L’Enfant Prodigue - The Prodigal Son Auguste Rodin’s sculpture “The Prodigal Son” is a vivid new interpretation of a biblical story that has inspired artists throughout the ages and up to the present day. The parable of the prodigal son is found in the New Testament, Luke 15:11. A man had two sons. The younger of the two asks his father for his share of their inheritance, which the father grants him. Shortly thereafter, he leaves his father’s house and has soon squandered what he was given. In deepest need, he has no choice but to return to his father and ask his forgiveness. The parable has many meanings, but in simple terms it is the story of how man can lose everything through carelessness but if he returns to God (his father’s house) he will find charitable redemption. The great drama surrounding the moment of return has inspired many artists, and both Rembrandt and Brancusi have portrayed the scene. There are also countless paintings and illustrations of the return of the prodigal son. Auguste Rodin’s “Prodigal Son” is a masterly sculptural scene in bronze: the deep despair of the son, his tense, tormented body forming an arc rising from the heavy mass, seemingly in an endless movement. The dramatic subject, the return of the prodigal son, is usually portrayed with both father and son present, but Auguste Rodin’s sculpture features only the son and his anguish. It is a remarkably vivid and slightly impressionist sculpture, where the presence of the father is merely implied. The figure reaches with his tortured arms towards the sky, beseeching his father (God) for mercy. Auguste Rodin achieves a significantly expressive mood by making the hands somewhat archaic and over-dimensioned, in contrast with the slightly unbalanced body. By diverging from the usual portrayal, Rodin created a sculpture which is a more universal expression of despair, but its lively plasticity also radiates great energy and passion. The way the figure seems to be rising from a boulder is typical of Auguste Rodin, who used his hands to shape “dead matter” into a process full of life, where the fundamental element is dynamic rather than static. “Everything can be found in nature, the artist who follows nature will achieve everything. It is simply a matter of seeing. Undoubtedly, an untalented person who copies nature will create a bad work of art because he sees without seeing – even if he copies every detail. But the artist calling is not for the ungifted, no advice in the world can give them talent! When Auguste Rodin worked, he did not place the model in any particular pose but let him or her stand still or walk around the studio together with other models, while he watched their movements and expressions. When a model made a movement Rodin liked, he commanded them to hold the pose while he quickly shaped it in clay. These sketches were often cast exactly as they were after the first session, with finger marks and small blobs of clay, giving the surface a nervous, vivid quality. This impressionistic technique was an entirely conscious choice by Rodin when he modelled his sculptures. His works are never smooth but have a lively and bold style. Auguste Rodin was one of the first sculptors to champion the aesthetic value of the unfinished work. This is closely related to Impressionist ideals in painting. It took some time, however, for the world and the art scene to accept this approach to in image and form. To earn his living, Rodin was forced to concede to the prevailing order, and worked together with other generally recognised sculptors on public commissions. The city of Paris was undergoing great changes in the late-19th century, and the demand for decorative Neo-Baroque sculptures seemed insatiable. Many of Auguste Rodin’s most famous works, including “The Prodigal Son” originate in a particular assignment. In 1889, Auguste Rodin was finally given the opportunity to design the portal of Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. The concept for the image, “The Gates of Hell” – inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Inferno – is now regarded as a key work in Auguste Rodin’s entire oeuvre. The portal was not carried out as planned, but it has been replicated later, according to Rodin’s sketches, and can be seen at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Kunsthaus Zürich, and at Stanford University in California. In the 1870s, Rodin had travelled extensively in Italy and France and had been deeply impressed by the works of Michelangelo and Donatello, and also by Gothic sculptures. These influences are prominent in both the sketches and the posthumous Gates of Hell. Like a Mediaeval ornamental stonemason, Rodin made many smaller sculptures, which he later developed into independent works. The Gates of Hell is not a narrative image of “hell”; instead, Rodin attempted to model a state of mind. The figures were inspired by Greco-Roman mythology, the Bible and contemporary Paris. Common to them all is their misery. The famous sculpture “The Thinker”, which is also among the works in this auction, originated in this work and forms a central figure in the portal. The original for “The Prodigal Son”, again, was part of The Gates of Hell, and was inspired by the so-called Ugolini Group. One of the youths in the group provided the face and torso for “The Prodigal Son”. This approach is typical of how Auguste Rodin “recycled” his figures by working on their features and using them in new constellations. Perpetual movement, transformation of objects and, above all, the autonomy of fragments, were his guiding principles. To recreate movement in nature, the immediate tension and life of muscles, the pulse of blood and nerves under translucent skin, to capture that which is changing constantly and taking place in the human body. "The Prodigal Son” is an astonishing sculpture, with a strong emotional dynamic that testifies to Auguste Rodin’s incredible understanding of materials and the human psyche.