
Pourrir parmi les ossements.
Alors, o ma Beautd, dites a, la vermine
Qui vous mangerez de baisers,
Que j'ai garde la forme et l'essence divine
De mes amours decomposes ! ' *
"It is the same when Shakespeare depicts Iago
or Richard III., when Racine paints Nero and
Narcissus; moral ugliness when interpreted by
minds so clear and penetrating becomes a marvel
lous theme of beauty.
f " In fact, in art, only that which has character is
| beautiful.
L" Character is the essential truth of any natural
bject, whether ugly or beautiful; it is even what
one might call a double truth, for it is the inner
;ruth translated by the outer truth; it is the soul,
;he feelings, the ideas, expressed by the features
of a face, by the gestures and actions of a human
1 See page 250.
45

TO THE ARTIST
being, by the tones of a sky, by the lines of a
horizon. " Now, to the great artist, everything in nature
has character; for the unswerving directness of his
observation searches out the hidden meaning of all
things. And that which is considered ugly in
nature often presents more character than that
which is termed beautiful, because in the contrac
tions of a sickly countenance, in the lines of a
vicious face, in all deformity, in all decay, the
inner truth shines forth more clearly than in fea
tures that are regular and healthy.
" And as it is solely the power of character which
makes for beauty in art, it often happens that the
I uglier a being is in nature, the more beautiful it
i becomes in art.
" There is nothing ugly in art except that which
is without character, that is to say, that which
offers no outer or inner truth.
" Whatever is false, whatever is artificial, what
ever seeks to be pretty rather than expressive,
46

ALL IN NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL
whatever is capricious and affected, whatever smiles
without motive, bends or struts without cause, is
mannered without reason; all that is without soul
and without truth; all that is only a parade of
beauty and grace; all, in short, that lies, is ugliness
in art.
" When an artist, intending to improve upon
nature, adds green to the springtime, rose to the
sunrise, carmine to young lips, he creates ugliness
because he lies.
When he softens the grimace of pain, the
shapelessness of age, the hideousness of perversion,
i when he arranges nature — veiling, disguising, tem-
Ipering it to please the ignorant public — then he
lis creating ugliness because he fears the truth.
" To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature
is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting
all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book,
all the inner truth.
" He has only to look into a human face in order
to read there the soul within — not a feature de-
47

/

TO THE ARTIST
ceives him; hypocrisy is as transparent as sincerity
— the line of a forehead, the least hf ting of a brow,
the flash of an eye, reveal to him all the secrets of
a heart. " Or he may study the hidden mind of the ani
mal. A mixture of feehngs and of thoughts, of
dumb intelligences and of rudimentary affections,
he reads the whole humble moral life of the beast
in its eyes and in its movements.
" He is even the confidant of nature. The trees,
the plants talk to him like friends. The old gnarled
oaks speak to him of their kindliness for the human
race whom they protect beneath their sheltering
branches. The flowers commune with him by the
gracious swaying of their stalks, by the singing
tones of their petals — each blossom amidst the
grass is a friendly word addressed to him by nature.
" For him life is an endless joy, a perpetual de
light, a mad intoxication. Not that all seems good
to him, for suffering, which must often come to
those he loves and to himself, cruelly contradicts his
48

ALL IN NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL
optimism. But all is beautiful to him because he
walks forever in the light of spiritual truth.
" Yes, the great artist, and by this I mean the
poet as well as the painter and the sculptor, finds
even in suffering, in the death of loved ones, in the
treachery of friends, something which fills him with
a voluptuous though tragic admiration.
" At times his own heart is on the rack, yet
stronger than his pain is the bitter joy which he
experiences in understanding and giving expression
to that pain. In all existence he clearly divines the
purposes of Destiny. Upon his own anguish, upon
his own gaping wounds, he fixes the enthusiastic
gaze of the man who has read the decrees of Fate.
Deceived by a beloved one, he reels beneath the
blow; then, standing firm, he looks upon the traitor
as a fine example of the base. He salutes ingrati
tude as an experience which shall enrich his soul.
His ecstasy is terrifying at times, but it is still
happiness, because it is the continual adoration of
truth. 49

ALL IN NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL
" When he sees beings everywhere destroying
each other; when he sees all youth fading, all
strength faihng, all genius dying, when he is face
to face with the will which decreed these tragic
laws, more than ever he rejoices in his knowledge,
and, seized anew by the passion for truth, he is
happy."

50

CHAPTER III
MODELLING

THE DANAID
By Rodin

CHAPTER III
MODELLING
ONE late afternoon, when I was with Rodin
in his ateher, darkness set in while we
talked. " Have you ever looked at an antique statue by
lamplight? " my host suddenly demanded.
" No, never," I answered, with some surprise.
" I astonish you. You seem to consider the idea
of studying sculpture excepting by dayhght as an
odd whim. Of course you can get the effect as a
whole better by dayhght. But, wait a moment. I
want to show you a kind of experiment which will
doubtless prove instructive."
He hghted a lamp as he spoke, took it in his
hand, and led me towards a marble statue which
53

MODELLING
stood upon a, pedestal in a corner of the
ateher. It, was a delightful little antique copy of the
Venus di Medici. Rodin kept it there to stimulate
his own inspiration while he worked.
" Come nearer," he said.
Holding the lamp at the side of the statue and
as close as possible, he threw the full hght upon
the body.
" What do you notice? " he asked.
At the first glance I was extraordinarily struck
by what was suddenly revealed to me.
The hght so directed, indeed, disclosed numbers
of slight projections and depressions upon the sur
face of the marble which I should never have sus
pected. I said so to Rodin.
"Good!" he cried approvingly; then, "Watch
closely." At the same time he slowly turned the moving
stand which supported the Venus. As he turned,
I still noticed in the general form of the body
54

Venus di Medici

MODELLING
a multitude of almost imperceptible roughnesses.
What had at first seemed simple was really of as
tonishing complexity. Rodin threw up his head
smiling. "Is it not marvellous?" he cried. "Confess
that you did not expect to discover so much detail.
Just look at these numberless undulations of the
hollow which unites the body to the thigh. Notice
all the voluptuous curvings of the hip. And now,
here, the adorable dimples along the loins."
He spoke in a low voice, with the ardor of
a devotee, bending above the marbje as if he
loved it.
" It is truly flesh! " he said.
And beaming, he added: "You would think it
moulded by kisses and caresses ! " Then, suddenly,
laving his hand on the statue, " You almost expect,
when you touch this body, to find it warm."
A few moments later he said:
"Well, what do you think now of the opinion
usually held on Greek art? They say — it is espe-
55

MODELLING ,^
cially the academic school which has spread abroad
this idea — that the ancients, in their cult of the
ideal, .despised the flesh as low and vulgar, and that
they refused to reproduce in their works the thour
sand details of material reality.
" They pretend that the ancients wished to teach
Nature by creating an abstract beauty of simpli
fied form which should appeal only to the intelfflect
and not consent to flatter the senses. And those
who talk like this take examples which they imagine
they find in antique art as their authority for cor
recting, for emasculating nature, reducing it to
contours so dry, cold, and meagre that they have
nothing in common with the truth.
"You have just proved how much they are
mistaken. " Without doubt the Greeks with their power
fully logical minds instinctively accentuated the
essential. They accented the dominant traits of
the human type; nevertheless they never sup-
ipressed hving detail. They were satisfied to envelop
56

A Drawing
By Michael Angelo
See page 98

Antique Torso
Bibliotheque Nationale

MODELLING
it and melt it into the whole. As they were enam
oured of calm rhythms, they involuntarily subjected
all secondary rehefs which should disturb the seren
ity of a movement; but they carefully refrained
from entirely obliterating them.
" They never made a method out of falsehood.
" Full of respect and love for Nature, they always
represented her as they saw her. And on every
occasion they passionately testified their worship of
the flesh. For it is madness to believe that they
despised it. Among no other people has the beauty
of the human body excited a more sensuous tender
ness. A transport of ecstasy seems to hover over
all the forms that they modelled.
" Thus is explained the unbelievable difference
which separates the false academic ideal from Greek
/art. While among the ancients the generalization
of lines is totalization, a result made up of all the
details, the academic simplification is an impoverish
ment, an empty bombastry. While life animates
and warms the palpitating muscles of the Greek
57

MODELLING
statues, the inconsistent dolls of academic art look
as if they were chilled by death."
He was silent for a time, then —
" I will tell you a. great secret. Do you know
i how the impression, of actual life, which we have
gust felt before that Venus, is produced?
" By the science of modelling.
" These words seem banal to you, but you will
soon gauge their importance.
" The science of modelling was taught me by one
Constant, who worked in the atelier where I made
my d6but as a sculptor. One day, watching me
model a capital ornamented with foliage — ' Rodin,'
he said to me, ' you are going about that in the
wrong way. All your leaves are seen flat. That is
why they do not look real. Make some with the
tips pointed at you, so that, in seeing them, one
has the sensation of depth.' I followed his advice
and I was astounded at the result that I obtained.
' Always remember what I am about to tell you,'
Iwent on Constant. ' Henceforth, when you carve,
58

Crouching Venus

MODELLING
never see the form in length, but always in thick
ness. Never consider a surface except as the ex
tremity of a volume, as the point, more or less large,
\ which it directs towards you. In that way you
iwill acquire the science of modelling.'
" This principle was astonishingly fruitful to me.
I applied it to the execution of figures. Instead
of imagining the different parts of a body as sur
faces more or less flat, I represented them as pro-
jectures of interior volumes. I forced myself to
express in each swelling of the torso or of the limbs
the efflorescence of a muscle or of a bone which lay
deep beneath the skin. And so the truth of my
figures, instead of being merely superficial, seems to
blossom from within to the outside, hke life itself.
" Now I have discovered that the ancients prac
tised precisely this method of modelling. And it is
certainly to this technique that their works owe at
once their vigor and their palpitating suppleness."
Rodin contemplated afresh his exquisite Greek
Venus. And suddenly he said:
59

MODELLING
" In your opinion, Gsell, is color a quality of
painting or of sculpture? "
" Of painting, naturally."
"Well, then, just look at this statue."
So saying, he raised the lamp as high as he
could in order to light the antique torso from above.
" Just see the high hghts on * the breasts, the
heavy shadows in the folds of the flesh, and then
this ? paleness, these vaporous half-tones, trembhng
over the most delicate portions of this divine body,
these bits so finely shaded that they seem to dis
solve in air. What do you say to it? Is it not a
great symphony in black and white? "
I had to agree.
"As, paradoxical as it may seem, a great sculp
tor is as much a colorist-i»as the best painter, or
rather, the best engraver.
"He plays so skilfully with all the resources of
relief, he blends so well the boldness of hght with
the modesty of shadow, that his sculptures please
one as much as the most charming etchings.
60

Faun
By Praxiteles-

MODELLING
/ " Now color — it is to this remark that I wished
i-to lead — is the flower of fine modelhng. These
two quahties always accompany each other, and it
I is these qualities which give to every masterpiece of
*the sculptor the radiant appearance of living flesh."

61

CHAPTER IV
MOVEMENT IN ART

The Age of Iron
By Rodin

CHAPTER IV
MOVEMENT IN ART
THERE are two statues by Rodin at the
Musee du Luxembourg which especially at-
I tract and hold me; VAge d'Airain (the Iron Age)
land Saint-Jean-Baptiste. They seem even more
full of life than the others, if that is possible. The
other works of the Master which bear them com
pany are certainly all quivering with truth; they
all produce the impression of real flesh, they all
breathe, but these move.
One day in the Master's atelier at Meudon I
told him my especial fondness for these two
figures. " They are certainly among those in which I
have carried imitative art farthest," he replied.
" Though I have produced others whose animation
65

MOVEMENT IN ART
is not less striking; for example, my Bourgeois de
Calais, my Balzac, my Homme qui marche (Man
walking) .
" And even in those of my works in which action
is less pronounced, I have always sought to give
some indication of movement. I have very rarely
represented complete repose. I have always en
deavored to express the inner feelings by the
mobility of the muscles. . ,1'
" This is so even in my busts, to which I have
often given a certain slant, a certain obliquity, a
certain expressive direction, which would empha
size the meaning of the physiognomy.
\\ "Art cannot exist without life. If a sculptor
wishes to interpret joy, sorrow, any passion what
soever, he will not be able to move us unless he
first knows how to, make the beings live which he
evokes. For how could the joy or the sorrow of
an inert object — of- a block of stone — affect us?
Now, the illusion of life is obtained in our art by
good modelling and by movement. These two
66

Man Walking
By Rodin

MOVEMENT IN ART
qualities are hke the blood and the breath of all
good work."
" Master," I said, " you have already talked to
me of modelling, and I have noticed that since
then I am better able to appreciate the master
pieces of sculpture. I should hke to ask a few
questions about movement, which, I feel, is not less
important. " When I look at your figure of the Iron Age,
who awakes, fills his lungs and raises high his
arms; or at your Saint John, who seems to long
to leave his pedestal to carry abroad his words of
faith, my admiration is mixed with amazement. It
seems to me that there is sorcery in this science
which lends movement to bronze. I have also
studied other chefs-d'oeuvre of your great prede
cessors; for example, Marechal Ney and the Mar
seillaise by Rude, the Dance by Carpeaux, as well
as Barye's wild animals, and I confess that I have
never found any satisfactory explanation for the
effect which these sculptures produce upon me. I
67

MOVEMENT IN ART
continue to ask myself how such masses of stone
and iron can possibly seem to move, how figures
so evidently motionless can yet appear to act and
even to lend themselves to violent effort."
"As you take me for a sorcerer," Rodin an
swered, ¦" I shall try to do justice to my reputation
by accomphshing . a task much more difficult for
me than animating bronze — that of explaining
hoW. I do it.
" Note, ; first, that movement is the transition
from one attitude to another.
' "This simple statement, Which has the air of a
truism, is, to tell the truth, the key to the mystery.
;¦ " You have certainly read in Ovid how Daphne
was transformed into a bay-tree and Progne into
a swallow. This charming writer shows us the
body of ' the one taking on its covering of leaves
and bark and the members of the other clothing
themselves in feathers, so that in each of them one
still sees the woman which Will cease to be and the
tree, or bird which she will become. You remember;
68

The Tempest
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

MOVEMENT IN ART
too, how in Dante's Inferno a serpent, coiling itself
about the body of one of the damned, changes into
man as the man becomes reptile. The great poet
describes this scene so ingeniously that in each of
these two beings one follows the struggle between
two natures which progressively invade and sup
plant each other.
" It is, in short, a metamorphosis of this kind
jthat the painter or the sculptor effects in giving
jniovement to his personages. He represents the
J transition from one pose to another — he indicates
how insensibly the first glides into the second. In
his work we still see a part of what was and we
discover a part of what is to be. An example will
enlighten you better.
" You mentioned just now the statue of Marshal
Ney by Rude. Do you recall the figure clearly? "
" Yes," I said. " The hero raises his sword,
shouting ' Forward ' to his troops at the top of his
voice." "Exactly! Well — when you next pass that
69

MOVEMENT IN ART
statue, look at it still more closely. You will then
notice this: the legs of the statue and the hand
which holds the sheath . of the sabre are placed in
the attitude that they had when he drew — the
left leg is drawn back so that the sabre may be
easily grasped by the right hand, which has just
drawn it; and as for the left hand, it is arrested
in the air as if still offering the sheath.
"Now examine the body.' It must have been
slightly bent toward the left at the moment when
it performed the act which I have described, but
here it is erect, here is the chest thrown out, here is
the head turning towards the soldiers as it roars
out the order to attack; here; finally, is the right
arm raised and brandishing the sabre.
" So there you have a confirmation of what I
have just said; the* movement in this statue is
only, the change from a first attitude — -that which
the Marshal had as he drew his sabre — into a
second, that which he had as he rushes, arm aloft,
upon the enemy. 70

Marshal Ney
By Rude

MOVEMENT IN ART
" In that is all the secret of movement as inter-
I preted by art. The sculptor compels, so to speak,
the spectator to follow the development of an act
in an individual. In the example that we have
chosen, the eyes are forced to travel upward from
the lower limbs to the raised arm, and, as in so
doing they find the different parts of the figure
represented at successive instants, they have the
illusion of beholding the movement performed.
As it happened, the casts of the Iron Age and
of Saint John the Baptist stood in the great hall
where we were. Rodin asked me to look at them.
And I at once recognized the truth of his words.
I noticed that in the first of these works the
movement appears to mount, as in the statue of
Ney. The legs of the youth, who is not yet fully
awake, are still lax and almost vacillating, but as
your eye mounts you see the pose become firmer —
the ribs rise beneath the skin, the chest expands, the
face is lifted towards the sky, and the two arms
stretch in an endeavor to throw off their torpor.
71

MOVEMENT IN ART
The subject of this sculpture is exactly that —
the passage from somnolence to the vigor of the
being ready for action.
This slow gesture of awakening appears, besides,
still more grand when one understands its sym
bolic meaning. For it represents, as the title of
the work indicates, the first palpitation of con
science in a humanity still young, the first victory
\of reason over the brutishness of the prehistoric
f'ages. In the same way I next studied Saint John. And
I saw that the rhythm of this figure led, as Rodin
had said, to a sort of evolution between two bal
ances. The figure leaning, at first, all its weight
upon the left foot, which presses the ground with
all its strength, seems to balance there while the
eyes look to the right. You then see all the body
bent in that direction, then the right leg advances
and the foot takes hold of the ground. At the
same time the left shoulder, which is raised, seems
to endeavor to bring the weight of the body to this
72

Saint John the Baptist
By Rodin

MOVEMENT IN ART
side in order to aid the leg which is behind to come
forward. Now, the science of the sculptor has
consisted precisely in imposing all these facts
upon the spectator in the order in which I have
stated them, so that their succession will give the
impression of movement.
Moreover, the gesture of Saint John, hke that
of the Iron Age, contains a spiritual significance.
The prophet moves with an almost automatic
solemnity. You almost believe you hear his foot
steps, as you do those in the statue of the Com
mander. You feel that a force at once mysterious
and formidable sustains and impels him. So the
act of walking, usually a commonplace movement,
here becomes majestic because it is the accomplish
ment of a divine mission.
" Have you ever attentively examined instan
taneous photographs of walking figures?" Rodin
suddenly asked me.
Upon my reply in the affirmative, "Well, what
did you notice?" 73

MOVEMENT IN ART
" That they never seem to advance. Generally
they seem to rest motionless on one leg or to hop
on one foot."
"Exactly! Now, for example, while my Saint
John is represented with both feet on the ground,
it is probable that an instantaneous photograph
from a model making the same movement would
show the back foot already raised and carried toward
the other. Or else, on the contrary, the front foot
would not yet be on the ground if the back leg
occupied in the photograph the same position as in
my statue.
" Now it is exactly for that reason that this
model photographed would present the odd appear
ance of a man suddenly stricken with paralysis
and petrified in his pose, as it happened in the
pretty fairy story to the servants of the Sleeping
Beauty, who were all suddenly struck motionless in
the midst of their occupations.
"And this confirms what I have just explained
to you on the subject of movement in art. If, in
74

