Auguste Rodin

“ 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. ”

“ By Rodin
163Now my attention was attracted by a third 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 opposition of the poor monster’s two natures—an image of the soul, whose heavenly impulses rest miserably captive to the bodily clay. ”

“ But to-day, mankind believes itself able to do without Art. It does not wish to meditate, to contemplate, to dream; it wishes to enjoy physically. The heights and the depths of truth are indifferent to it; it is content to satisfy its bodily appetites. 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 creates. 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. ”

“ His ecstasy is terrifying at times, but it is still happiness, because it is the continual adoration of truth.
50“When he sees beings everywhere destroying each other; when he sees all youth fading, all strength failing, 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.” ”

“ 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 restriction 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. ”

“ “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 animates them—more than the life, the force that fashioned them and communicated to them, it may be, grace or strength, or amorous charm, or indomitable will.
“In the works of Michael Angelo, the creative force seems to rumble; in those of Luca della Robbia it smiles divinely. ”

“ 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 transport the soul into I know not what valley of dreams and faëry. So, all drawing and all harmony of colors offer a meaning without which they would have no beauty. ”

“ It is the head of a woman, very young, very fine, with features of miraculous subtlety and delicacy. Her head is bent and aureoled with a reverie 162which makes it appear almost immaterial. The edges of 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 expands within the breast of inert matter, and illumines it with the reflection of her splendor—but she vainly endeavors to escape from the heavy shackles of reality. ”

“ 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 necessary 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 world. ”

“ Does not the sculptor perform his act of adoration 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? ”

“ Rodin said, “the thought, I believe, is easily read. They awaken the imagination of the spectators without any outside help. And yet, far from confining it in narrow limits, they give it rein to roam at will. That is, according to me, the rôle of art. The form which it creates ought only to furnish a pretext for 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. ”

“ “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 96they recall the posturings of the Italian 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. ”

“ TO THE ARTIST ALL IN NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL In Rodin’s great atelier 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 Heaulmière.
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. ”

“ Art shows man his raison d’être. It reveals to him the meaning of life, it enlightens him upon his destiny, and consequently points him on his way. When Titian painted that marvellously aristocratic society, where each person carries written 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 landscapes, where Reason seems to reign; when Puget swelled the muscles of his heroes ”

“ 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 expressed it all! ”

“ As paradoxical as it may seem, a great sculptor is as much a colorist 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 light with the modesty of shadow, that his sculptures please one as much as the most charming etchings. ”

“ Admirable work it is, in which one sees one side of our contemporary 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 celebrated polemic consented to pose to me. He had such a joyous spirit that it was an enchantment to listen to him, but he could not keep still for a single instant. He reproached me pleasantly for having too much professional conscience. He said laughingly that I spent one sitting in adding a lump of clay to the model and the next in taking it away. ”

“ 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 contractions 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 features that are regular and healthy. ”

“ It is because in all their presentment of life, 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. ”

“ Page 118 Flesh of the woman, ideal clay; oh sublime penetration 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 251dust, 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! ”

“ When he softens the grimace of pain, the shapelessness of age, the hideousness of perversion, when he arranges nature—veiling, disguising, tempering it to please the ignorant public—then he is creating ugliness because he fears the truth. ”

“ I have never seen any one work so fast: evidently 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 profession, 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 statuette grew into life. ”