(Moved from June 1st)

Auguste Rodin influenced the art world of the 19th and 20th century in such a remarkable way that he has been called the father of modern sculpture.  Through his sculpted forms, he expressed the inner struggles of the human mind in the “fin de siècle” era, the end of the 19th century and the beginning of a new world order brought on by a burgeoning of scientific, technologic, psychologic, and geopolitical change.

Rodin was a man of strong emotions and sculpted passionate figures, many of them incomplete fragments of the human body.  Such incomplete sculptures were not studies but finished works that became a Rodin trademark, as did his twisted bodies and screaming or distorted mouths.

From early failure as a student, the shortsighted Rodin trained in an arts school, but failed the sculpture competition for the Grand Ecole three times – perhaps because his naturalistic style did not meet with the institution’s academic style. He worked in a plaster workshop making architectural ornaments, continuing to make a meager living for another 20 years but able to pursue his sculpting on the side.  After serving as a French officer in the Franco-Prussian war, he was able to sculpt The Age of Bronze, which was accepted by the French Salon.  In his mid-thirties, his life as a sculptor was finally being recognized. Despite Rodin’s growing fame, new commissions were not without trouble, such as the controversy over his Burghers of Calais depicting the city’s heroes as dejected victims rather than heroes.  Similarly, Rodin refused to submit a commissioned Honore Balzac sculpture in time and continued to modify it over 7 years.  Yet, he worked to his own vision and left an art legacy for all.    

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