Saint John the Baptist
By Rodin

MOVEMENT IN ART
i fact, in instantaneous photographs, the figures,
i \ though taken while moving, seem suddenly fixed in
I mid-air, it is because, all parts of the body being
^reproduced exactly at the same twentieth or fortieth
pf a second, there is no progressive development
of movement as there is in art."
" I understand you perfectly, Master," I an
swered. " But it seems to me, if you will excuse
me for risking the remark, that you contradict
yourself." " How so? "
"Have you not declared many times to me that
the artist ought always to copy nature with the
greatest sincerity? "
"Without doubt, and I maintain it."
" Well, then, when in the interpretation of move
ment he completely contradicts photography, which
is an unimpeachable mechanical testimony, he evi
dently alters truth."
" No," replied Rodin, " it is the artist who is
truthful and it is photography which lies, for in
75

MOVEMENT IN ART
reahty time does not stop, and if the artist succeeds
in producing the impression of a movement which
takes several moments for accomplishment, his
work is certainly much less conventional than the
¦ scientific image, where time is abruptly suspended.
" It is that which condemns certain modern
painters who, when they wish to represent horses
galloping, reproduce the poses furnished by instan
taneous photography.
" Gericault is criticised because in his picture
Epsom Races (Course d'Epsom), which is at the
Louvre, he has painted his horses galloping, fully
extended, ventre a terre, to use a famihar expres
sion, throwing their fore feet forward and their
hind feet backward at the same instant. It is said
that the sensitive plate never gives the same effect.
And, in fact, in instantaneous photography, when
the forelegs of a horse are forward, the hind legs,
having by their pause propelled the body onward,
have already had time to gather themselves under
the body in order to recommence the stride, so
76

Europa. Italian School of the Fifteenth Century

Epsom Races
By Gericault

MOVEMENT IN ART
that for a moment the four legs are almost gath
ered together in the air, which gives the animal the
appearance of jumpmg off the ground, and of being
motionless in this position.
" Now I beheve that it is Gericault who is right,
and not the camera, for his horses appear to run;
this comes from the fact that the spectator from
right to left sees first the hind legs accomplish the
effort whence the general impetus results, then the
jbody stretched out, then the forelegs which seek
pie ground ahead. This is false in reahty, as
the actions could not be simultaneous; but it
is true when the parts are observed successively,
md it is this truth alone that matters to us,
jecause it is that which we see and which strikes
us. " Note besides that painters and sculptors, when
they unite different phases of an action in the same
figure, do not act from reason or from artifice.
They are naively expressing what they feel. Their
minds and their hands are as if drawn in the direc-
77

MOVEMENT IN ART
tion of the movement, and they translate the devel
opment by instinct. Here, as everywhere in the
domain of art, sincerity is the only rule."
I was silent for several instants, thinking over
what he had said.
" Haven't I convinced you? " he asked.
"Yes, indeed. But while admiring this miracle
of painting and of sculpture which succeeds in con
densing the action of several moments into a single
figure, I now ask myself how far they can compete'
with literature, and especially with the theatre, in
the notation of movement: To tell the truth, I am
inclined to believe that this competition does not
go very far, and that on this score the masters of
the brush and chisel are necessarily inferior to those
of language."
"Our disadvantage," he exclaimed, "is not as
great as you would think. If painting and sculp
ture can endow figures with motion, they are not
forbidden to attempt even more. And at times they
succeed in equalling dramatic art by presenting in
78

The Embarkation for the Island of Cythera
By Watteau

MOVEMENT IN ART
the same picture or in the same sculptural group
several successive scenes."
" Yes," I replied, " but they cheat, in a way.
For I suppose that you are talking of those old
compositions which celebrate the entire history of
a personage, representing him several times on the
same panel in different situations.
" At the Louvre, for example, a small Itahan
painting of the fifteenth century relates in this way
the story of Europa. You first see the young
princess playing in the flowery field with her com
panions, who help her to mount the bull, Jupiter,
and further on the same heroine, terrified now, is
carried off through the waves by the god."
" That is a very primitive method," Rodin an
swered, " though it was practised even by great
masters — for example, in the ducal palace at
Venice this same fable of Europa has been treated
in an identical manner by Veronese. But it is in
spite of this defect that Caliari's painting is admi
rable, and I did not refer to any such childish
79

MOVEMENT IN ART
method: for, as you may imagine,' I disapprove of
it. To make myself understood, I must ask you
first whether' you can call to mind The Embarka
tion for the Island of Cythera by Watteau."
"As. plainly as if it was before my eyes," I said.
"Then I shall have no trouble in explaining
myself. In this masterpiece the action, v if : you
will notice, begins in the foreground 'to the right
and ends in the background to the left. .
>., " What' you first notice in, the 'front of 'the pu>
ture, in the cool shade, near a sculptured -bust of
Cypris garlanded with roses,' is a group composed
of a young woman and* her adorer.' The man
wears a cape : embroidered with a pierced hearty
gracious symbol of the voyage that he would
undertake. " Kneeling at her side, he ardently beseeches his
lady to yield. Rut she meets his entreaties with
an indifference • perhaps feigned, and appears
absorbed in the study of the decorations on her
fan. Close to them is a little cupid, sifting .half-
80

t*rmv*IKm»mwmfflK#Mmir»Atl>tm»mtxvn,:r<>ti. ¦¦¦¦¦;irrt., nfni.xiaK! ¦:¦¦> -¦-

The MarseillaiseBy Rude

MOVEMENT IN ART
naked upon his quiver. He thinks that the young
woman delays too long, and he pulls her skirt to
induce her to be less hard-hearted. But still the
pilgrim's staff and the script of love he upon the
ground. This is the first scene.
" Here is the second: To the left of the group
of which I have spoken is another couple. The
lady accepts the hand of her lover, who helps her
to arise. She has her back to us, and has one of
those blonde napes which Watteau painted with
such voluptuous grace.
" A little further is the third scene. The lover
puts his arm around his mistress's waist to draw
her with him. She turns towards her companions,
whose lingering confuses her, but she allows herself
to be led passively away.
" Now the lovers descend to the shore and all
push laughing towards the barque; the men no
longer need to entreat, the women cling to their
arms. " Finally the pilgrims help their sweethearts on
81

MOVEMENT IN ART
board the httle ship, which, decked with flowers
and floating pennons of red silk, rocks hke a
golden dream upon the water. The sailors, leaning
on their oars, are ready to row away. And
already, borne by the breezes, little cupids fly
ahead to guide the travellers towards that azure
isle which lies upon the horizon."
" I see, Master, that you love this picture, for
you have remembered every detail," I said}
" It is a delight that one cannot forget. But
have you noted the development of this panto
mime? Truly now,- is it the stage? or is it paint
ing? One does not know which to say. You see,,
then, that an artist can, when he pleases, represent
not only fleeting gestures, but a long action, to
jpmploy a term of dramatic art.
" In order to succeed, he needs only to place his
personages in such a manner that the spectator
^hall first see those who begin this action, then
those who continue it, and finally those who com
plete it. Would you hke an example in sculpture? "

The Burghers of Calais

MOVEMENT IN ART
Opening a book, he searched for a moment and
drew out a photograph.
" Here," he said, " is the Marseillaise which
Rude carved for one of the piers of the Arc de
Triomphe. " Liberty, in a breastplate of brass, cleaving the
|air with unfolded wings, roars in a mighty voice,
\ j'Aux armes, citoyens!' She raises high her left
arm to rally all the brave to her side, and, with
the other hand, she points her sword towards the
enemy. It is she, beyond question, whom you first
see, for she dominates all* the work, and her legs,
which are wide apart as if she were running, seem
hke an accent placed above this sublime war-epic.
It seems as though one must hear her — for her
mouth of stone shrieks as though to burst your ear
drum. But no sooner has she given the call than
you see the warriors rush forward. This is the
jsecond phase of the action. A Gaul with the
mane of a lion shakes aloft his helmet as though
to salute the goddess, and here, at his side, is his
83

MOVEMENT IN ART
young son, who begs the right to go with him —
" I am strong enough, I am a man, I want to
go! " he seems to say, grasping the hilt of a sword.
" Come," says the father, regarding him with ten
der pride.
"Third phase of the action: a veteran bowed
beneath the weight of his equipment strives to join
them — for all who have strength enough must
march to battle. Another old man, bowed with
age, follows the soldiers with his prayers, and the
gesture of his hand seems to repeat the counsels
that he has given them from his own experience.
" Fourth phase : an archer bends his muscular
back to bind on his arms. A trumpet blares its
frenzied appeal to the troops. The wind flaps the
standards, the lances point forward. The signal is
given, and already the strife begins.
" Here, again, we have a true dramatic compo
sition acted before us. But while L/Embarque-
ment pour Cythhre recalls the dehcate comedies of
Marivaux, the Marseillaise is a great tragedy by
84

EUSTACHE DE SAINT-PlERRE. One OF THE
Burghers of Calais
By Rodin

One of the Burghers of Calais
By Rodin

MOVEMENT IN ART
Corneille. I do not know which of the two works
I prefer, for there is as much genius in the one
as in the other."
And, looking at me with a shade of mahcious
challenge, he added, " You will no longer say, I
think, that sculpture and painting are unable to
compete with the theatre? "
" Certainly not." At this instant, I saw in the
portfoho where he had replaced the reproduction
of the Marseillaise, a photograph of his wonderful
Burghers of Calais. " To prove to you," I said,
" that I have profited by your teaching, let me
apply it to one of your most beautiful works,
for I see that you have yourself put into
practice the principles which you have revealed
to me.
" Here, in your Burghers of Calais, I recognize
a scenic succession hke that which you have cited
in the chefs-d'oeuvre of Watteau and of Rude.
" The figure in the centre first attracts atten
tion. No one can doubt that it is Eustache de
85

MOVEMENT IN ART
Saint-Pierre. He bows his venerable head with
its long gray hair. He does not hesitate, he is
not afraid. He advances steadily, his eyes half
closed in silent communion. If he totters a httle,
it is because of the privations that he has endured
during a long .siege. It is he who inspires the
others, it is he who offered himself first as one
of the six notables whose death, according to the
conditions of the conqueror, should save their
fellow-townsmen from massacre.
" The burgher beside him is not less brave. But
if he does not mourn for his own fate, the capitu-
lation of the city causes him terrible sorrow.
Holding in his hand the key which he must deliver
to the , English, he stiffens his whole body in
order to find the strength to bear the inevitable
humiliation. " On the same pjane with these two, to the left,
you see a man who is less courageous, for he
walks almost too fast: you would say that, hav
ing made up his mind to the sacrifice, he longs
86

One of the Burghers of Calais
By Rodin

One of the Burghers of Calais
By Rodin

MOVEMENT IN ART
to shorten the time which separates him from his
martyrdom. "And behind these comes a burgher who, hold
ing his head in his hands, abandons himself to
violent despair. Perhaps he thinks of his wife, of
his children, of those who are dear to him, of those
whom his going will leave without support.
"A fifth notable passes his hand before his eyes
as if to dissipate some frightful nightmare. He
stumbles, death so appals him.
" Finally, here is the sixth burgher, younger than
the others. He seems still undecided. A painful
anxiety contracts his face. Is it the image of his
sweetheart that fills his thoughts? But his com
panions advance — he rejoins them, his neck out
stretched as if offered to the axe of fate.
" While these three men of Calais may be less
brave than the three first, they do not deserve less
admiration. For their devotion is even more meri
torious, because it costs them more.
" So, in your Burghers, one follows the action,
87

MOVEMENT IN ART
more or less prompt, which Was the outcome in
each one of them according to his disposition of
the authority and example of Eustache de Saint-
Pierre. One sees them, gradually won by his in
fluence, decide one after another to go forward
with him to pay the price of their city.
" There, incontestably, is the best confirmation
of your ideas on the scenic value of art."
" If your opinion of my work were not too
high," Rodin answered, *' I should acknowledge
that you had perfectly understood my intentions.
You have justly placed my burghers in the scale
according to their degrees of heroism. To empha
size this effect still more I wished, as you perhaps
know, to fix my statues one behind the other on the
stones of the Place, before the Town Hall of
Calais, like a living chaplet of suffering and of
sacrifice. " My figures would so have appeared to direct
their steps from the municipal building toward the
camp of Edward III.; and the people of Calais
88

One of the Burghers of Calais
By Rodin

MOVEMENT IN ART
of to-day, almost elbowing them, would have felt
more deeply the tradition of sohdarity which
unites them to these heroes. It would have been,
I beheve, intensely impressive. But my proposal
was rejected, and they insisted upon a pedestal
which is as unsightly as it is unnecessary. They
were wrong. I am sure of it."
" Alas," I said, " the artist has always to reckon
with the routine of opinion, too happy if he can
only realize a part of his beautiful dreams!"

89

CHAPTER V
DRAWING AND COLOR

CUPID AND PSYCHE
By Rodin
Photogravure reproduced by permission of the, Metropolitan Museum of Art

CHAPTER V
DRAWING AND COLOR
RODIN has always drawn a great deal. He
has sometimes used the pen, sometimes the
pencil. Formerly he drew the outhne with a pen,
and then added the shading with a brush. These
wash-drawings so executed looked as if made from
bas-reliefs or from sculptured groups. They were
purely the visions of a sculptor.
, Later he used a lead pencil for his drawings
from the nude, washing in the flesh tones in color.
iThese drawings are freer than the first; the atti
tudes are less set, more fugitive. In them the
touch seems sometimes almost frenzied — a whole
body held in a single sweep of the pencil — and
they betray the divine impatience of the artist who
93

DRAWING AND COLOR
fears that a fleeting impression may escape him.
The coloring of the flesh is dashed on in three or
four broad strokes, the modelling summarily pro
duced by the drying of the pools of color where
the brush in its haste has not paused to gather the
drops left after each touch. These sketches fix the
rapid gesture, the transient motion which the eye
itself has hardly seized for one half second. They
do not give you merely line and color; they give
you movement and life. They are more the visions
of a painter than of a sculptor.
Yet more recently Rodin, continuing to use the
\lead pencil, has ceased to model with the brush.
He is now content to smudge, in the contours with
his finger. This rubbing" produces a silvery gray
which envelops the forms hke a cloud, rendering
them of almost unreal loveliness; it bathes them in
poetry and mystery. These last studies I believe
are the most beautiful. They are at once luminous,
living, and full of charm.
As I was looking at some with Rodin, I said to

The Embrace
Study-sketch by Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

Study of the Nude
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropoli
tan Museum of Art

DRAWING AND COLOR
him how much they differed from the over-finished
drawings which the public usually approve.
1 " It is true," he said, " that it is inexpressive
minutiae of execution and false nobihty of gesture
which please the ignorant. The crowd cannot
pnderstand a daring impression which passes over
useless details to seize only upon the truth of the
i
whole. It can understand nothing of that sincere
observation which, disdaining theatrical poses, in
terests itself in the simple and much more touching
attitudes of real hfe.
" It is difficult to correct the errors that prevail
on the subject of drawing.
• " It is a false idea that drawing in itself can be
beautiful. It is only beautiful through the truths
and the feelings that it translates. The crowd
admires artists, who, strong in subject, elegantly
pen contours destitute of significance, and who
plant their figures in pretentious poses. It goes
into ecstasies over poses which are never seen in
nature, and which are considered artistic because
95

DRAWING AND COLOR
they recall the posturings of the Itahan models
who offer themselves at the studio door. That is
what is generally called beautiful drawing. It is
really only sleight-of-hand, fit to astonish boobies.
1 " Of course, there is drawing in art as there is
| style in literature. Style that is mannered, that
* strains after effect, is bad. No style is good except
that which effaces itself in order to concentrate all
the attention of the reader upon the subject treated,
upon the emotion rendered.
" The artist who parades his drawing, the writer
who wishes to attract praise to his style, resemble
the soldier who plumes himself on his uniform but
refuses to go into battle, or the farmer who pohshes
the ploughshare instead of driving it into the earth.
" You never think of praising either drawing or
style which is truly beautiful, because you are car-
iried away by the interest of all that they express.
ilt is the same with color. There is really neither
beautiful style, nor beautiful drawing, nor beautiful
color; there is but one sole beauty, that of the
96

DRAWING AND COLOR
truth which is revealed. When a truth, when a
profound idea, when a powerful feeling bursts
forth in a great work, either hterary or artistic, it
is evident that the style, or the color and the draw
ing, are excellent; but these qualities exist only as
the reflection of the truth.
" Raphael's drawing is admired — and justly- — but
it should not be admired only for itself, for its skil
ful balance of line; it should be admired for what
it signifies. What forms all its merit is the sweet
serenity of soul which saw with the eyes of Raphael
and expressed itself with his hand, the love in him
which seems to overflow from his heart upon all
nature. Those who, lacking his soul, have sought
to borrow the linear cadences and the attitudes of
his figures, have never executed any but insipid
imitations of the great master of Urbino.
" In the drawing of Michael Angelo it is not his
manner, not the audacious foreshortening nor the
skilful anatomy that should be admired, but the
desperate force of the Titan. Those imitators who,
97

DRAWING AND COLOR
without his soul, have copied in their painting' his
buttressed attitudes and his tense muscles have
made themselves ridiculous.
. "In the color of Titian, what should be. admired
is not merely a more or less agreeable harmony,
Ibut the meaning that it offers.. His color has no
true beauty except as it conveys the idea of a sump
tuous and dominant sovereignty.
.,'.' ¦ " In the color of Veronese, the true beauty exists
in its. power to evoke in, silvery play • of . color the
elegant conviviality of patrician feasts.
;" The color of Rubens is nothing in itself; its
flaming wonder would be vain did it not' give the
impression of life, of joy, and of robust sensuousness.
" There does not perhaps exist a single .work of
art which- owes its charm only to balance of line or
tone, and which makes an appeal to the eyes alone.
Take, for example,, the stained-glass, windbwsi of
the ; twelfth and thirteenth centuries — if they * en
chant us with the velvety depths of their blues,
with the caress of their soft violets and their warm
98

Torso of a Woman
By Rodin

DRAWING AND COLOR
crimsons, it is because their colors express the
mystic joy which their pious creators hoped to win
in the heaven of their dreams. If certain bits of
Persian pottery, strewn with flowers of turquoise
blue, are adorable marvels of color, it is because, in
some strange manner, their exquisite shades trans
port the soul into I know not what valley of dreams
land faery. So, all drawing and all harmony of
colors offer a meaning without which they would
have no beauty."
" But do you not fear that disdain of craft in
art — ? " I broke in.
" Who speaks to you of disdaining it? Craft is
only a means. But the artist who neglects it will
never attain his end, which is the interpreta
tion of feeling, of ideas. Such an artist would
be like a horseman who forgot to give oats to his
horse. ' It- is only too evident that if drawing is lacking,
|f color is false, the most powerful emotion cannot
ind expression. Incorrect anatomy would raise a
99

DRAWING AND COLOR
laugh when the artist wished to be most touching.
Many young artists incur this disgrace to-day. As
they have never studied seriously, their uriskilful-
ness betrays them at every turn. Their intentions
are good, but an arm which is too short, a leg
which is not straight, an inexact perspective, repels
the spectator. *
" In short, no sudden inspiration can replace the
long toil which is indispensable to give the eyes a
true knowledge of form and of proportion and
to render the hand obedient to the commands of
feeling. " And when I say that craft should be forgotten,
my idea is not for a moment that the artist can get
along without science. On the contrary, it is neces
sary to have consummate technique in order to
'hide what one knows. Doubtless, to the vulgar,
the jugglers who execute eccentric flourishes of
line, who accomplish astounding pyrotechnics of
color, or who write long phrases encrusted with
unusual words, are the most skilful men in the
100

