The Rodin Museum

sommaire juin Les Halles Anniversary Euro May 26: .715 La Table de Claire Euro April 27: .767 In the Vincennes-ity Rain Days: 12 Osmothèque PARIS High Temp: 73°F/23°C Galerie Slomka Low Temp: 55°F/13°C A Model Painter notes Nat’l Holidays: June 1 June 2009 P Volume 18 Issue 5 Chez Rodin By Mary McAuliffe He never lived here, but the Hôtel Biron, now the Musée Rodin, was the artist’s favorite studio e was born into poverty in the Rue a calling. He would be a sculptor. But many learning to read with comprehension and Mouffetard quarter of Paris but ended years would lie between this epiphany and his gravitating towards the passionate poetry of in triumph at the Hôtel Biron. This first real success. Hugo and Lamartine. Within this same time Hbeautiful mansion, now the Musée Rodin, has At first he immersed himself in the Louvre, frame, he encountered and began to live with become permanently linked with his name. In filling his sketchbook with drawings, and took a young woman named Rose Beuret, who gave between lay a saga of struggle and persever- live-model classes. Encouraged by his progress, birth to his son, Auguste. Rodin refused to ance, for this particular genius did not emerge he then applied for admission to the Ecole des legitimize the boy—the first of many hardships quickly from anonymity. Beaux-Arts, which rejected him—not once, and indignities that Rose would suffer during Rue de l’Arbalète (5th), the tiny street her 52 years as the sculptor’s faithful where Auguste Rodin was born in 1840, helpmeet. may look charming now, but then it was During the siege of Paris and the a slum—originally part of a village sur- Commune uprising, Rose stayed in rounding the old church of Saint-Médard Paris, caring for Rodin’s parents as well and the old Roman road to Orléans. It as her son, while Rodin found work in was, and still is, a bustling place, the sort Brussels, where he remained for several of environment that would quicken the years. Towards the end of his stay, when imagination of an intelligent child. But as he was 35, he reached a major turning a youngster, Rodin showed no particular point in his career: at long last he cracked aptitude for anything. The third child open the gates of the hidebound Salon. and only son of a lowly office-worker at After having been flatly rejected by the the Préfecture de Police, Rodin seemed Salon several years earlier, he submitted distinctly unpromising. Perhaps, though, the same bust, this time in marble, and his inability to read, write or do sums was was accepted. His sculpture was not the simply a sign of his complete indifference sort of classical subject that the Salon to those subjects. From an early age, the preferred, but it unquestionably possessed only thing that genuinely interested him was but three times. Already, Rodin was showing a certain classical dignity, although its model drawing. far too much independence for the classically had been a local drifter with a broken nose. He wanted to draw, and he wanted to entrenched academics at the Beaux-Arts; they The bust was titled simply that—“The Man become an artist. Finally, at a loss for any found his emerging naturalism completely out with the Broken Nose.” other alternative, his despairing father at of step with their traditionalism. It would have Although Rodin did not yet know it, his last agreed to send him to the Free School been enough to crush a less determined spirit, most difficult days were now behind him. Cer- of Design (Ecole Gratuite de Dessin), then but Rodin refused to give up. He spent the next tainly, he was ready to return to Paris. But first located in the former School of Surgery at 5 20 years supporting himself—just barely—in he embarked on a long-desired trip to Italy, Rue de l’Ecole-de-Médecine (6th). There, this the decorating end of the building trades, walking a good portion of the way. Although ungainly lad with carrot-colored hair labored where he concentrated on adding to his impres- he had many goals in mind, Michelangelo to make his mark. He quickly learned that the sively growing technique. One wonders how in particular was pulling him southward. school’s goal was to produce craftsmen—highly many public monuments and buildings were Rodin wanted to see his work in real life, not skilled young men prepared to join the ranks repaired by or given standardized ornaments simply in pictures, and once in Florence, he of Parisian artisans who specialized in one of from Rodin during these hardscrabble years. wrote Rose that he was hard at work studying the decorative arts. Those