A Drawing
By Michael Angelo

DRAWING AND COLOR
world. But the great difficulty and the crown of
art is to draw, to paint, to write with ease and
simplicity. " You see a picture, you read a page; you notice
neither the drawing, the color, nor the style, but
you are moved to the soul. Have no fear of making
a mistake; the drawing, the color, the style are per
fect in technique."
') "Yet, Master, can it not happen that great and
| touching chefs-d'oeuvre are wanting in technique?
j Is it not said, for instance, that Raphael's color is
often bad and Rembrandt's drawing debatable?"
i " It is wrong, believe me. If Raphael's master-
j pieces delight the soul, it is because everything in
jthem, color as well as drawing, contributes to the
enchantment. Look at the httle Saint George in
the Louvre, at the Parnassus in the Vatican, at
the cartoons for the tapestry at South Kensing
ton; the harmony in these works is charming.
Sanzio's color is different from Rembrandt's, but
it is exactly suited to his inspiration. It is clear
101

DRAWING AND COLOR
and enamelled. It offers fresh, flowery, joyous
tonalities. It has the eternal youth of < Raphael
himself. It seems unreal, but only because the
truth as observed by , the master of Urbirio is
not that, of purely material , things ; his is the
domain of feehng, a region where forms and
colors are transfigured by the hght : of love.
Doubtless an out-and-out realist would call this
coloring inexact; butra poet .finds it true..
"What is certain is that the color of Rembrandt
or of Rubens joined to Raphael's drawing would
be 'ridiculous and monstrous, just as Rembrandt's
drawing differs from that of Raphael, but is riot
less good. Raphael's .lines, are sweet and pure;
Rembrandt's are often rude and jarring. The great
Dutchman's vision was arrested by the roughness
of. garments, by the asperity of wrinkled faces, by
the callousness of plebeian hands ; for' to Rembrandt
beauty is only the antithesis- between the triviality
of the physical envelope and the inner radiance.
How could he express this beauty composed of
102

A Drawing
By Rembrandt

DRAWING AND COLOR
apparent ughness and moral grandeur if he tried
to rival Raphael in elegance? You must recognize
that his drawing is perfect because it corresponds
absolutely to the exigencies of his thought."
" So, according to you, it is an error to believe
i that the same artist cannot be at once a great color-
ist and a great draughtsman? "
i " Certainly, and I do not know how this idea has
jbecome as firmly estabhshed as it seems to be. If
[the great masters are eloquent, if they carry us
away, it is clearly because they possess exactly all
i ^he means of expression that are necessary to them.
I have just proved it to you in the case of Raphael
and Rembrandt. The same demonstration could
be made in the case of all the great artists. For
instance, Delacroix has been accused of ignorance
of drawing. On the contrary, the truth is that his
drawing combines marvellously with his color; like
it, it is abrupt, feverish, exalted, it is full of vivac
ity, of passion; like it, it is sometimes mad, and it,
is then that it is the most beautiful. Color and
103

DRAWING AND COLOR
drawing, one cannot be admired without the other,
for they are one.
" Where the demi-connoisseur deceives himself is
in allowing for the existence of but one kind of
drawing; that of Raphael, or perhaps it is not
even that of Raphael, but that of his imitators, that
of David or of Ingres. There are really as many
kinds of drawing and of color as there are artists.
/ " Albrecht Durer's color is called hard. and dry.
It is not so at all. But he is a German; he gen
eralizes; his compositions are as exact as logical
constructions; his people are as solid as essential
types. That is why his drawing is so precise arid
his color so restrained.
" Holbein belongs to the same school. His draw
ing has none of the Florentine grace; his color has
none of the Venetian charm; but his line and color
have a power, a gravity, an inner meaning, which
perhaps are found in no other painter.
"In general, it is possible to say that in artists
as deliberate, as careful as these, drawing is par-
104

Study
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

Study for a Figure
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

DRAWING AND COLOR
ticularly tight and the color is as cold as the verity
of mathematics. In other artists, on the contrary,
iin those who are the poets' of the heart, hke
aphael, Correggio, Andrea del Sarto, hne has
ore suppleness and color, more winning tenderness.
others whom we call realists, that is to say, whose
sensibility is more exterior, in Rubens, Velasquez,
'. lembrandt, for example, hne has a living charm
• rith its force and its repose, and the color some-
!imes bursts into a fanfare of sunlight, sometimes
ades into mist.
" So, the modes of expression of men of genius
differ as much as their souls, and it is impossible
to say that in some among them drawing and color
are better or worse than in others."
" I understand, Master ; but in refusing the usual
classification of artists as draughtsmen or colorists,
you do not stop to think how you embarrass the
poor critics. Happily, however, it seems to me that
in your words those who hke categories may find
a hew method of classification. Color and drawing,
105

DRAWING AND COLOR
you say, are only means, and it is the soul of the
artist that it is .important to know. So painters
should be grouped according to their dispositions.
For example, Albrecht Diirer .with >Holbeiri — both
are logicians. Raphael,' Correggio, Andrea: del
Sarto, whorii you have named together, make a dais.;
in which sentiment is predominant ; they ' are ? in the
i front rank of the elegiacs. Another , class1 would
be composed 6f> the .masters' who are*' interested' in
• active existence, in' daily life, and the trio of Rubens,
Velasquez and Rembrandt would be its greatest con
stellation. Finally, artists such as Claude Lorraine
•and Turner, .who considered nature as a tissue of
brilliant and fugitive visions, ;¦ would comprise a
fourth group."
Rodin .smiled.' " Such a classification would not
be wanting in ingenuity," he said, " and it would
be nluch more just than that which divides the
- colorists from the draughtsmen. ,
" However, "? because of ' the complexity* of. art,
or rather of the', human souls who take art for a
106

Triton and Nereid
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

.46

The Caryatid
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

DRAWING AND COLOR
language, all classification runs the risk of being
futile. So Rembrandt is often a sublime poet and
Raphael often a vigorous realist.
" Let us force ourselves to understand the mas
ters — let us love them — let us go to them for
hispiration; but let us refrain from labelling them
ike drugs in a chemist's shop."

I

107

CHAPTER VI
THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN

THE BATHER
By Rodin

CHAPTER VI
THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN
THAT fine old house known as "l'Hotel de
Biron," which stands in a quiet street on the
left bank of the Seine in Paris, and which was but
lately the Convent of the Sacred Heart, has, since
the suppression of the sisterhoods, been occupied
by several tenants, among whom is Rodin.
The Master, as we have seen, has other ateliers
at Meudon and at the Depot des Marbres in Paris,
but he has a special liking for this one.
Built in the eighteenth century, the town house
of a powerful family, it is certainly as beautiful a
dwelling as any artist could desire. The great
rooms are lofty, panelled in white, with beautiful
mouldings in white and gold. The one in which
111

THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN
Rodin works is a rotunda opening by high French
windows into a delightful garden.
For several years now this garden has been
neglected. But it is still possible to trace, among
the riotous' weeds, the ancient lines of box which
bordered the alleys, to follow, beneath fantastic
vines, the shape of green trelhsed arbors; and
there each spring the flowers reappear, pushing
through the grasses in the borders. Nothing in
duces a more delicious melancholy than this spec
tacle of the gradual effacement of human toil at
the hands of invading nature.
; At l'Hotel de Biron Rodin passes nearly all
I his time in drawing.
. In this quiet retreat he loves to isolate himself
and to consign to paper, in numberless pencil
sketches, the graceful attitudes which his models
take before him.
One evening I was looking over a series
of these studies with him, and was admiring
the harmonious lines by which he had repro-
112

Torso of a Woman
By Rodin

Torso of a Woman
By Rodin

THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN
duced all the rhythm of the human body upon
paper. The outlines, dashed in with a single stroke,
evoked the fire or the abandon of the movements,
and his thumb had interpreted by a very slight
shade the charm of the modelling. As he studied
the drawings he seemed to see again in mind the
models who were their originals. He constantly
exclaimed: "Ah! this one's shoulders, what a dehght! A
curve of perfect beauty! My drawing is too
heavy! I tried indeed, but — ! See, here is a
second attempt from the same woman. This is
more like her. And yet!
"And just look at this one's throat, the ador
able elegance of this swelling hne, it has an
almost intangible grace!
"Master," I asked, "is it easy to find good
models?" " Yes."
" Then beauty is not very rare in France? "
113

THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN
" No, I tell you."
" But tell me, do you not think that the beauty
of the antique much surpassed that of our day,
and that modern women are far from equalling
those who posed for Phidias? '
"Not at all."
" Yet the perfection of the Greek Venuses — "
f " The artists in those days had eyes to see, while
those of to-day are blind; that is all the difference.
The Greek women were beautiful, but their beauty
hved above all in the minds of the sculptors who
carved them.
' "To-day there are women just hke them. They
are principally in the South of Europe. The
modern Italians, for example, belong to the same
Mediterranean type as the models of Phidias.
This type has for its special characteristic the
equal width of shoulders and hips."
" But did not the invasion of the barbarians by
a mixture of race alter the standard of antique
beauty?" 114

Pygmalion and Galatea
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN
" No. Even if we suppose that the barbarians
were less beautiful, less well-proportioned than the
Mediterranean race, which is possible, time has
effectually wiped out any stains produced by a
mixed blood, and has again produced the harmony
of the ancient type. In a union of the beautiful
and the ugly, it is always the beautiful which tri
umphs in the end. Nature, by a Divine law, tends
constantly towards the best, tends ceaselessly
towards perfection. Besides the Mediterranean
type, there exists a Northern type, to which many
Frenchwomen, as well as the women of the Ger
manic and Slavic races, belong. In this type the
hips are strongly developed and the shoulders are
narrower; it is this structure that you observe, for
example, in the nymphs of Jean Goujon, in the
Venus of the Judgment of Paris by Watteau, and
in the Diana by Houdon. In this type, too, the
chest is generally high, while in the antique and
Mediterranean types the thorax is, on the contrary,
straight. To tell the truth, every human type,
115

THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN
every race, has its beauty. The thing is to dis
cover it. I have drawn with infinite pleasure the
httle Cambodian dancers who lately came to Paris
with their sovereign. The fine, small gestures of
their graceful limbs had a strange and marvellous
beauty. " I have made studies of the Japanese actress
Hanako. Her muscles stand out as prominently
as those of a fox-terrier; her sinews are so devel
oped that the joints to which they are attached
have a thickness equal to the members themselves.
She is so strong that she can rest as long as she
pleases on one leg, the other raised at right angles
in front of her. She looks as if rooted in the
ground, hke a tree. Her anatomy is quite differ
ent from that of a European, but, nevertheless,
very beautiful in its singular power."
An instant later, returning to the idea which is
so dear to him, he said: " In short, Beauty is
everywhere. It is not she that is lacking to our
eye, but our eyes which fail to perceive her. Beauty
116

Study of Hanako, the Japanese Actress
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropoli
tan Museum of Art

Study of the Nude
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art

THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN
is character and expression. Well, there is noth
ing in nature which has more character than the
human body. In its strength and its grace it
evokes the most varied images. One moment it
resembles a flower: the bending torso is the stalk;
the breasts, the head, and the splendor of the hair
answer to the blossoming of the corolla. The
next moment it recalls the phant creeper, or the
proud and upright saphng. ' In seeing you,' says
Ulysses to Nausicaa, ' I seem to see a certain
palm-tree which at Delos, near the altar of Apollo,
rose from earth to heaven in a single shoot.'
Again, the human body bent backwards is hke a
spring, like a beautiful bow upon which Eros ad
justs his invisible arrows. At another time it is
an urn. I have often asked a model to sit on the
ground with her back to me, her arms and legs
gathered in front of her. In this position the
back, which tapers to the waist and swells at the
hips, appears like a vase of exquisite outhne.
" The human body is, above all, the mirror of
117

THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN
\ the soul, and from the soul comes its greatest
'beauty.
" ' Chair de la femme, argile ideale, o merveille,
O penetration sublime de l'esprit
Dans le limon que l'Etre ineffable petrit.
Matiere oh l'ame brille a travers son suaire.
Boue ou l'on voit les doigts du divine statuaire.
Fange auguste appelant les baisers et le coeur.
Si sainte qu'en ne sait, tant l'amour est vainqueur
Tant l'ame est, vers ce lit mysterieux, poussde.
Si cette volupte n'est pas une pensee.
Et qu'on ne peut, a l'heure ou les sens sont en feu.
. Etreindre la Beaute sans croire embrasser Dieu ! ' 1
"Yes, Victor Hugo understood! What we adore
in the human body more even than its beautiful
form is the inner flame which seems to shine from
within and to illumine it."
1 See page 250.

118

Madame X
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

CHAPTER VII
OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY

* ..«.' ¦/•

CHAPTER VII
OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
A FEW days ago I accompanied Auguste
Rodin, who was on his way to the Louvre,
to see once again the busts by Houdon.
We were no sooner in front of the bust of Vol
taire than the Master cried:
" What a marvel it is ! It is the personification
of mahce. See! his sidelong glance seems watch
ing some adversary. He has the pointed nose of a
fox; it seems smelling out from side to side for
abuses and folhes. You can see it quiver! And the
mouth — what a triumph! It is framed by two
furrows of irony. It seems to mumble sarcasms.
" A cunning old gossip — that is the impression
produced by this Voltaire, at once so hvely, so
sickly, and so httle masculine." 121

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
After a moment of contemplation he continued:
" The eyes ! I always come back to them. They
are transparent. They are luminous.
" But you can say as much of all busts by Hou
don. This sculptor understood how to render the
transparency of the pupils better than any painter
' or pastellist. He perforated them, bored them, cut
; them out; he cleverly raised a certain unevenness
in them which, catching or losing the hght, gives
a singular effect and imitates the sparkle of hfe
in the pupil. And what diversity in the expression
of the eyes of all these faces! Cunning in Voltaire,
good fellowship in Franklin, authority in Mira-
beau, gravity in Washington, joyous tenderness in
Madame Houdon, roguishness in his daughter and
in the two charming little Brongniart children. To
this sculptor the glance is more than half the ex
pression. Through the eyes he read souls. They
kept no secrets from him. So there is no need to
ask if his busts were good likenesses."
/ At that word I stopped Rodin. " You consider,
122

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
then, that resemblance is a very important
[quality? "
" Certainly; indispensable."
" Yet many artists say that busts and portraits
can be very fine without being good likenesses. I
remember a remark on this subject attributed to
Henner. A lady complained to him that the por
trait which he had painted of her did not look hke
her. "'He! Matame,' he rephed in his Alsatian jar
gon, ' when you are dead your heirs will think
themselves fortunate to possess a fine portrait by
Henner and will trouble themselves very little to
know if it was like you or not.' "
" It is possible that the painter said that," Rodin
answered, " but it was doubtless a sally which did
not represent his real thought, for I do not believe
that he had such false ideas in an art in which he
showed great talent.
" But first let us understand the kind of resem
blance demanded in a bust or portrait.
123

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
" If the artist only reproduces superficial fea
tures as photography does, if he copies the linea
ments of a face exactly, without reference to
/character, he deserves no admiration. The resem
blance which he ought to obtain is that of the soul;
that alone matters; it is that which the sculptor
or painter should seek beneath the mask of
features. " In a word, all the features must be expressive
— that is to say, of use in the revelation of a
conscience." '
" But does n't it sometimes happen that the face
contradicts the soul? "
" Never."
" Have you forgotten the precept of La Fon
taine, ' II ne faut point juger les gens sur
l'apparence'? "
" That maxim is only addressed to superficial
observers. For appearances may deceive their hasty
examination. • La Fontaine writes that the httle
mouse took the cat for the kindest of creatures,
124

Egyptian Sparrow-Hawk
See page 180

Mlle. Brongniart
By Houdon

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
but he speaks of a little mouse — that is to say, of
a scatterbrain who lacked critical faculty. The
appearance of a cat would warn whoever studied
it attentively that there was cruelty hidden under
that sleepiness. A physiognomist can easily distin
guish between a cajoling air and one of real kind
ness, and it is precisely the role of the artist to
show the truth, even beneath dissimulation.
I " To tell the truth, there is no artistic work
I which requires as much penetration as the bust and
[the portrait. It is sometimes said the artist's pro
fession demands more manual skill than intelli
gence. You have only to study a good bust to
correct this error. Such a work is worth a whole
Ibiography. Houdon's busts, for example, are like
Ichapters of written memoirs. Period, race, profes
sion, personal character — all are indicated there.
" Here is Rousseau opposite Voltaire. Great
shrewdness in his glance. It is the quality com
mon to all the personages of the eighteenth cen
tury; they are critics; they question all the prin-
125

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
ciples which were unquestioningly accepted before;
they have searching eyes.
"Now for his origin. He is. the Swiss plebeian.
Rousseau is as unpolished, almost vulgar, as Vol
taire is aristocratic and distinguished. Prominent
cheekbones, short nose, square chin — you recog
nize the son of the watchmaker and the whilom
domestic. "Profession now: he is the philosopher; slop
ing, thoughtful forehead, antique type accentuated
by the classic band about his head. Appearance
purposely wild, hair neglected, a certain resem
blance to some Diogenes or Menippus; this is the
preacher of the return to nature and to the primi
tive life. /
" Individual character : a general contraction of
the face; this is the misanthrope. Eyebrows con-*
tracted, forehead lined with care; this is the man
who complains, often with reason, of persecution.
- "I ask you if this is not a better commentary
on the man than his Confessions? 126

Mirabeau
By Houdon

Voltaire
By Houdon

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
" Now Mirabeau. Period ; challenging attitude,
wig disarranged, dress careless; a breath of the
revolutionary tempest passes over this wild beast,
who is ready to roar an answer.
" Origin ; dominating aspect, fine arched eye
brows, haughty forehead; this is the former aristo
crat. But the democratic heaviness of the pock
marked cheeks and of the neck sunk between the
shoulders betrays the Count de Riquetti to the sym
pathies of Thiers, whose interpreter he has become.
" Profession : the tribune. The mouth protrudes
hke a speaking-trumpet ready to fling his voice
abroad. He hfts his head because, hke most ora
tors, he was short. In this type of man nature
develops the chest, the barrel, at the expense of
height. The eyes are not fixed on any one; they
rove over a great assembly. It is a glance at once
vague and superb. Tell me, is it not a marvellous
achievement to evoke in this one head a whole crowd
— more, a whole listening country?
" Finally, the individual character. Observe the
127

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
sensuous lips, the double chin, the quivering nos
trils; you will recognize the faults — habit of de
bauch and demand for enjoyment. All is there, I
tell you.
" It would be easy to sketch the same character
outline from all the busts of Houdon.
" Here, again, is Franklin. A ponderous air,
heavy faihng cheeks; this is the former artisan.
The long hair of the apostle, a kindly benevolence;
this is the popular morahzer, good-natured Richard.
"A stubborn high forehead inclined forward, in
dicative of the obstinacy of which Franklin gave
proof in winning an education, in rising, in becom
ing an eminent scholar, finally in freeing his country.
Astuteness in the eyes and in the corners of the
mouth; Houdon was not duped by the general
massiveness, and he divined the prudent material
ism of the calculator who made a fortune, and the
cunning of the diplomat who wormed out the- secrets
of English politics. Here, living, is one of the
ancestors of modern America! 128

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
" Well! Here, in these remarkable busts, do we
not find the fragmentary chronicle of half a cen
tury? And, as in the finest written narratives,
what pleases most in these memoirs in terra-cotta,
in marble and in bronze, is the brilliant grace of
the style, the hghtness of the hand that wrote them,
the generosity of this charming personahty, so essen
tially French, who created them. Houdon is Saint-
iSimon without his aristocratic prejudices; is Saint-
i Simon as witty but more magnanimous. Ah! what
a divine artist! "
" It must be very difficult," I said, verifying in
the busts before us the interpretation of my com
panion, " to penetrate so profoundly into the con
sciousness of others."
" Yes, doubtless." Then, with a shade of irony,
"But the greatest difficulties for the artist who
models a bust or who paints a portrait do not come
from the work which he executes. They come
from the client for whom he works. By a strange
and fatal law, the one who orders his own hkeness
129

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
is the one who always desperately combats the tal
ent of "the artist he has chosen. It is very seldom
.that a man sees himself as he is, and even if he
, knows himself, he does not wish the artist to repre
sent him as he is. He asks to be represented under
the most banal and neutral aspect. He wishes to
be an official or worldly marionette. It pleases him
to have the' function he exercises, the rank he holds
in society, completely efface the man that is in
him. !The magistrate wishes his robe,, the' general
his gold-laced tunic. They care very httle whether
one can read" their characters.
-' "This explains the success of so many mediocre
painters and sculptors who are satisfied to give the
impersonal appearance of their clients: their gold
lace and- their " official' attitude. These are the
artists who are generally highest in favor because
they lend their models a mask of riches and impor
tance. The more bombastic a portrait is, the more
it resembles a stiff, pretentious doll, the better the
client is satisfied. 130

Francis I
By Titian

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
" Perhaps it was not always so.
\ " Certain seigneurs of the fifteenth century, for
example, seem to have been pleased to see them
selves portrayed as hyenas or vultures on the
medals of Pisanello. They were doubtless proud
of their individuality. Or, better still, they loved
and venerated art, and they accepted the rude
frankness of the artist, as though it were a penance
imposed by a spiritual director.
" Titian did not hesitate to give Pope Paul III.
a marten's snout, nor to emphasize the domineer
ing hardness of Charles V., or the salaciousness of
Francis I., and it does not appear to have dam
aged his reputation with them. Velasquez, who
portrayed King Philip IV. as a nonentity, though
an elegant man, and who unflatteringly repro
duced his hanging jaw, nevertheless kept his favor.
And the Spanish monarch has acquired from pos
terity the great glory of having been the protector
of genius.
" But the men of to-day are so made that they
131

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
fear truth and love a he. They seem to be dis
pleased to appear in their busts as they are. They
all want to have the air of hairdressers.
"And even the most beautiful women, that is
to say, those whose lines have most style, are horri
fied at their own beauty when a sculptor of talent
is its interpreter. They beseech him to make them
ugly by giving them an insignificant and doll-like
physiognomy. " So, to execute a bust is to fight a long battle.
The one thing that matters is not to weaken and
to rest honest with one's self. If the work is
refused, so much the worse. So much the better
perhaps; for often, it proves that it is full of
merit. " As for the client who, though discontented,
accepts a successful work, his bad humor is only
temporary; for soon the connoisseurs compliment
him on the bust and he ends by admiring it. Then
he declares quite naturally that he has always
liked it. 132

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
"Moreover, it should be noticed that the busts
which are executed gratuitously for friends or rela
tions are the best. It is not only because the artist
\ knows his models better from seeing them con
stantly and loving them. It is, above all, because
the gratuitousness of his work confers on him the
hberty of working as he pleases.
" Nevertheless, the best busts are often refused,
even when offered as gifts. Though masterpieces,
they are considered insulting by those for whom
they are intended. The sculptor must go his own
way and find all his pleasure, all his reward, in
doing his best."
I was much interested in this psychology of the
public with which the artist has to deal; but it
must be said that a good deal of bitterness entered
into Rodin's irony.
" Master," I said, " among the trials of your pro
fession, there is one that you seem to have omitted.
That is, to do the bust of a chent whose head is
without expression or betrays obvious stupidity."
133

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
Rodin laughed. " That cannot count among the
trials," he replied. " You must not forget my
favorite maxim: Nature is always beautiful. We
need only to understand what she shows us. You
speak of a face without expression. There is no
such face to an artist. To him every head is inter
esting. Let a sculptor note the insipidity of a
face, let him show us a fool absorbed by his care
of worldly parade, and there we have a fine bust.
" Besides, what is called shallowness is often only
a conscience which has not developed owing to a
lack of education, and in that case, the face offers
the mysterious and fascinating spectacle of an in
tellect which seems enveloped in a veil.
Finally — how shall I put it? — even the most
nsignificant head is the dwelling-place of life, that
r_iagnificent force, and so offers inexhaustible mat
ter for the masterpiece."
Several days later I saw in Rodin's atelier at
Meudon the casts of many of his finest busts, and
134

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
I seized the occasion to ask him to tell me of the
memories they recalled.
His Victor Hugo was there, deep in meditation,
the forehead strangely furrowed, volcanic, the hair
wild, almost hke white flames bursting from his
skull. It was the very personification of modern
lyricism, profound and tumultuous.
" It was my friend Bazire," said Rodin, " who
presented me to Victor Hugo. Bazire was the sec
retary of the newspaper, La Marseillaise, and later
of llntransigeant. He adored Victor Hugo. It
was he who started the idea of a pubhc celebration
of the great man's eightieth birthday.
" The celebration, as you know, was both solemn
and touching. The poet from his balcony saluted
an immense crowd who had come before his house
to acclaim him; he seemed a patriarch blessing his
family. Because of that day, he kept a tender
gratitude for the man who had arranged it. And
that was how Bazire introduced me to his presence
without difficulty. 135

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
" Unfortunately, Victor Hugo had just been
martyred by a mediocre sculptor named Villain,
who, to make a bad bust, had insisted on thirty-eight
sittings. So when I timidly expressed my desire
to reproduce the features of the author of Contem
plation, he knit his Olympian brows.
" £ I cannot prevent your working,' *he said, ' but
I warn you that I will not pose. I will not change
one of my habits on your account. Make what
arrangements you hke.'
" So I came and I made a great number of fly
ing pencil notes to facilitate my work of modelling
later. Then I brought my stand and some clay.
But naturally I could only install this untidy para
phernalia in the veranda, and as Victor Hugo was
generally in the drawing-room with his friends,
you may imagine the difficulty of my task. I
would study the great poet attentively, and endeavor
to impress his image on my memory; then sud
denly with a run I would reach the veranda to fix
t in clay the memory of what I had just seen. But
136

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
often, on the way, my impression had weakened,
so that when I arrived before my stand I dared not
touch the clay, and I had to resolve to return to
my model again.
" When I had nearly finished my work, Dalou
asked me to introduce him to Victor Hugo, and I
willingly rendered him this service, but the glorious
old man died soon after, and Dalou could only do
his best from a cast taken after death."
Rodin led me as he spoke to a glass case which
enclosed a singular block of stone. It was the
keystone of an arch, the stone which the architect
sets in the centre to sustain the curve. On the face
of this stone was carved a mask, squared along the
cheeks and temples, following the shape of the
block. I recognized the face of Victor Hugo.
" I always imagine this the keystone at the en
trance of a building dedicated to poetry," said the
master sculptor.
I could easily fancy it. The brow of Victor
Hugo thus supporting the weight of a monumental
137

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
arch would symbolize the genius on which all the
thought and all the activity of an epoch had rested.
" I' give this idea to any architect who will put
it into execution," Rodin added.
Close by stood the cast of the bust of Henri
Rochefort. It is well known; the head of an in
surgent, the forehead as full of bumps as that of
a pugnacious child who is always fighting his com
panions, the wild tuft of hair which seems to wave
hke a signal for mutiny, the mouth ; twisted by
irony, the mad beard; a continual revolt, the very
spirit of criticism and combativeness. Admirable
work it is, in which one sees one side of our contem
porary mentality reflected.
" It was also through Bazire," said Rodin, " that
I made the acquaintance of Henri Rochefort, who
was editor-in-chief of his' newspaper. The cele
brated polemic consented to pose to me. He had
such a joyous spirit that it was an enchantment to
hsten to him, but he could not keep still for a single
instant. He reproached me pleasantly for having
138

Henri Rochefort
By Rodin

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
too much professional conscience. He said laugh
ingly that I spent one sitting in adding a lump of
clay to the model and the next in taking it away.
" When, some time after, his bust received the
approbation of men of taste, he joined unreserv
edly in their praises, but he would never believe
that my work had remained exactly as it was when
I took it away from his house. ' You have re
touched it very much,' he would repeat. In real
ity, I had not even touched it with my nail."
Rodin, placing one of his hands over the tuft of
hair and the other over the beard, then asked me,
" What impression does it make now? "
" You would say it was a Roman emperor."
" That is just what I wanted to make you say.
] I have never found the Latin classic type as pure
las in Rochefort."
If this ancient enemy of the Empire does not
yet know this paradoxical resemblance of his pro
file to that of the Csesars, I wager that it will
make him smile. 139

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
When Rodin, a moment before, had spoken of
Dalou, I had seen in thought his bust of this sculp
tor which is at the Luxembourg. It is a proud,
challenging head, with the thin, sinewy neck of a
child of the faubourgs, the bristly beard of an arti
san, a contracted forehead, the wild eyebrows of
an ancient communist, and the feverish and haughty
air of the irreducible democrat. For the rest, the
large fine eyes and the dehcate incurvation of the
temples reveal the passionate lover of beauty.
In answer to a question, Rodin rephed that he
had modelled this bust at a moment when Dalou,
profiting by the amnesty, had returned from
England. " He never took it away," he said, " for our rela
tions ended just after I had introduced him to
Victor Hugo.
"Dalou was a great artist, and many of his
works have a superb decorative value which allies
them to the most beautiful groups of our seven
teenth century. 140

Jean-Paul Laurens
By Rodin

Jules Dalou
By Rodin

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
" If he had not had the weakness to desire an
official position he would never have produced any
thing but masterpieces. But he aspired to become
the Le Brun of our Repubhc and the leader of all
our contemporary artists. He died before he suc-
ceeded in his ambition.
" It is impossible to exercise two professions at
once. All the activity that is expended in acquir
ing useful relations and in playing a role is lost
to art. Intriguers are not fools; when an artist
wishes to compete with them he must expend as
much effort as they do, and he will have hardly
any time left for work.
" Who knows? If Dalou had always stayed in
his atelier peacefully pursuing his calling, he
would have without doubt brought forth marvels
whose beauty would have astonished all eyes, and
common consent would have perhaps awarded him
that artistic sovereignty to whose conquest he un
successfully used all his skill.
" His ambition, however, was not entirely vain,
141

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
for his influence at the Hotel 'de Ville gave us
one of the great masterpieces of our time. It was
he who,, in- spite of the undisguised hostility of the
administrative committee, gave the order to Puvis
de Chavanries for the decoration of the stairway at
the Hotel de Ville. And , you know with what
heavenly poetry the great painter illuminated the
walls of the municipal building."
.,'¦. These words called attention to the bust of
Puvis de Chavannes.
" He carried his head high," Rodin said. " His
skull, "sohd and round, seemed made to wear a het
met. His arched chest seemed accustomed to
carry the breastplate. It was easy to imagine him
at Pavia fighting for his honor by the side of
Francis I."
In the bust you recognize the aristocracy of an
old race. The high forehead and eyebrows reveal
the philosopher, and the calm glance, embracing a
wide outlook, betrays. the great decorator, the sub
lime landscapist. There is no modern artist for
142

Puvis de Chavannes
By Rodin

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
whom Rodin professes more admiration, more pro
found respect, than for the painter of Sainte-
Genevieve. " To think that he has hved among us," he cries;
" to think that this genius, worthy of the most
radiant epochs of art, has spoken to us ! That I
have seen him, have pressed his hand! It seems
as if I had pressed the hand of Nicolas Poussin! "
What a charming remark! To put the figure
of a contemporary back into the past, in order to
range it there by one of those who shine brightest,
and then to be so moved at the very thought of
physical contact with this demi-god — could any
homage be more touching?
Rodin continued: " Puvis de Chavannes did not
hke my bust of him, and it was one of the bitter
things of my career. He thought that I had cari-
I catured him. And yet I am certain that I have
expressed in my sculpture all the enthusiasm and
veneration that I felt for him."
The bust of Puvis made me think of that
143

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
of Jean-Paul Laurens, which is also in the
Luxembourg. A round head, the face mobile, enthusiastic,
almost breathless — this is a Southerner — some
thing archaic and rude in the expression — eyes
which seem haunted by distant visions — it is the
painter of half -savage epochs, when men were
robust and impetuous.
Rodin said: "Laurens is one of my oldest
friends. I posed for one of the Merovingian war
riors who, in the decoration of the Pantheon,
assist at the death .of Sainte-Genevieve. His
affection for me has always been faithful. It was
he who got me the order for the Bourgeois de
Calais. Though it did not bring me much, be
cause I delivered six figures in bronze for the
price they offered me for one, yet I owe him pro
found gratitude for having spurred me to the
creation of one of my best works.
" It was a great pleasure to me to do his bust.
He reproached me in a friendly way for having
144

I

The Sculptor Falguiere
By Rodin

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
done him with his mouth open. I rephed that,
from the design of his skull, he was probably de
scended from the ancient Visigoths of Spain, and
that this type was characterized by the prominence
of the lower jaw. But I do not know whether
he agreed to the justice of this ethnographical
observation." At this moment I perceived a bust of Falguiere.
Fiery, eruptive character, his face sown with
wrinkles and bumps hke a land ravaged by storms,
the moustaches of a grumbler, hair thick and
short. " He was a little bull," said Rodin.
I noted the thickness of the neck, where the
folds of skin almost formed a dewlap, the square
of forehead, the head bent and obstinate, ready
(for a forward plunge. A httle bull! Rodin
¦often makes these comparisons with the animal
kingdom. Such a one, with his long neck and
automatic gestures, is a bird which pilfers right
and left; such another, too amiable, too coquettish,
145

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
is, a, King Charles spaniel, . and so on. These
comparisons evidently facilitate the work of the ¦¦-
mind which seeks to class all physiognomies ... in
general categories.
Rodin told me under what, circumstances he
knew Falguiere.
"It was," he said, "when the Societe des. Gens
,de Lettres refused my Balzac. Falguiere,, to whom:riv
the. order was then given, insisted ; on showing me,
by his friendship, that ,he did not! at all agree
with my detractors. Actuated by sympathy I
offered to do his bust. He considered it a great
success when it was finished — he even defended
it, I know, against those who criticised it in his
presence ; * and, in his turn, he did my bust, which
is veryi fine."
As. I was turning away I caught sight of a
copy in bronze of the bust of Berthelot. Rodin
made, it only a year before the death of the great
chemisj. . ' The great scholar rests in the knowledge
of his work accomplished. He meditates. He is
146

Study Head, for the Statue of Balzac
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

Study for a Head, presumably Madame R.
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
alone, face to face with himself; alone, face to
face with the crumbling of ancient faiths; alone
before nature, some of whose secrets he has pene
trated, but which remains so immensely mysteri
ous; alone at the edge of the infinite abyss of
the skies; and his tormented brow, his lowered
eyes, are filled with melancholy. This fine head is
like the emblem of modern intelligence, which, sati
ated with knowledge, weary of thought, ends by
demanding "What is the use?"
't
All the busts which I had been admiring and
about which my host had been talking now grouped
themselves in my mind, and they appeared to me
as a rich treasure of documents upon our epoch.
" If Houdon," I said, " has written memoirs of
the eighteenth century, you have written those of
the end of the nineteenth. Your style is more
harsh, more violent than that of your predecessor,
our expressions are less elegant, but more natu-
al and more dramatic, if I may say so.
" The scepticism which in the eighteenth century
147

OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY
was distinguished and full of raillery has become,
in you, rough and sharp. Houdon's people were
more sociable, yours are more self-centred. Those
\of Houdon criticised the abuses of a regime,
i yours seem to question the value of human hfe
[itself and to feel the anguish of unrealized
fdesires." Rodin answered, " I have done my best. I have
not lied; I have never flattered my contempora
ries. My busts have often displeased because they
were always very sincere. They certainly have
one merit — veracity. Let it serve them for
beauty! "

148

CHAPTER VIII
THOUGHT IN ART

CHAPTER VIII
THOUGHT IN ART
ONE morning, finding myself with Rodin in
his ateher, I stopped before the cast of
one of his most impressive works.
It is a young woman whose writhing body
seems a prey to some mysterious torment. Her
head is bent low, her hps and her eyes are closed,
and you would think she slept, did not the anguish
in her face betray the conflict of her spirit. The
most surprising thing in the figure, however, is
that it has neither arms nor legs. It would seem
that the sculptor in a moment of discontent with
himself had broken them off, and you cannot help
regretting that the figure is incomplete. I could
not refrain from expressing this feeling to my
host. 151

THOUGHT IN ART
" What do you mean? " he cried in astonishment.
" Don't you see that I left it in that state in
tentionally? My figure represents Meditation.
j That 's why it has neither arms to act nor legs to
walk. Haven't you noticed that reflection, when
persisted in, suggests so many plausible arguments
I for opposite decisions that it ends in inertia?"
These words corrected my first impression and I
could unreservedly admire the fine symbolism of
the figure. I now understood that this woman
was the emblem of human intelligence assailed by
problems that it cannot solve, haunted by an ideal
that it cannot realize, obsessed by the infinite
i which it can never grasp. The straining of this
body marked the travail of thought and its glori-
| ous, but vain determination to penetrate those
I questions which it cannot answer; and the mutila-
| tion of its members indicated the insurmountable
disgust which contemplative souls feel for actual
| hfe. Nevertheless, this figure recalled a criticism
152

THOUGHT IN ART
which is often heard on Rodin's works, and, though
without agreeing with it, I submitted it to the
Master to find out how he would answer it.
" Literary people," I said, " always praise the
essential truths expressed in your sculptures. But
certain of your censors blame you precisely for
having an inspiration which is more hterary than
plastic. They pretend that you easily win the ap
probation of writers by providing them with sub
jects which offer an opening for all their rhetoric.
And they declare that art is not the place for so
much philosophic ambition."
" If my modelling is bad," Rodin replied sharply,
" if I make faults in anatomy, if I misinterpret
movement, if I am ignorant of the science which
animates marble, the critics are right a hundred
times. But if my figures are correct and full of
[life, with what can they reproach me? What right
'have they to forbid me to add meaning to form?
How can they complain if, over and above tech
nique, I offer them ideas? — if I enrich those forms
153