training to become It is believed that he sculpted the decorative Michelangelo, trying to understand him. “I ornamental carvers could take classes in sculp- motifs on the façade of the sumptuous Hôtel believe,” he told Rose, “that the great magician turing, and it was in such a class that Rodin, de Paiva (25 Avenue des Champs-Elysées) as is revealing a few of his secrets to me....” after mastering the basic drawing classes, well as the statue of d’Alembert on the recon- Before his Italian trip he had begun work first encountered modeling clay. “I felt as if structed Hôtel de Ville, wedged among 109 on a full-size sculpture of a man, using a Bel- I were ascending into heaven,” he later wrote, similar statues. gian soldier as his model. Upon his return, he describing how he “grasped the whole thing in It was during these years that Rodin began finished the work and showed it at a Belgian a flash.” It was more than a revelation—it was to fill in the sizable gaps in his education, exhibition, where it (continued on page 7) Chez Rodin, continued from page 1 Claudel and Rodin worked together and rented the large ground-floor rooms facing the made passionate love at various Left-Bank garden. He never lived here, but this was his aroused admiration as well as suspicion. How retreats. These included the studios that the favorite studio, where he worked and received could anyone, his critics whispered, create such government provided Rodin at its Dépôt des visitors almost daily. And always, he loved to a sculpture without casting it from life—that Marbres, where he labored for years on his finish his day in the garden, drinking in its is, making it from plaster casts of the model. monumental “The Gates of Hell”—a huge luxuriant stillness. Rodin was deeply disturbed by this charge, and overwhelmingly intricate structure that But the property was too valuable to let which called his artistic integrity as well as his contained a wealth of individual masterpieces, sit for long, and soon the house was scheduled ability into question. The issue continued to most especially “The Thinker.” The Dépôt, for demolition. Through his connections (and dog him when he subsequently submitted the which occupied the site now inhabited by the he had acquired some good ones), Rodin was statue to the Salon under the title “The Bronze Musée du Quai Branly, is long gone, but Rodin temporarily able to stave off this disaster, but Age.” kept his studios there to the end—even after he at length he realized that the only way to save The Salon’s jury accepted Rodin’s creation, discovered the Hôtel Biron. the Hôtel Biron would be by proposing to but as this vibrant sculpture from an unknown And the Hôtel Biron was unquestionably bequeath all his works and his considerable sculptor started to attract attention, the rumors a remarkable discovery. Rodin learned of it collections to the state, in return for permission that Rodin had cast it “from life” began to in 1908 from the young German poet Rainer to stay there until his death. He would get his circulate once more. This scandal blazed Maria Rilke, who for a time had served as beloved Hôtel Biron, and the world would get throughout artistic circles, and there was a Rodin museum. talk of withdrawing the sculpture from The process was a long one, com- the Salon. At this point, fortunately, plicated by war and a lingering hostility several prominent artists came to Rodin’s toward Rodin’s art, which still shocked a defense, and the tempest subsided. number of people. But in the end, this is Rodin won the battle, and having exactly what happened. And so, as visitors won, he benefited from the ugly contro- today enter this restored mansion through versy that had at first threatened his career. its rose gardens, they have the privilege Whether or not Oscar Wilde was right and pleasure of viewing Rodin’s finest and in observing that the only thing worse most famous works in the setting he so than being talked about was not being loved. talked about, Rodin now found a public There, in Room 1, is “The Man with that was aware of him and his prodigious the Broken Nose.” Ahead, in that mirrored talents. Three years after the controversy, corner room, is “The Age of Bronze.” the French state extended its blessing and Beyond is “The Kiss”—watch people’s eyes purchased a bronze cast of “The Bronze light up as they spot it. And in the center Age” for the Luxembourg gardens. It now room is Rodin’s headless “Walking Man.” stands in Paris’ Musée Rodin. Rodin’s secretary.

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