THOUGHT IN ART
which please the eye with a definite significance?
It is a strange mistake, this, to imagine that the
true artist can be content to remain only a skilled
workman and that he needs no intelligence. On
,the contrary, intelligence is indispensable to him
[for painting and for carving even those figures
which seem most lacking in spiritual pretensions
and which are only meant to charm the eye. When
a good sculptor models a statue, whatever it is, he
must first clearly conceive the general idea; then,
until his task is ended, he must keep this idea of
the whole in his mind in order to subordinate and
ally to it every smallest detail of his work. And
this is not accomplished without an intense effort
of mind and concentration of thought.
" What has doubtless led to the common idea
that artists have little intelligence is that it seems
lacking in many of them in private life. The biog
raphies of painters and sculptors abound in anec
dotes of the simplicity of certain masters. It must
be admitted that great men who think ceaselessly
154

THE STATUE OF VICTOR HUGO
By Rodin

TfigttpAf -m%/y ifninU. J/a,y„MlrJ ,;„J £,;,,/, n,,^ . ?,,,

THOUGHT IN ART
of their work are frequently absent-minded in daily
hfe. Above all, it must be granted that many very
intelligent artists seem narrow because they have
not that facihty of speech and repartee which, to
superficial observers, is the only sign of cleverness."
" Surely," I said, " no one can contest the men
tal vigor of the great painters and sculptors. But,
to return to our question — is there not a sharp
line dividing art from hterature which the artist
should not cross ? "
" I insist that in matters which concern me I can
not stand these limitations," Rodin answered.
There is no rule, according to my idea, that can
prevent a sculptor from creating a beautiful, work.
" What difference does it make whether it is
sculpture or literature, provided the public find
profit and pleasure in it? Painting, sculpture, lit
erature, music are more closely related than is
generally believed. They express all the senti
ments of the human soul in the light of nature.
It is only the means of expression which vary.
155

THOUGHT IN ART
"But if a sculptor, by the means of his art, suc
ceeds in suggesting impressions which are ordi
narily only procured by literature or music, why-
should the world cavil? A pubhcist lately criti
cised my Victor Hugo in the Palais Royal, de
claring that it was not sculpture, but music. And
he naively added that this work reminded him of
a Beethoven symphony. Would to Heaven that it
were true!
"I do not deny, moreover, that it is useful to
reflect upon the differences which separate liter
ary from artistic methods. First of all, literature
offers the peculiarity of being able to express
ideas without recourse to imagery. For example,
4t can say: Profound reflection often ends in in
action, without the necessity of figuring a thought
ful woman held in a block of stone.
I; " And this faculty of juggling with abstractions
\ ¦ •, -¦ ¦
by means of words gives, perhaps, to hterature an
'advantage over other arts in the domain of
thought. 156

Bust of Mlle. Claudel (La Pensee)
By Rodin

THOUGHT IN ART
" The next thing to be noticed is that literature
develops stories which have a beginning, a middle,
and an end. It strings together different events
from which it draws a conclusion. It makes
people act and shows the consequences of their con
duct. So the scenes that it conjures up gain
strength by their sequence, and even have no value
except as they make part of the progress of a
plot. " It is not the same with the arts of form.
They never represent more than a single phase of
an action. That is why painters and sculptors are
wrong in taking subjects from writers, as they
often do. The artist who interprets a part of a
story may be supposed to know the rest of the
text. His work must prop itself up on that of
the writer; it only acquires all its meaning if it
is illuminated by the facts that precede or follow it.
" When the painter Delaroche represents, after
Shakespeare, or after his pale imitator, Casimir
Delavigne, the Children of Edward (les Enfants
157

THOUGHT IN ART
d 'Edouard) clinging to each other,. it is necessary
to know, in order to ; be interested, that they are
the heirs to a throne, that they' have been impris
oned, and that hired murderers,,; sent by. the
usurper, are just coming to assassinate them.
, "When, Delacroix,' that ;¦ genius >, whose. pardon, I
beg for. citing him next to the very mediocre Dela
roche, takes from j Lord, Byron's poem the. subject
of Don Juan's Shipwreck (Naufrage * de Don
Juan) and shows us a,., boat fin a storm-swept" sea,
where, the sailors are engaged ; in drawing bits of
paper from. afha;t, it is necessary, in . order to
understand this scene," to know that these unhappy
creatures are starving ;and are drawing lots, to see
which of them shall serve as food for the others.
"These } two artists, in treating literary ,sub-
jects, commit the fault of painting pictures which
do not .carry in themselves their complete meaning.
, "Yet, while that of Delaroche is bad ^..because
the 'drawing is cold, the color hard, /the feeling
melodramatic, that of Delacroix is admirable be-
158

The Shipwreck of Don Juan
By Delacroix

THOUGHT IN ART
cause this boat really pitches on the glaucous
waves, because hunger and distress convulse the
faces of the shipwrecked, because the sombre fury
of the coloring announces some horrible crime —
because, in short, if Byron's tale is found muti
lated in the picture, in revenge, the fiery, wild, and
sublime soul of the painter is certainly wholly
there. . " The moral of these two examples is this ; when,
after mature reflection, you have laid down prohi
bitions which seem most reasonable in the matter
of art, you will rightly reproach the mediocre man
because he does not submit to them, but you will
be surprised to observe that the man of genius in
fringes them almost with impunity."
Roving round the atelier while Rodin was talk
ing, my eyes found a cast of his Ugolin.
It is a figure of majestic reahsm. It does not
at all recall Carpeaux's group; if possible, it is
even more pathetic. In Carpeaux's work,* the
Pisan count, tortured by madness, hunger, and
159

THOUGHT IN ART
sorrow at the sight of his dying children, gnaws
his two fists. Rodin has pictured the drama fur
ther advanced. The children of Ugolin are dead;
they lie on the ground, and their father, whom the
pangs of hunger have changed into a beast, drags
himself on his hands and knees above their bodies.
He bends above their flesh — but, at the same time,
he turns away his head. There is a fearful con
test within him between the brute seeking food
and the thinking being, the loving being, who has
a horror of^ this monstrous sacrifice. Nothing
could be more poignant.
"There," said I, "is an example to add to that
of the shipwreck, in confirmation of your words;
it is certain that it is necessary to have read the
Divine Comedy in order to represent the circum
stances of Ugohn's torment — but even if the
stanzas of Dante were unknown, it would be im
possible to remain unmoved before the terrible
inner conflict which is expressed in the attitude
and the features of your figure."
160

o .S
3 3
O Ph

THOUGHT IN ART
" It is true," Rodin added, " when a hterary
subject is so well known the artist can treat it
and yet expect to be understood. Yet it is better,
in my opinion, that the works of painters and
sculptors should contain all their interest in them
selves. Art can offer thought and imagination
without recourse to hterature. Instead of illustrat-
ing scenes from poems, it need only use plain sym
bols which do not require any written text. Such
has generally been my own method."
What my host indicated, his sculptures gathered
around us proclaimed in their mute language.
There I saw the casts of several of his works which
are most full of ideas.
I began to study them one by one.
I admired the reproduction of the Pensee, which
is at the Musee du Luxembourg. Who does not
recall this singular work?
It is the head of a woman, very young, very
fine, with features of miraculous subtlety and deli
cacy. Her head is bent and aureoled with a rev-
161

THOUGHT IN ART
erie which makes it appear almost immaterial. The
edges sof a light coif which shadow her forehead
seem the wings of her dreams. But her neck and
even her chin are still held in the , heavy, massive
block of marble from which they cannot get free.
The symbol is easily understood. Thought . ex
pands within the • breast of inert matter, and
iUumines it with the reflection of her/splendor — '¦
but she, vainly endeavors to escape from the heavy
shackles of reahty.
Next I turned to Illusion, daughter of] Icarus
(I'lllusion, fille d'Icare) . It is the figure of a
youthful angel. As she flew with her great wings
through space, a rude blast of wind dashed her to
earth, and her charming face was crushed against
a rock. But her wings, unbroken, still beat the
air, and, immortal, she will rise again, take flight
again, fall again to earth, and this to the 'end. of.
time. Untiring hopes, eternal disappointments of
illusion! ,•
Now my attention was attracted by a third
162

Illusion, the Daughter of Icarus
By Rodin

THOUGHT IN ART
sculpture, the Centauress. The human bust of the
fabulous creature yearns despairingly towards an
end which her longing arms can never attain; but
the hind hoofs, grappling the soil, are fast there,
and the heavy horse's flanks, almost crouched in the
mud, cannot kick free. It is the frightful opposi
tion of the poor monster's two natures — an image
of the soul, whose heavenly impulses rest miserably
captive to the bodily clay.
\ " In themes of this kind," Rodin said, " the
thought, I believe, is easily read. They awaken
the imagination of the spectators without any out-
nide help. And yet, far from confining it in nar
row limits, they give it rein to roam at will. That
ii, according to me, the role of art. The form
vhich it creates ought only to furnish a pretext
fbr the unlimited development of emotion."
At this instant I found myself before a group
in marble representing Pygmalion and his statue.
The sculptor passionately embraces his work, which
awakes to life within his arms.
163

THOUGHT IN ART
" I am going to surprise you," said Rodin, sud
denly; "I will show you the first sketch for this
composition," and he led me towards a plaster
cast. I was indeed surprised. This had nothing what
ever to do with the story of Pygmalion. It was
a faun, horned and hairy, who clutched a panting
nymph. The general lines were about the same,
but the subject was very different. Rodin seemed
amused at my silent astonishment.
This revelation was somewhat disconcerting to
me; for, contrary to all that I had just heard and
seen, my host proved himself indifferent, in certain
cases, to the subject. He watched me keenly.
) " To sum it up," he said, " you must not attrib-
! ute too much importance to the themes that you
(interpret. Without doubt, they have their value
and help to charm the public; but the principal
care of the artist should be to form hving muscles.
The rest matters httle." Then, suddenly, as he
guessed my confusion, he added, "You must not
164

Nymph and Faun
By Rodin

THOUGHT IN ART
i think that my last words contradict what I said
i before. " If I say that a sculptor can confine himself to
representing palpitating flesh, without preoccupy
ing himself with subject, this does not mean that I
exclude thought from his work; if I declare that
he need not seek symbols, this does not signify that
I am a partisan of an art deprived of spiritual
significance.
) " But, to speak truly, all is idea, all is symbol.
iSo the form and the attitude of a human being
jreveal the emotions of its soul. The body always
expresses the spirit whose envelope it is. And for
him who can see, the nude offers the richest mean
ing. In the majestic rhythm of the outline, a
great sculptor, a Phidias, recognizes the serene
harmony shed upon all nature by the divine wis-
om; a simple torso, calm, balanced, radiant with
rength and grace, can make him think of the all-
powerful mind which governs the world.
"A lovely landscape does not appeal only by
165

THOUGHT IN ART
the agreeable sensations that it inspires, but by
the ideas that it awakens. The hnes and the
colors do not move you in themselves, but by the
profound meaning that is in them. In the sil
houette of trees, in the line of a horizon, the great
landscape painters, Ruysdael, Cuyp, Corot, Theo
dore Rousseau, saw a meaning — grave or gay,
brave or discouraged, peaceful or troubled — ac
cording to their characters.
" This is because the artist, full of feehng, can
imagine nothing that is not endowed like himself.
He suspects in nature a great consciousness hke
,his own. There is not a living organism, not an
inert object, not a cloud in the sky, not a green
shoot in the meadow, which does not hold for
him the secret of the great power hidden in all
things. " Look at the masterpieces of art. All this
beauty comes from the thought, the intention which
their creators believed they could see in the uni
verse. Why are our Gothic cathedrals so beauti-
166

THOUGHT IN ART
ful? It is because in all their presentment of hfe,
in the human images which adorn their portals, and
even in the plants which flourish in their capitals,
you can discover a trace of the divine love. Those
gentle craftsmen of the Middle Ages saw infinite
goodness shining everywhere. And, with their
charming simplicity, they have thrown reflections
of this loving-kindness even on the faces of their
demons, to whom they have lent a kindly mahce
and an air almost of relationship to the angels.
" Look at any picture by a master — a Titian,
a Rembrandt, for example. In all Titian's
seigneurs you notice a proud energy which, with
out doubt, animated himself. His opulent, nude
women offer themselves to adoration, sure of their
domination. His landscapes, beautified with majes
tic trees and crimsoned with triumphant sunsets,
are not less haughty than his people: over all
creation he has set a reign of aristocratic pride;
it was. the constant thought of his genius.
"Another kind of pride illumines the wrinkled,
167

THOUGHT IN ART
smoke-dried face of the artisans whom Rembrandt
painted; he ennobled the smoky lofts and httle
windows glazed with bottle ends; he illumined with
sudden beauty these flat, rustic landscapes, digni
fied the roofs of thatch which his etching-point
caressed with such pleasure on the copperplate.
It was the beautiful courage of the humble, the
holiness of things common but piously beloved, the
grandeur of the humility which accepts and fulfils
its destiny worthily, which attracted him.
" And the mind of the great artist is so active,
so profound, that it shows, itself in any subject.
It does not. even need a whole figure to express it.
Take any fragment of a masterpiece, you will rec
ognize the character of the creator in it. Com
pare, if, you will, the hands painted in two por
traits by Titian and Rembrandt. The hands by
Titian will be masterful; those by Rembrandt will
be modest and courageous. In these limited bits
of painting all the ideals of these masters are
contained." 168

Italian Landscape
By Corot -

THOUGHT IN ART
As I listened to this profession of faith in the
spirituality of art an objection rose to my lips.
' Master," I said, " no one doubts that pictures
nd sculptures can suggest the most profound
deas; but many sceptics pretend that the painters
and sculptors never had these ideas, and that it is
we ourselves who put them into their works. They
beheve that artists work by pure instinct, hke the
sibyl who from her tripod rendered the oracles of
God, without herself knowing what she prophesied.
Your words clearly prove that your hand, at least,
is ever guided by the mind, but is it so with all
the masters? Have they always put thought into
their work? Have they always had this clear idea
of what their admirers found in them? "
" Let us understand each other," Rodin said,
\ laughing. " There are certain admirers of such com-
i phcated brain that they attribute most unexpected
i intentions to the artist. We are not talking of
\these. But you may rest assured that the masters
dre always conscious of what they do." And toss-
169

THOUGHT IN ART
ing his head, " If the sceptics of whom you speak
only knew what energy it takes for the artist to
translate, even feebly, what he thinks and feels
with the greatest strength, they would not doubt
that all that appears shining forth from a picture
or sculpture was intended." A few moments later
he continued: " In short, the purest masterpieces
are those in which one finds no inexpressive waste
of forms, lines, and colors, but where all, absolutely
Jill, expresses thought and soul.
" Yet it may happen that when the masters ani
mate the Nature of their ideals, they delude them
selves. It may be that it is governed by an
indifferent force or by a will whose design our in
telligence is incapable of penetrating. At least, the
artist, in representing the universe as he imagines
it, formulates his own dreams. In nature he cele-
jbrates his own soul. And so he enriches the soul
(of humanity. For in coloring the material world
| with his spirit he reveals to his dehghted fellow-
beings a thousand unsuspected shades of feeling.
170

An Old Man
By Rembrandt

Laura Dianti
By Titian

THOUGHT IN ART
He discovers to them riches in themselves until
then unknown. He gives them new reasons for lov
ing hfe, new inner lights to guide them.
" He is, as Dante said of Virgil, ' their guide,
their master, and their friend.' "

171

CHAPTER IX
MYSTERY IN ART

THE THINKER
By Rodin

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CHAPTER IX
MYSTERY IN ART
ONE morning, when I arrived at Rodin's
house at Meudon I found the master in his
dressing-gown, his hair in disorder, his feet in
slippers, sitting before a good wood fire, for it
was November.
" It is the time of the year," he said, " when I
allow myself to be ill. All the rest of the time
I have so much work, so many occupations, so
many cares, that I have not a single instant to
breathe. But fatigue accumulates, and though I
fight stubbornly to conquer it, yet towards the
end of the year I am obliged to stop work for a
few days."
Even as I listened to his words my eyes rested.
upon a great cross on the wall, on which hung the
175

MYSTERY IN ART
Christ, a figure three-quarters life-size. It was a
very fine painted carving of most painful realism.
The body hanging from the tree looked so dead
that it could never come to hfe — the most com
plete consummation of the mysterious sacrifice.
" You admire my crucifix! " Rodin said, follow
ing my glance. " It is amazing, is it not? Its
realism recalls that one in the Chapel del San-
tisimo Christo in Burgos — - that image so moving,
so terrifying, . yes . — so horrible — that it looks like
a real human corpse. This figure of the Christ is
much less brutal. See how pure and harmonious
are the lines of the body and arms ! " . /
Seeing my host lost in contemplation, I ven
tured to ask him if he was religious. -
" It is according to the meaning that you give
to the word," he answered. "If. you mean by
religious the man who follows certain practices,
yho bows before certain dogmas, I am evidently
riot religious. -
" But, to me, rehgion is more than the mumbling
176

The Hand of God
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

MYSTERY IN ART
of a creed. It is the meaning of all that is un
explained and doubtless inexplicable in the world.
It is the adoration of the unknown force which
maintains the universal laws and which preserves
the types of all beings; it is the surmise of all
that in nature which does not fall within the
domain of sense, of all that immense realm of
things which neither the eyes of our body, nor
even those of our spirit can see; it is the impulse
of our conscience towards the infinite, towards
eternity, towards urilimited knowledge and love —
promises perhaps illusory, but which in this life
give wings to our thoughts. In this sense I am
religious." Rodin followed the rapid flickering
flames of the fire for a moment, and then con
tinued: " If religion did not exist, I should have
had to invent it. In short, true artists are the
most religious of men.
" It is a general belief that we live only through
our senses, and that the world of appearances suf
fices us. We are taken for children who, intoxi-
177

MYSTERY IN ART
cated with changing colors, amuse themselves with
the shapes of things as with dolls. We are mis
understood. Lines and colors ,are .only to us, the
symbols of hidden realities. Our eyes , plunge -be
neath the surface: to the meaning; of; things,; and
\when afterwards we reproduce the form, we endow
It with the spiritual meaning which it covers. ;
"An artist worthy of the name should ¦, express
all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth,
but also, and above all, the inner truth. ,
"When a good sculptor models a torso, he, not
only represents the muscles, but the life which ani
mates them — more than the hfe, the force that
fashioned them and communicated to them, it may
be, grace or strength, or amorous charm, or in
domitable will. ' ,
"Injthe works of Michael Angelo, the creative
force seems to rumble; in. those of Luca della
iRobbia, it' smiles divinely.* So each sculptor, fol
lowing : his temperament,, lends to nature a soul
either terrible or gentle.' 178

The Statue of Balzac
By Rodin

MYSTERY IN ART
" The landscape painter, perhaps, goes even
further. It is not only in hving beings that he
sees the reflection of the universal soul; it is in
the trees, the bushes, the valleys, the hills. What
to other men is only wood and earth appears to
the great landscapist like the face of a great being.
Corot saw kindness abroad in the trunks of the
trees, in the grass of the fields, in the mirroring
water of the lakes. But there Millet read suffer
ing and resignation.
' " Everywhere the great artist hears spirit an-
I swer to his spirit. Where, then, can you find a
more religious man?
"Does not the sculptor perform his act of ado
ration when he perceives the majestic character of
the forms that he studies? — when, from the
midst of fleeting lines, he knows how to extricate
the eternal type of each being? — when he seems
to discern in the very breast of the divinity the
immutable models on which all living creatures
are moulded? Study, for example, the master-
179

MYSTERY IN ART
pieces of the Egyptian sculptors, either human or
animal figures, and tell me if the accentuation of
the essential hnes 'does not produce the effect of a
sacred hymn. Every artist who has the gift of
generalizing forms, that is to say, of accenting their
logic without depriving them of their living real
ity, provokes the same religious emotion; for he
communicates to us the thrill he himself felt before
the immortal verities."
" Something," I said, " like the trembhng of
Faust when he visited that strange Kingdom of
the Mothers, where he talked with the imperishable
heroines of the great poets and beheld all the gen
erative ideas of terrestrial realities."
"What a magnificent scene!" Rodin cried, "and
what a breadth of vision Goethe had!" He con
tinued: "Mystery is, moreover, hke a kind of
j atmosphere which bathes the greatest works of the
Imasters.
\ " They express, indeed, all that genius feels in
the presence of Nature; they represent Nature
180

MYSTERY IN ART
'with all the clearness, with all the magnificence
which a human being can discover in her; but
they also fling themselves against that immense
1 Unknown which everywhere envelops our little
world of the known. For, after all, we only feel
and conceive those things which are patent to us
and which impress our minds and our senses.
But all the rest is plunged in infinite obscurity.
Even a thousand things which should be clear to
us are hidden because we are not organized to
seize them."
Rodin stopped, and I recalled the following hnes
of Victor Hugo, which I repeated:
"Nous ne voyons jamais qu'un seul cote des choses;
L'autre plonge en la nuit d'un mystere effrayant;
L'homme subit l'effet sans connaitre les causes;
Tout ce qu'il voit est court, inutile et fuyant."1
" The poet has put it better than I," Rodin
) said, smiling, and he continued: " Great works
of art, which are the highest proof of human in-
I telhgence and sincerity, say all that can be said
1 See page 251.
181

MYSTERY IN ART
on man and on the world, and, besides, they teach
that there is something more that cannot be known.
" Every great work has this quality of mystery.
You always find a little ' fine frenzy.' Recall the
note of interrogation which hovers over all of
Leonardo da Vinci's pictures. But I am wrong
to choose that great mystic as an example, for he
proves my thesis too easily. Let us rather take
the Concert Champetre by Giorgione. Here is all
the sweet joy of life, but added to that there is
a kind of melancholy intoxication. What is
human joy? Whence comes it? Where does it
go? The puzzle of existence!
"Again, let lis take, if you will, The Gleaners,
by 'Millet. One of these women who toil so hard
beneath tbe blazing sun rises and looks away to
the horizon. And we feel that in that head a
question has flashed from the submerged mind:
What is the meaning of it all?
" That is the mystery that floats over all great
work. What is the meaning of the law which
182

The Gleaners
By Millet

MYSTERY IN ART
chains these creatures to existence only to make
them suffer? What is the meaning of this eternal
enticement which makes them love life, however sad
it is? Oh, agonizing problem!
" Yet it is not only the masterpieces of Chris
tian civilization which produced this impression of
mystery. It is felt before the masterpieces of
antique art, before the Three Fates of the Par-
[ thenon, for example. I call them the Fates be
cause it is the accepted name, though in the
opinion of many students they are other god
desses; it makes httle difference either way!
They are only three women seated, but their pose
is so serene, so august, that they seem to be tak
ing part in something of enormous import that
we do not see. Over them reigns the great mys
tery, the immaterial, eternal Reason whom all
nature obeys, and of whom they are themselves
the celestial servants.
" So, all the masters advance to the barrier
which parts us from the Unknowable. Certain
183

MYSTERY IN ART
among them have cruelly wounded their brows
against it; others, whose imagination is more
cheerful, imagine that they hear through that
wall the melodious songs of the birds which
people the secret orchard."
I hstened attentively to my host, who was
giving me his most precious thoughts on his art.
It seemed that the fatigue which had condemned
his body to rest before that hearth where the
flames were leaping had left his spirit, on the con
trary, more free, and had tempted it to fling itself
passionately into dreams. I led the talk to his
own works.
" Master," I said, " you speak of other artists,
but you are silent about yourself. Yet you are
one of those who have put into their art most mys
tery. The torment of the invisible and of the
inexplicable is seen in even the least of your
sculptures." "Ah! my dear Gsell," he said, throwing me
a glance of irony, " if I have expressed certain
184

The Three Fates
From the Parthenon

MYSTERY IN ART
feelings in my works, it is utterly useless for me
to try to put them into words, for I am not a
poet, but a sculptor, and they ought to be easily
read in my statues; if not, I might as well not
have experienced the feelings."
"You are right; it is for the public to discover
them. So I am going to tell you all the mystery
that I have found in your inspiration. You will
/tell me if I have seen rightly. It seems to me that
What has especially interested you in humanity is that
/strange uneasiness of the soul bound to the body.
" In all your statues there is the same impulse
of the spirit towards the ideal, in spite of the
weight and the cowardice of the flesh.
" In your Saint John the Baptist, a heavy, almost
gross body is strained, uplifted by a divine mission
which outruns all earthly limits. In your Bourgeois
de Calais, the soul enamoured of immortality drags
the hesitant body to its martyrdom, while it seems
to cry the words, ' Thou tremblest, vile flesh! '
"In your Penseur, meditation, in its terrible
185

MYSTERY IN ART
effort to embrace the absolute, contracts the ath
letic body, bends it, crushes it. In your Baiser,
the bodies tremble as though they felt, in advance,
the impossibility of . reahzing that indissoluble
union desired by their soiils. In your Balzac,
genius,, haunted by gigantic visions, shakes the
sick body, dooms it to insomnia, and condemns it
to the labor of a galley-slave. Am I right,
master? "
"I do not contradict you," Rodin answered,
stroking his long beard thoughtfully.
" And in your busts, even more perhaps, you
have shown this impatience of the spirit against
the chains of matter. Almost all recall the lines
of the poet:
" ' Ainsi qu'en s'envolant l'oiseau courbe la branche,
Son ame avait brise son corps ! ' *
" You have represented all the writers with the
head bent, as if beneath the weight of their
thoughts. As for your artists, they gaze straight
1 See page 251.
186

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The Kiss
By Rodin
MYSTERY IN ART
at nature, but they are haggard because their
reverie draws them far beyond what they see,
far beyond all they can express.
" That bust of a woman at the Musee du
Luxembourg, perhaps the most beautiful that you
have carved, bows and vacillates as if the soul
were seized with giddiness upon plunging into the
abyss of dreams.
i " To sum it up, your busts often recall Rem-
/brandt's portraits, for the Dutch master has also
) made plain this call of the infinite, by lighting the
| brow of his personages by a hght which falls from
above." " To compare me with Rembrandt, what sacri
lege ! " Rodin cried quickly. " To Rembrandt, the
Colossus of art! Think of it, my friend! Let
us bow before Rembrandt, and never set any one
beside him!
" But you have concluded justly in observing
in my works the stirrings of the soul towards that
kingdom, perhaps chimerical, of unlimited truth and
187

MYSTERY IN ART
liberty. There, indeed, is the mystery that moves
me." A moment later he asked: "Are you con
vinced now that art is a kind of religion? "
" Yes," I answered.
Then he added, with some malice : " It is very
necessary to remember, however, that , the .first
commandment of this rehgion, for those who wish
to practise it, is to know how to model a torso,
an arm, or a leg! "

188

Bust of Madame Morla Vicuna
By Rodin

CHAPTER X
PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO

CHAPTER X
PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
ONE Saturday evening Rodin said to me,
" Come and see me to-morrow morning at
Meudon. We will talk of Phidias and of Michael
Angelo, and I will model statuettes for you on the
principles of both. In that way you will quickly
grasp the essential differences of the two inspira
tions, or, to express it better, the opposed charac
teristics which divide them."
Phidias and Michael Angelo judged and com
mented upon by Rodin! It is easy to imagine
that I was exact to the hour of our meeting.
The Master sat down before a marble table
and clay was brought to him. It was winter, and
as the great ateher was unheated, I was afraid
that he might take cold. But the attendant to
191

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
whom I suggested this smiled as he answered,
" Never, when he works."
And my disquietude vanished when I saw the
fever which seized the Master when he began to
knead the clay. He had asked me to sit down
beside him. Rolling balls of clay on the table,
he began rapidly to model a figure, talking at the
same time.
" This first figure," he said, " will be founded
on the conception of Phidias. When I pronounce
that name I am really thinking of all Greek sculp
ture, which found its highest expression in the
genius of Phidias."
The clay figure was taking shape. Rodin's
hands came and went, adding bits of clay; gather
ing it in his large palms, with swift, accurate
movements; then the thumb and the fingers took
part, turning a leg with a single pressure, round
ing a hip, sloping a shoulder, turning the head, and
all with incredible swiftness, almost as if he were
performing a conjuring trick. Occasionally the
192

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
Master stopped a moment to study his work, re
flected, decided, and then rapidly executed his idea.
I have never seen any one work so fast; evi
dently sureness of mind and eye ends by giving
an ease to the hand of a great artist which can
only be compared to the adroitness of a juggler, or,
to make a comparison with a more honored pro
fession, to the skill of a great surgeon. And this
facility, far from excluding precision and vigor,
involves them, and has, consequently, nothing
whatever to do with a superficial virtuosity.
While I drew these conclusions, Rodin's statu
ette grew into life. It was full of rhythm, one
hand on the hip, the other arm faihng gracefully
at her side and the head bent.
" I am not fatuous enough to beheve that this
quick sketch is as beautiful as an antique," the
Master said, laughing, " but don't you find that it
gives you a dim idea of it? "
" I could swear that it was the copy of a Greek
marble," I answered. 193

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
"Well, then, let us examine it and see from
what this resemblance arises. My statuette offers,
from head to feet, four planes which are alterna
tively opposed.
" The plane of the shoulders and chest leads
towards the left shoulder — the plane of the lower
half of the body leads towards the right side —
the plane of the knees leads again towards the left
knee, for the knee of the right leg, which is bent,
comes ahead of the other — and finally, the foot
'of this same right leg is back of the left foot. So,
I repeat, you can note four directions in my
Sfigure which produce a very gentle undulation
jthrough the whole body.
I " This impression of tranquil charm is equally
i given by the balance of the figure. A plumb-line
through the middle of the neck would fall on the
inner ankle bone of the left foot, which bears all
the weight of the body. The other leg, on the
contrary, is free — only its toes touch the ground
and so only furnish a supplementary support; it
194

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
could be hfted without disturbing the equihbrium.
| The pose is full of abandon and of grace.
" There is another thing to notice. The upper
part of the torso leans to the side of the leg which
supports the body. The left shoulder is, thus, at
a lower level than the other. But, as opposed to
it, the left hip, which supports the whole pose, is
raised and salient. So, on this side of the body the
shoulder is nearer the hip, while on the other
side the right shoulder, which is raised, is sepa
rated from the right hip, which is lowered. This
recalls the movement of an accordion, which closes
on one side and opens on the other.
" This double balance of the shoulders and of
the hips contributes still more to the calm elegance
of the whole.
" Now look at my statuette in profile.
" It is bent backwards ; the back is hollowed
I
and the chest slightly expanded. In a word, the
'figure is convex and has the form 'of the letter C.
f " This form helps it to catch the hght, which is
195

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
distributed softly over the torso and limbs and so
adds to the general charm. Now the different pe
culiarities which we see in this statuette may be
noted in nearly all antiques. Without doubt, there
are numerous variations, doubtless there are some
derogations from these fundamental principles;
but in the Greek works you will always find most
of the characteristics which I have indicated.
" Now translate this technical system into spiritual
Jterms; you will then recognize that antique art
jsignifies contentment, calm, grace, balance, reason."
Rodin cast a glance at his figure. " I could carry
it further," he said, " but it would be only to
amuse us, because, as it stands, it has sufficed me
for my demonstration. The details, moreover,
would add very little to it. And now, by the way,
^an important truth. When the planes of a figure
are well placed, with decision and intelligence, all
is done, so to speak; the whole effect is obtained;
the refinements which come after might please the
spectator, but they are almost superfluous. This
196

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
science of planes is common to all great epochs; it
is almost ignored to-day."
Pushing aside the clay figure, he went on: " Now
I will do you another after Michael Angelo."
He did not proceed at all in the same way as
for the first. He turned the two legs of the figure
to the same side and the torso to the opposite side.
He bent the body forward; he folded one arm
close against the body and placed the other be
hind the head. The attitude thus evoked offered
a strange appearance of effort and of torture.
Rodin had fashioned this sketch as quickly as the
preceding one, only crushing his balls of clay with
more vigor and putting almost frenzy into the
strokes of his thumb.
" There! " he cried. " What do you think of it? "
"I should take it for a copy of a Michael
Angelo — or rather for a replica of one of his
works. What vigor, what tension of the muscles ! "
', " Now! Follow my explanation. Here, instead
of four planes, you have only two; one for the
197

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
I upper half of the statuette and the other, opposed*
I for the lower half. This gives , at once a sense of
| violence and of constraint — and the result is a
[striking contrast to the calm of the antiques. ,
" Both legs are bent, and consequently the
weight of the body is divided between, the two in
stead of being , borne exclusively by one. So
khere is no repose here, but work for both the
lower limbs.
"Besides, the hip corresponding to the leg
which bears ;the lesser , weight is the one which is
the more raised, which indicates that the body is
pushing' this way.
\ " Nor is the torso less animated. Instead of
I . ' .
jesting quietly, as in the antique, on the most
prominent hip, it, On the contrary, raises the shotil-
jder on the same side so as to continue the move-
fment of the hip.
" Now note that the concentration of the. effort
places the two limbs one against the other, and the
two arms, one against the body and the other
198

A Captive
By Michael Angelo

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
against the head. In this way there is no space left
between the limbs and the body. You see none of
those openings which, resulting from the freedom
\with which the arms and legs were placed, gave
llightness to Greek sculpture. The art of Michael
Angelo created statues all of a size, in a block. He
said himself that only those statues were good
which could be rolled from the top of a mountain
without breaking; and in his opinion all that was
broken off in such a fall was superfluous.
" His figures surely seem carved to meet this
test; but it is certain that not a single antique
could have stood it; the greatest works of Phidias,
of Praxiteles, of Polycletus,- of Scopas and of
Lysippus would have reached the foot of the hill
in pieces.
"And that proves how a formula which may
be profoundly true for one artistic school may
be false for another.
" A last important characteristic of my statu
ette is that it is in the form of a console; the
199

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
knees constitute the lower protuberance; the re
treating chest represents the concavity, the bent
head the upper jutment of the console. The torso
is thus arched forward instead of backward as in
kntique art. It is that which produces here such
deep shadows in the hollow of the chest and be
neath the legs.
" To, sum it up, the greatest genius of modern
times has celebrated the epic of shadow, while the
ancients celebrated that of hght. And if we. now
{seek the spiritual significance of the technique of
I Michael Angelo, as we did that of the Greeks,
we shall find that his sculpture expressed restless
energy, the will to act without the hope of success
: — in fine, the martyrdom of the creature tor
mented by unrealizable aspirations.
" You know that Raphael, during one period of
his, life, tried to imitate Michael Angelo. He did
not succeed. He could not discover the secret of
the condensed passion of his rival. It was because
he was formed by the Greek school, as is proved
200

The Three Graces
By Raphael

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
by that divine trio of the Graces at Chantilly, in
which he copied an adorable antique group at
Siena. Without knowing it, he constantly re
turned to the principles of the masters he preferred.
Those of his figures in which he wished to put
most strength always kept the rhythm and gra
cious balance of the Hellenic masterpieces.
"When I went to Italy myself, with my head
full of the Greek models which I had so passion
ately studied at the Louvre, I found myself com
pletely disconcerted before the Michael Angelos.
They constantly contradicted all those truths which
I believed that I had definitely acquired. ' Look
here,' I said to myself, 'why this incurvation of
the body, this raised hip, this lowered shoulder?' I
was very much upset.
"And yet Michael Angelo could not have been
mistaken! I had to understand. I kept at it and
I succeeded.
" To tell the truth, Michael Angelo does not,
as is often contended, hold a unique place in art.'
201

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
He is the culmination of all Gothic thought. It
is generally said that the Renaissance was the res
urrection of pagan rationalism and its victory over
the mysticism of the Middle Ages. This is only
half true. The Christian spirit continued to in-
I.spire a number of the artists of the Renaissance,
I among others, Donatello, the painter Ghirlandajo,
who was the master of Michael Angelo, and
Buonarotti himself.
" He is manifestly the descendant of the image-
makers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
You constantly find in the sculpture of the Middle
Ages this form of the console to which I called
your attention. There you find this same restric
tion of the chest, these limbs glued to the body,
and this attitude of effort. There you find above
all a melancholy which regards life as a transitory
thing to which we must not cling."
As I thanked my host for his precious instruc
tion, he said : " We must complete it one of these
days by a visit to the Louvre. Don't forget to
202

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
remind me." At this moment a servant announced
Anatole France, whom Rodin was expecting. The
master sculptor had invited the great writer to
come and admire his collection of antiques.
They formed a great contrast to each other.
Anatole France is tall and thin. His face is long
and fine; his black eyes are set deep in their
sockets; his hands are dehcate and slender; his
gestures are vivacious and emphasize all the play
of his irony. Rodin is thick-set, he has strong
shoulders, his face is broad; his dreamy eyes, often
half-closed, open wide at times and disclose pupils
of clear blue. His beard gives him the look of one
of Michael Angelo's prophets. His movements are
slow and dignified. His large hands, with short
fingers, are strongly supple.
The one is the personification of deep and witty
analysis, the other of passion and strength.
The sculptor led us to his antiques, and the con
versation naturally returned to the subject which
we had just been discussing. 203

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
A Greek stele roused the admiration of Anatole
France. It represented a young woman seated. A
man is gazing at her lovingly, and behind her,
bending over her shoulders, stands a serving-maid.
"How the Greeks loved life!" cried the author
of Thais. " See! Nothing on this funeral stone
recalls death. The dead woman is here amid the
living, and seems still to take part in their exist
ence. Only she has become very weak, and as she
can no longer stand she must remain seated. It
is one of the characteristics which designate the
dead on these antique monuments: their limbs
being without strength, they must, lean upon a
staff, or against a wall, or else sit down.
" There is also another detail which frequently
distinguishes them. While the living who are
figured around them all regard them with tenderness,
their own eyes wander far and rest on no one.
They no longer see those who see them. Yet they
continue to five like beloved invahds among those
who cherish them. And this half-presence, this
204.

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
half -absence, is the most touching expression of the
regret which, according to the ancients, the light
of day inspired in the dead."
Rodin's collection of antiques is large and well
chosen. He is especially proud of a Hercules,
whose vigorous shmness filled us with enthusiasm.
It is a statue which does not in the least resemble
the huge Farnese Hercules. It is marvellously
graceful. The demi-god, in all his proud youth,
has a body and limbs of extreme slenderness.
" This is indeed," said our host, " the hero who
outran the Arcadian stag with the brazen hooves.
The heavy athlete of Lysippus would not have
been capable of such a feat of prowess. Strength
is often allied to grace, and true grace is strong;
a double truth of which this Hercules is a proof.
As you see, the son of Alcmene seems even
more robust because his body is harmoniously
proportioned." Anatole France stopped before a charming httle
torso of a goddess. " This," he said, " is one of
205

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
the numberless chaste Aphrodites which were more
or less free reproductions of Praxiteles' master
piece, the Cnidian Venus. The Venus of the
Capitol and the Venus di Medici are, among
others, only variations of this much-copied model.
. "Among the Greeks, many excellent sculptors
fcpent their skill in imitating the work of some
master who had preceded them. They modified
fhe general idea but slightly, and only showed
their own personahty in the science of the execu
tion. It would seem, besides, that devotional zeal,
becoming fond of a sculptural image, forbade artists
afterwards to change it. Religion fixes once and
for all the divine types that it adopts. We are
astonished to find so many chaste Venuses, so many
crouching Venuses. We forget that these statues
were sacred. In a thousand or two thousand years
they will exhume in the same way numbers of
statues of the Virgin of Lourdes, all much alike,
with a white robe, a rosary, and a blue girdle."
" What a kindly rehgion this of the Greeks must
206

PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO
have been," I cried, " which offered such charming
forms to the adoration of its worshippers ! "
" It was beautiful," Anatole France replied,
" since it has left us these Venuses ; but do not
beheve that it was kindly. It was intolerant and
tyrannical, hke all forms of pious fervor. In the
name of these Aphrodites of quivering flesh many
noble souls were tortured. In the name of Olym
pus the Athenians offered the cup of hemlock to
Socrates. And do you recall that verse of
Lucretius : —
' Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum ! '
" You see, if the gods of antiquity are sympa
thetic to us to-day it is because, fallen, they can no
longer harm us."

207

CHAPTER XI
AT THE LOUVRE

CHAPTER XI
AT THE LOUVRE
SEVERAL days later, Rodin, putting his prom
ise into execution, asked me to accompany
him to the Musee du Louvre.
We were no sooner before the antiques than he
showed by his happy air that he was among old
friends. " How many times," he said, " have I come here
when I was not more than fifteen years old! I had
a violent longing at first to be a painter. Color
attracted me. I often went upstairs to admire the
Titians and , Rembrandts. But, alas ! I had n't
enough money to buy canvases and tubes of color.
To copy the antiques, on the contrary, I needed
only paper and pencils. So I was forced to
211

AT THE LOUVRE
work in the lower rooms, arid there such a passion
for sculpture seized me that I could think of noth
ing else."
As I listened to Rodin while he told of his long
study of the antique, I thought of the injustice
done him by those false classipists whp have accused
him of being an insurgent against tradition. Trar
dition! "It is this pretended revolutionary , who, in
our own day, has known it best and respected it
most! He led me to the room full of casts andj point
ing out the Diadumenes by Polycletus,. the. original
of which is in the British Museum, he said: . " You
can observe, here the four directions that I indi
cated, the other day in <my clay statuette... Just
exanjine, the left; side of this statue: the jshoulder
is slightly forward, the -hip is back; again thekriee
is forward, the foot is back; and thence a gehtle
undujation Of .{the whole results.
" Now1 notice the balance of the levels-^ the
level of the shoulders : lower towards the right, the
212

DiADUMENES
By Polyclitus

AT THE LOUVRE
level of the hips lower towards the left. Note that
the plumb-line passing through the neck falls on
the inner ankle bone of the right foot; note the
free poise of the left leg. Finally, view in profile
the convexity of the back of the statue, in form
hke a C "
Rodin repeated this demonstration with a num
ber of other antiques. Leaving the casts, he led
me to the wonderful torso of Periboetos by
Praxiteles. " Here the direction of the shoulders is towards
the left, direction of the hips towards the right —
level of the right shoulder higher, level of the left
hip higher." Then, passing to less theoretic im
pressions: "How charming!" he cried. "This
young torso, without a head, seems to smile at
the light and at the spring, better than eyes and
hps could do." Then we reached the Venus of
Milo. "Behold the marvel of marvels! Here you find
an exquisite rhythm very hke that in the statue
213

<&

AT THE LOUVRE
,which; we have been admiring; - but' something > of
thought as well;/ for here we no longer find the
form. of the C; °n the. contrary/ the body., of this
•goddess bends , slightly forward as in Christian
sculpture. Yet there is nothing . restless or tor
mented here. This work is the expression of the
greatest . antique inspiration; it is voluptuousness
regulated by restraint; it is the joy of hfe
cadenced, moderated by reason. ,
" Such masterpieces affect me strangely. They
bring . vividly before my mind the atmosphere . and
the country , where they had birth. I see the
young , Greeks, their brown, hair crowned with
violets and the maidens with floating tunics as they
pass to offer sacrifice to the gods in those temples
whose lines were pure arid majestic; whose marble
had the warm transparency, of flesh. I 'imagine
the g philosophers walking ¦ in the outskirts Of the
town, conversing upon beauty, close to sOme old
altar which recalls to .them the earthly adventure
of some god. The birds sing amidst the ivy, in the
214

Venus of Milo

AT THE LOUVRE
great plane-trees, in the bushes of laurel and of
myrtle, and the brooks shine beneath the serene
blue sky, which domes this sensuous and peaceful
land." An instant later we were before the Victory of
Samothrace. " Place it, in your mind, upon a golden shore,
whence, beneath the olive branches, you may see
the blue and shining sea cradling its white islands!
Antique marbles need the full light of day. In
our museums they are deadened by too heavy
shadows. The reflection of the sun-bathed earth
and of the Mediterranean aureoled them with daz
zling splendor. Their Victory — it was their Lib
erty — how it differs from ours! She did not
gather back her robe to leap barriers; she was
clothed in fine linen, not in coarse cloth; her mar
vellous body in its beauty was not formed for daily
tasks; her movements, though vigorous, were
always harmoniously balanced.
" In truth she was the Liberty not of the whole
215

AT THE LOUVRE
world, but only of the intellectually elect. The
philosophers, contemplated her with delight. ' . But
the conquered, the slaves who were beaten in her
name, had no love for her.
" That was the fault of the Hellenic ideal. The
Beauty conceived by the Greeks was the order
dreamed of by intelligence, but she only appealed
to the cultivated mind; she disdained the humble;
she had no tenderness for the broken; she did
Inot know that in every heart there is a ray of
heaven. "She was tyrannous to all who were not capable
of high thought; she inspired Aristotle to an apol
ogy for slavery; she admitted only. the perfection/
of form and she did not know that the expression
of the most abject creature may be sublime^ She
destroyed the riialformed children.
"But this very order which the philosophers ex
tolled was too limited. They had imagined it ac
cording to their desires and not as it exists in the
vast universe. They had arranged it according to
216

The Victory of Samothrace

AT THE LOUVRE
their human geometry. They figured the world as
limited by a great crystal sphere; they feared the
unlimited. They also feared progress. According
to them creation had never been as beautiful as,
at its birth, when nothing had yet troubled its primi
tive balance. Since then all had continually grown
worse; each day a httle more confusion had made
its way into the universal order. The age of gold
which we glimpse on the horizon of the future
they placed behind them in the remoteness of
time. " So this passion for order betrayed them. Order
reigns without doubt in the immensity of nature,
but it is much more complex than man in the first
efforts of his reason can represent it — and besides,
t is eternally changing.
" Yet sculpture was never more radiant than
When it was inspired by this narrow order. It was
because that calm beauty could find entire expres
sion in the serenity of transparent marbles; it was
because there was perfect accord between the
217

AT THE LOUVRE
j thought and the matter ' that it animated. The
modern spirit, on the contrary, upsets and breaks
all forms in which it takes body.
| " No ; no artist will ever surpass Phidias — for
? progress exists in the world, but not in art. The
greatest of sculptors who appeared at a time when
the whole human dream could blossom in the
pediment of a temple will remain for ever without
an equal."
We passed on to the room which holds the
work of Michael Angelo. To reach it we crossed
that of Jean Goujon and of Germain Pilon.
" Your elder brothers," I said.
"I should hke to think so," Rodin answered
with a sigh. We were now before the Captives, 'by
Michael Angelo. We first looked at the one on
the right, which is seen in profile. " Look! only
two great planes. The legs to one side, the body
to the opposite side. This gives great strength to
the attitude. No balance of levels. The right hip
is the higher, and the right shoulder is also higher.
218

A Captive
By Michael Angelo

AT THE LOUVRE
So the movement acquires amphtude. Observe the
line of plumb — it falls not on one foot, but be
tween the two; so both legs bear the body and
seem to make an effort.
"Let us consider, finally, the general aspect.
It is that of a console; the bent legs project, the
retreating chest forms a hollow. It is the confir
mation of what I demonstrated in my studio with
the clay model."
Then, turning towards the other captive: "Here
again the form of the console is designed, not by
the retreating chest, but by the raised elbow, which
hangs forward. As I have already told you, this
particular silhouette is that of all the statuary of
the Middle Ages.
" You find this form of the console in the Virgin
seated leaning over her child; in the Christ nailed
on the cross, the legs bent, the body bowed towards
the men whom His suffering would redeem; in
the Mater Dolorosa who bends above the body of
her Son. 219

AT THE LOUVRE
" Michael Angelo, I repeat, is only the last and
greatest of the Gothics.
" The soul thrown back upon itself, suffering, dis
gust of hfe, contention against the bonds of matter
— such are the elements of his inspiration.
" The captives are held by bonds so weak that
it seems easy to break them. But the sculptor
wished to show that their bondage is, above all, a
moral one. For, although he has represented in
these figures the provinces conquered by Pope
Julius II., he has given them a symbolic value.
Each one of his prisoners is the human soul which
would burst the bounds of its corporeal envelope
in order to possess unlimited liberty. Look at the
captive on the right. He has the face of Beethoven.
Michael Angelo has divined the features of that
most unhappy of great musicians.
" His whole existence proved that he was him
self frightfully tortured by melancholy. ' Why do
we hope for more of hfe and of pleasure? ' he said
in one of his most beautiful sonnets. ' Earthly
220

AT THE LOUVRE
joy harms us even more than it delights.' And in
another verse, ' He who dies soon after birth en
joys the happiest fate! '
" All his statues are so constrained by agony
that they seem to wish to break themselves. They
all seem ready to succumb to the pressure of de
spair which fills them. When Michael Angelo was
old he actually broke them. Art did not content
him. He wanted infinity. ' Neither painting nor
sculpture,' he writes, ' can charm the soul turned
towards that divine love which, upon the cross,
opens its arms to receive us.' These are also the
exact words of the great mystic who wrote the
Imitation of Jesus Christ: ' The highest wisdom is
to reach the kingdom of heaven through contempt
of the world. It is vanity to chng to what is but
passing and not to hasten towards that joy which
is without end.' "
There was silence for a time, then Rodin spoke
his thought: "I remember being in the Duomo at
Florence and regarding with profound emotion that
221

AT THE LOUVRE
Pietd by Michael Angelo. The masterpiece, which
is ordinarily in shadow, was lighted at the moment
by a candle in a silver candlestick. And. a beauti
ful child, a chorister, approached the candlestick,
which was as tall as himself, .drew it towards him',
and blew out the hght. I could no longer see the
marvellous sculpture. And this child appeared to
figure to me the genius . of Death, which puts an
end to life. I have kept that precious picture in
my heart."
He paused, then went on: "If I may speak of
myself a httle, I will tell you that I have oscillated
all my hfe between the two great tendencies of
sculpture, between , the' conception of. Phidias and
that of Michael Angelo. '
" I began by following the. antique, but when
I went to Italy I was carried away by the great
Florentine master, and my work has certainly : felt
the effects of this passion.
¦ " Since then, especially more of late years, I have
returned to the antique. 222

La Pieta
By Michael Angelo

AT THE LOUVRE
" The favorite themes of Michael Angelo, the
depths of the human soul, the sanctity of effort and
\of suffering, have an austere grandeur. But I do
lot feel his contempt of hfe. Earthly activity,
iperfect as it may be, is still beautiful and good.
jet us love life for the very effort which it exacts.
" As for me, I ceaselessly endeavor to render
my outlook on nature ever more calm, more just.
We should strive to attain serenity. Enough of
Christian anxiety, in the face of the great mystery,
will always remain in us all."

223

CHAPTER XII
ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
By Rodin
Photogravure reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Aft

Sa/?y<4S/M /:?/£ fit, tf>t , '//egf^/tsA first ,///lfJ*,mst.> vf'^/i/

CHAPTER XII
ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST

THE day before the vernissage (varnishing
day), I met Auguste Rodin at the Salon
de la Societe Nationale in Paris. He was accom
panied by two of his pupils, themselves pastmasters:
the sculptor Bourdelle, who was this year exhibit
ing a fierce Hercules piercing the Stymphalian
birds with his arrows, and Despiau, who models
exquisitely clever busts.
All three had stopped before a figure of the god
Pan, which Bourdelle had whimsically carved in
the hkeness of Rodin, and the creator of the work
was excusing himself for the two small horns
which he had set upon the master's forehead.
227

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
" You had to do it," Rodin replied, laughing,
"because you are representing Pan. Michael
Angelo gave just such horns to his Moses. They
are the emblem of omnipotence and omniscience,
and I assure you that I am flattered to have been
so favored by your attentions."
As it was now noon, Rodin invited us all three
to lunch with him somewhere in the neighborhood.
We passed out into the Avenue des Champs
Elysees, where beneath the crude young green of
the chestnut-trees the inotors and carriages slipped
by in shining files, all the brilliance of Parisian life
flashing here from its brightest and most fascinat
ing, setting.
"Where are we going to lunch? " Bourdelle
asked, pausing with comical anxiety; " In the big
restaurants about here we shall be waited upon by
solemn men-servants in dress-coats, which I cannot
bear. They frighten nie. I advise some quiet httle
restaurant where the cabbies go."
" The food is really better there than in these
228

B^^l^^^flHHHNH

r\i' II i.'

La France
By Rodin
Presented to the people of the United States of America by the French nation for the base
of the Champlain Monument at Crown Point

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
gorgeous places," Despiau declared. " Here the
food is too sophisticated."
He had expressed Bourdelle's secret thought;
for Bourdelle, in spite of his pretended modesty,
is a gourmand.
Rodin agreeing, allowed them to lead him to a
httle eating-house hidden in a side-street off the
Champs Elysees, where we chose a quiet corner
and installed ourselves comfortably.
Despiau, who has a hvely disposition, began
teasing Bourdelle. " Help yourself, Bourdelle,"
he said, passing him a dish, " though you know
you don't deserve to be fed, because you are an
artist — that is to say, of no use to any one."
" I pardon you this impertinence," Bourdelle
answered, " because you take half for yourself."
He began gayly, but ended in a momentary crisis
of pessimism, as he added: "But I won't contra
dict you. It is true that we are good for nothing.
When I think of my father, who was a stone
cutter, I say to myself, ' His work was necessary
229

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
to society. " He . prepared the;, building materials
for men's houses.' I can. see him now* gopcLold
man, conscientiously sawing 0 his blocks' of tfree-
storie, winter arid summer, in the . open workshop.
His was a rugged type such as we do not see now
adays. But I — but we — what service : do: . we
render to our kind? We are jugglers, mounte
banks, dreamers, who . amuse the people in the
market-place. They scarcely , deign to take an
interest in our efforts. Few people are .capable of
understanding them. And I do not know, whether
we really deserve their good- will, for the world
could very well get on without us."

II
- ¦ ¦ 'i e
It; was Rodin who atiswered. " I do not beheve
that our friend Bourdelle means a word .Of what
he says. As for me, my opinion is entirely, opposed
\ to his. I believe that artists are, the most useful
, of men." 230

The Broken Lily
By Rodin

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
Bourdelle laughed. " You are blinded by love
of your profession."
" Not at all, for my opinion rests on very sound
reasons, which I will tell you. But first have some
of this wine which the patron recommends. It will
put you in a better frame of mind to listen to me."
When he had poured it out for us, he resumed:
" To begin with — have you reflected that in mod
ern society artists, I mean true artists, are about
the only men who take any pleasure in their
work? "
" It is certain that work is all our joy, all our
hfe," Bourdelle cried, " but that does not mean
that — "
"Wait! It seems to me that what is most lack
ing in our contemporaries is love of their profes
sion. They only accomphsh their tasks grudgingly.
They would willingly strike. It is so from the top
to the bottom of the social ladder. The politician
sees in his office only the material advantages which
he can gain from it, and he does not seem to know
231

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
the pride which the old statesmen felt in the skilful
direction of the affairs of their country.
" The manufacturer, instead of upholding the
honor of his brand, strives only to make as much
money as he can by adulterating his products.
The workman, feehng a more or less legitimate
hostility for his employer, slights his work. Almost
all the men of our day seem to regard work as a
frightful necessity, as a cursed drudgery, while it
ought to be considered as our happiness and our
excuse for hving.
" You must not think that it has always been so.
Most of the objects which remain to us from the
old days, furniture, utensils, stuffs, show a great
conscientiousness in those who made them.
" Man likes to work well, quite as much as to
work badly. I even beheve that it is more agree
able to him, more natural to him, that he prefers
to work well. But he listens sometimes to good,
sometimes to bad advice, and gives preference to
the bad. 232

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
" And yet, how much happier humanity would
be if work, instead of a means to existence, were its
end! But, in order that this marvellous change
may come about, all mankind must follow the
example of the artist, or, better yet, become artists
themselves; for the word artist, in its widest ac
ceptation, means to me the man who takes pleasure
in what he does. So it would be desirable were
there artists in all trades — artist carpenters, happy
in skilfully raising beam and mortice — artist
masons, spreading the plaster with pleasure — artist
carters, proud of caring for their horses and of
not running over those in the street. Is it not true
that that would constitute an admirable society?
"You see, then, that artists set an example to
the rest of the world which might be marvellously
fruitful." "Well argued," cried Despiau; "I take back
what I said, Bourdelle. I acknowledge that you
deserve your food. Do take a httle more
asparagus." 233

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
III
"Ah, Master!" I said, "you doubtless have the
gift of persuasion. But, after all, what is the
good of proving the usefulness of artists? Cer
tainly, as you have shown us, their passion for work
might set a good example. But is not the work
which they do at the bottom useless, and is it not
that precisely which gives it value in our eyes?"
" What do you mean? "
" I mean, that happily works of art do not
count among useful things, that is to say, amongst
those that serve to feed us, to clothe us, to shelter
us — in a word, to satisfy our bodily needs. On
the contrary, they tear us from the slavery of prac
tical life and open before us an enchanted land of
contemplation and of dreams."
"The point is, my dear friend, that we are
usually mistaken in what is useful and what is
not," Rodin • answered. " I admit that . we must
call useful all that ministers to the necessities of
234

Ceres
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
our material hfe. But to-day, besides that, riches
are also considered useful, though their display
only arouses vanity and excites envy; these riches
are not only useless, but cumbersome.
/ "As for me, I call useful all that gives us hap-
Ipiness. Well, there is nothing in the world that
makes us happier than contemplation and dreams.
We forget this too much in our day. The man
who, with just a sufficiency, wisely enjoys the
numberless wonders which meet his eyes and mind
at every turn — who rejoices in the beauty and
vigor of the youth about him; who sees in the
animals, those wonderful hving machines, all their
supple and nervous movements and the play of
their muscles; who finds delight in the valleys
and upon the hillsides where the spring spends
itself in green and flowery festival, in waves of
incense, in the murmur of bees, in rustling wings
and songs of love; who feels an ecstasy as he
watches the silver ripples, which seem to smile as
they chase each other upon the surface of the water;
235

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
who can, with renewed enthusiasm, each day watch
Apollo, the golden god, disperse the clouds which
Earth wraps closely around her; the. man who can
find joy in all this walks the earth a god. .
"What mortal is more fortunate than he?
And since it is art which teaches us, which aids us
to appreciate these pleasures, who will deny that
it is infinitely useful to us? It is not only a ques
tion of intellectual pleasures, however, but of much
Imore. Art shows man his raison d'Hre. It
reveals to him the meaning of hfe, it enlightens him
upon his destiny, and consequently points' him on
'his way. When Titian painted that marvellously
aristocratic society, where each person carries writ
ten in his face, imprinted in his gestures and noted
in his costume, the pride of intellect, of authority
and of wealth, he set before the patricians of
Venice the ideal which they wished to realize.
When POussin ¦; composed his clear, majestic,
orderly laridscapes, where Reason seems to reign;
when Puget swelled the muscles of his heroes;
236

The Torn Glove
By Titian

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
when Watteau sheltered his charming yet melan
choly lovers beneath mysterious shades; when
Houdon caused Voltaire to smile, and Diana, the
huntress, to run so hghtly; when Rude, in carving
the Marseillaise, called old men and children to
his country's aid — these great French masters
polished in turn some of the facets of our national
soul; this one, order; this one, energy; this one,
elegance; this one, wit; this one, heroism; and all,
the joy of hfe and of free action, and they kept
ahve in their compatriots the distinctive quahties
of our race.
" Take the greatest artist of our time, Puvis de
Chavannes — did he not strive to shed upon us the
serenity to which we all aspire? Are there not
wonderful lessons for us in his sublime landscapes,
where holy Nature seems to cradle upon her bosom
a loving, wise, august, simple humanity? Help for
the weak, love of work, self-denial, respect for
high thought, this incomparable genius has ex
pressed it all! It is a marvellous hght upon our
237

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
epoch. It is enough to look upon one Of his mas
terpieces, his Sainte Genevieve in the Pantheon, his
Holy Wood (Bois SacrS) in the Sorbonne, or his
magnificent Homage to Victor Hugo (Hommage
a Victor Hugo) on the stairway of the Hotel de
Ville in Paris, to feel oneself capable of noble
deeds. "Artists and thinkers are hke lyres, infinitely
dehcate and sonorous, whose vibrations, awakened
by the circumstances of each epoch, are prolonged
to the ears of all other mortals.
" Without doubt, very fine works of art are ap
preciated only by a limited number; and even in
galleries and public squares they are looked at only
by a few. But, nevertheless, the thoughts they
embody end by filtering through to the crowd.
Below the men of genius there are other artists of
less scope, who borrow and popularize the concep
tions of the masters : writers are influenced by
painters, painters by writers; there is a continual
exchange of thought between all the brains of a
238

Victor Hugo Offering his Lyre to the City of Paris
By Puvis de Chavannes

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
generation — the journalists, the popular novelists,
the illustrators, the makers of pictures bring within
the reach of the multitude the truths discovered by
the powerful intellects of the day. It is hke a
spiritual stream, hke a spring pouring forth in
many cascades, which finally meet to form the
great moving river which represents the mentality
of an era.
" And it should not be said, as it is sometimes,
that artists only reflect the feeling of their sur-
\roundings. Even this would be much; for it is
well to hold up a mirror in which other men may
see themselves, and so to aid them to self-knowl
edge. But artists do more. Certainly they draw
largely from the common fund amassed by tradi
tion, but they also increase this treasure. They are
ruly inventors and guides.
" In order to convince oneself of this, it is enough
to observe that most of the masters preceded, and
sometimes by a long period, the time when their
works won recognition. Poussin painted a number
239

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
of masterpieces under Louis XIII. whose regular
nobihty foretold the character Of, the following
reign; Watteau,. whose nonchalant grace would
seem to have .presided over all the reign of Louis
XV., did riot hve under that King, -but under
Louis XIV., and died un^er" the Regent; Chardin
and Greuze, who,' in celebrating the bourgeois
home, would seem to have announced a democratic
society, hved under a monarchy; Prudhon, mysti
cal, sweet and weary, claimed, in the midst of
strident imperial fanfaresj the right to love, to
meditate, to dream, arid he affirmed it' as the
forerunrier of the romantics. Nearer to us, Cour-
bet and Millet, under the Second Empire, pictured
the sorrows and the dignity of the people, who
since then,, under the Third Repubhc, have won
-•'¦ I
so preponderant a place iri society.
| " I do ijot say that these artists determined these
great currents, I only say that they unconsciously
| contributed to form them; I say that they made
• part of the intellectual elite who created these ten-
MO

Mother and Babe
By Rodin

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
dencies. And it goes without saying that this
ehte is not composed of artists only, but also of
writers, philosophers, novehsts and pubhcists.
" What still further proves that . the masters
bring new ideas and tendencies to their genera
tions is that they have often great trouble in win
ning acknowledgment for them. They sometimes
pass nearly all their lives in striving against
routine. And the more genius they have, the more
chance they run of being long misunderstood.
Corot, Courbet, Millet, Puvis de Chavannes, to
cite no more, were not unanimously acclaimed until
the end of their careers.
" It is impossible to do good to mankind with
impunity. But, at least, the masters of art, by
their determination to enrich the human soul, have
deserved that their names should be held sacred
after their deaths.
" There, my friends, is what I wished to say to
you upon the usefulness of artists."

241

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
IV
I declared that I was convinced.
" I only want to be," said Bourdelle, " for1 I
adore my work, and my grumbling was , doubtless
the effect of a passing. mood; or, perhaps, anxious
to hear an apology for my profession, I behaved
like a coquette who complains ' of being ugly in
order to provoke a compliment."
. There was silence for several instants, for we
were thinking of what had been said. *
Then, reahzing that Rodin had modestly omitted
himself in indicating the influence of the masters,
I said: " Master, you have yourself exercised an
influence on your epoch, which will certainly be
prolonged to succeeding generations.
In emphasizing so strongly the inner truth,
; rou will have aided in the evolution of our modern
ife.. You' have shown the > immense value which
ach one of us to-day attaches to his thoughts, to
s affections, to his dreams, and often to his wan-
242

t

Sister and Brother
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
dering passions. You have recorded the intoxica
tion of love, maiden reveries, the madness of desire,
the ecstasy of meditation, the transports of hope,
the crises of dejection. You have ceaselessly ex
plored the mysterious domain of the individual
conscience, and you have found it ever more vast.
You have observed that in this era upon which we
have entered, nothing has more importance for us
than our own feelings, our own intimate personal
ity. You have seen that each one of us, the man of
thought, the man of action, the mother, the young girl,
the lover, places the centre of the universe in his own
soul. And this disposition, of which we were our
selves almost unconscious, you have revealed to us.
| " Following upon Victor Hugo, who, celebrat
ing in his poetry the joys and the sorrows of pri
vate existence, sang the mother rocking the cradle,
f;he father at the grave of his child, the lover ab
sorbed in happy memories, you have expressed in
sculpture the deepest, most secret emotions of the
soul.

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
" And there is no doubt but that this powerful
wave of individuahsm which is passing over the old
society will modify it httle by little. There is no
doubt but that, thanks to the efforts of the great
artists and the great thinkers, who ask each one of
us to consider himself as an end sufficient unto
himself, and to hve according to the dictates of his
own heart, humanity will end by sweeping aside
all the tyrannies which still oppress the individual
and will suppress the social inequahties which sub
ject one to another, the poor to the rich, the woman
to the man, the weak to the strong.
"You, yourself, by the sincerity of your art,
will have worked towards the coming of this new
order." But Rodin answered with a smile :
" Your great friendship accords me too large a
place among the champions of modern thought.,
It is true, at least, that I have striven to be of
use by formulating as clearly as I could my vision
of people and of things." 244

Bust of Mr. Thomas Fortune Ryan
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
In a moment he went on:
" If I have insisted on our usefulness, and if I
still insist upon it, it is because this consideration
alone can recall to us the sympathy which is our
due in the world in which we are living. To-day,
every one is engrossed by self-interest; but I
would like to see this practical society convinced
that it is at least as much to its advantage to
honor the artist as to honor the manufacturer and
the engineer."

245

TRANSLATIONS

V

TRANSLATIONS Page 37
Ah! proud and traitorous old age!
Why have you so soon brought me low? Why
do you hold me so that I cannot strike and with
the stroke end my sorrow?
Pages 38 and 39
When I think wearily on what I was, of what I
am, when I see how changed I am — poor, dried-up,
thin — I am enraged! Where is my white fore
head — my golden hair — my beautiful shoulders,
all in me made for love? This is the end of
human beauty! These short arms, these thin
hands, these humped shoulders. These breasts —
249

TRANSLATIONS
these hips — these limbs — dried and speckled as
sausages ! Pages 44 and 45
Yet one day you will be like this — like this hor
rible contamination — thou star of my eyes, thou
sun of my nature, oh my angel and my passion!
Yes, such will you be, oh Queen of the Graces,
after the last sacraments — when you are laid under
the grass and the flowers, there to crumble among
the bones. Then oh, my beautiful one! tell the
worms, when they devour you with kisses, that in
spite of them, in spite of all, I have kept the form
and the divine essence of my love who has perished.
Page 118
Flesh of the woman, ideal clay; oh sublime pen
etration of the spirit in the slime; matter, where
the soul shines through its shroud; clay, where one
sees the fingers of the divine sculptor; august
250

TRANSLATIONS
dust, which draws kisses, and the heart of man; so
holy that one does not know — so entirely is love
the conqueror, so entirely is the soul drawn —
whether this passion is not a divine thought; so
holy that one cannot, in the hour when the senses
are on fire, hold beauty without embracing God!
Page 181
We never see but one side of things — the other
is, plunged in night and mystery. Man suffers the
effect without knowing the cause. All that he sees
is short, useless, and fleeting.
Page 186
As when, in taking flight, the bird bends the
branch, so his soul had bruised his body.

251

INDEX

INDEX

Age d' Airain, Rodin's, 65, 67,
71,73
Andrea del Sarto, 105, 106
Arc de Triomphe, 83
Aristotle, 216
Art, realism in, 25-34; character
in, 37-50; movement in, 65-
89; drawing and color in, 93-
107; thought in, 151-171;
mystery in, 175-188
Art, modern, Rodin's views on, 6
Artist, usefulness of, 227-245
Baiser, Rodin's, 186
Balzac, Rodin's, 66, 146, 186
Baptistery, Florence, 40
Barye, 67
Bazire, 135, 138
Beaudelaire, 44
Beauty of women, 113-118
Belle Heaulmiere, Rodin's, 37-42
Berthelot, Rodin's bust of, 146
Biron, 1' H6tel de, 111
Bois Sacrf, Chavannes', 238
Bourdelle, 227-242
Bourgeois de Calais, Rodin's, 66,
85, 144, 185
British Museum, 212
Brongniart children, Houdon's
bust of, 122

Burghers of Calais. See Bourgeois
de Calais
Busts, Rodin's, 134-148, 186
Busts, Rodin's views on, 121-148
Byron, Lord, 158
Calais, 88
Caliari, 79
Cambodian dancers, 116
Captives, Michael Angelo's, 218
Carpeaux, 67, 159
Centauress, Rodin's, 163
Chantilly, 201
Character in nature, 45
Chardin, 240
Charles V, Titian's, 131
Chavannes, Puvis de, 237, 238,
241; Rodin's bust of, 143
Children of Edward, Delavigne's.
See Enfants d' Edouard
Claude Lorraine, 106
Cnidian Venus, 206
Color, Rodin's views on, 96-107
Color in sculpture, 60
Commander, the, 73
Concert ChampUre, Giorgione's,
182
Confessions, Rousseau's, 126
Constant, 58
Corneille, 85

255

INDEX

Corot, 166, 179, 241 Cythera, Watteau's. See Em-
Correggio, 105, 106 barquement, etc.
Courbet, 240, 241 Embarquement pour Cyth&re, Wat-
Course d' Epsom, Gericault's, 76 teau's, 80, 84
Cuyp, 166 Enfants d' Edouard, Delavigne's,
157
Dalou, 140-142; Rodin's bust of, Epsom Races. See Course d'
140 Epsom
Dance, Carpeaux's, 67 Europa, 79
Dante, 69
Daughter of Icarus, Rodin's. See Falguiere, Rodin's bust of, 145-
Fille d' Icare 146
David, 104 Fille d' Icare, Rodin's, 162
Delacroix, 103, 158 Flesh, the, 56, 57
Delaroche, 157 France, Anatole, 203-207
Delavigne, Casimir, 157, 158 Francis I, Titian's, 131
Delia Robbia. See Luca delta Franklin, Houdon's bust of, 122,
Robbia 128
Dep6t des Marbres, 25, 111
Despiau, 227, 2^9, 233 Gericault, 76, 77
Diadumenes, 212 t ... Ghirlandajo, 202
Diana, Houdon's, 115, 237 Giorgione, 182
Divine Comedy, 160 Gleaners, Millet's, 182
Don Juan's Shipwreck, Dela- Goethe, 180
croix's. See Naufrage de Don Gothic cathedrals, 166
Juan Goujon, Jean, 115, 218
Donatello, 40, 202 Graces, Raphael's, 201
Drawing, Rodin's views on, 93- Greek sculpture, 11, 27, 56, 57,
107 114, 192-196, 212-218
Ducal Palace, Venice, 79 Greuze, 240
Duomo, the, 221
Diirer, Albrecht, 104, 106 Hanako, 116
Henner, 123 ,
Egyptian sculpture, 180 Hercules, Bourdelle's, 227
Embarkation for the Island of Hercules, statue of, 205
256

INDEX

Holbein, 104, 106 Man with the Hoe, Millet's, 44
Holy Wood. See Bois SacrS Marechal Ney, Rude's, 67, 69
Hommage d, Victor Hugo, Cha- Marivaux, 84
vannes', 238 Marseillaise, La (newspaper), 135
Homme qui marche, Rodin's, 66 Marseillaise, Rude's, 67, 83, 84,
Houdon, his busts, 115, 121, 122, 85, 237
125-129, 147, 148, 237 Meditation. See Penseur
Houdon, Mme., Houdon's bust Meudon, 5, 37, 111, 134, 175
of, 122 Michael Angelo, 97, 178; his
Hugo, Victor, 118, 135-138, 181, work expounded by Rodin, 196-
243 202, 218-223
Hugo, Rodin's bust of, 135, 136, Millet, Francois, 43, 179, 182,

137, 138, 156
Illusion, Rodin's, 162
Ingres, 104
V Intransigeant, 135
Iron Age. See Age d' Airain
Issy, 13
Italians, the modern, 114

240,241
Mirabeau, Houdon's bust of, 122,
127
Modelling, 53-61, 66
Models, 26
Moses, Michael Angelo's, 228
Movement in art, 65-89
Mystery in art, 175-188

Judgment of Paris, Watteau's, Nature, as seen by Rodin, 30-34,
37-50
Naufrage de Don Juan, Dela
croix's, 158
Nude, the, 27

115
Laurens, Jean-Paul, Rodin's bust
of, 144
Literature, its relation to art, 153-
161
Louvre, the, 76, 79, 101, 201, 211-
223
Luca della Robbia, 178
Lucretius, 207
Luxembourg, Musee du, 41, 65,
140, 144, 161, 187
Lysippus, 199, 205

Ovid, 68
Palais Royal, 156
Pan, Bourdelle's, 227
Pantheon, the, 144, 238
Paris, 15, 111, 238
Parnassus, 101
Parthenon, the, 183

257

INDEX

Paul III, Titian's, 131
Pensee, Rodin's, 161
Penseur, Rodin's, 151-152, 185
Periboetos, torso of, 213
Phidias, 114, 165, 218, 222; his
work expounded by Rodin, 192-
196
Philip IV, Velasquez's, 131
Photographs, instantaneous, 73,
74, 75, 76
PiSta, Michael Angelo's, 222
Pilon, Germain, 218
Pisanello, 131
Polycletus, 199, 212
Pont de 1' Alma, 5
Portraits, 123-125, 129-134
Pottery, 99
Poussin, 236, 239
Praxiteles, 199, 206, 213
Prudhon, 240
Puget, 236
Pygmalion, Rodin's, 163, 164
Racine, 45
Raphael, 97, 101, 102, 103, 104,
105, 106, 107, 200
Realism in art, 25-34
Rembrandt, 101, 102, 103, 105,
106, 107, 167, 168, 187
Robbia, della. See Luca della
Robbia
Rochefort, Henri, 138, 139
Rochefort, Rodin's bust of, 138,
139
Rodin, Auguste, his home at Val-

Fleury, 5; at the Dep6t des
Marbres, 25; his method of
work, 26-34; at "1' H6tel de
Biron," 111; his religion, 175-
177; his views on modern art,
6; on nature, 30-34, 37-50;
on modelling, 53-61; on draw
ing and color, 93-107; on
beauty of women, 111-118; on
busts and portraits, 121-148;
on thought in art, 151-171; on
mystery in art, 175-188; on
Phidias and Michael Angelo,
191-207, 218-223; on useful
ness of artists, 227-245
Rousseau, Houdon's bust of, 125
Rousseau, Theodore, 166
Rubens, 98, 105, 106
Rude, 67, 69, 83, 85, 237
Ruysdael, 166
Sainte Genevieve, Chavannes', 238
Saint George, 101
Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Rodin's, 65,
67, 71, 72, 73, 74, 185
Saint John, Rodin's. See Saint-
Jean-Baptiste
Sainte Magdalene, Donatello's, 40
Saint-Pierre, Eustache de, 86,
88
Santisimo Christo, Chapel del,
Burgos, 175
Sanzio, 101
Scopas, 199
Scidpture, Egyptian, 180

258

INDEX

Sculpture, Greek, 11, 27, 56, 57,
114, 192-196, 212-218
Sebastian, Velasquez's, 43
Shakespeare, 45
Siena, 201
Societe des Gens de Lettres,
146
Sorbonne, the, 238
South Kensington, 101
Stained-glass, 98
Thiers, 127
Three Fates, 183
Titian, 98, 131, 167, 168
Truth in art, 31, 45
Turner, 106
Ugliness in nature, 42
Ugolin, Rodin's, 159

Val-Fleury, Rodin's home at, 5
Vatican, the, 101
Velasquez, 43, 105, 106, 131
Venus, the Cnidian, 206
Venus of the Capitol, 206
Venus di Medici, 54, 206
Venus of Milo, 213
Veronese, 79, 98
Victory of Samothrace, 215
Villain, 136
Villon, 37
Vinci, Leonardo da, 182
Voltaire, Houdon's bust of, 121,
122, 126, 237
Washington, Houdon's bust of,
122
Watteau, 80, 81, 85, 115, 237, 240
Women, beauty of, 113-118

259