Auguste Rodin is a brilliant French sculptor of the XIX century. Rodin is considered one of the founders of impressionism in sculpture. The most famous creations of Auguste Rodin are the sculptures The Thinker, The Gates of Hell, The Kiss, and The Citizens of Calais.
early years
Francois Auguste Rene Rodin (full name of the sculptor) was born on November 12, 1840 in the city of Paris (France). Auguste grew up in a family very far from art. His father, Jean-Baptiste Rodin, was an ordinary employee in the prefecture. Auguste's mother, Marie Schaeffer, was the second wife of Jean-Baptiste and worked as a maid. The boy had a half-sister, Marie, two years older than him.
From childhood, the boy showed the ability to draw. Auguste always painted something with charcoal on paper or drew with chalk on the pavement. He did not show much interest in studying at school.
Despite the resistance of his father, young Auguste, at the age of 14, entered the École Gratuite de Dessin school of drawing, where he successfully studied from 1854 to 1857. The teacher of Rodin was the then famous artist Horace Lecock de Bois Baudodran.
This teacher used a drawing technique aimed at shaping the visual memory of young artists. When performing the drawing, one should remember the nature, examining it for several minutes, and then draw from memory. Thanks to this skill, the future sculptor could remember and then reproduce the image of nature with the smallest details.
Young Auguste went to the Louvre Museum to copy antique sculptures. He also often visited exhibitions of impressionist artists, drawing close to some of them. In the future, this was reflected in the formation of his work. After graduating, the young man three times tried to enter the School of Fine Arts, but to no avail.
When Rodin turned 21, he had to earn a living on his own to provide for his family, as his father retired, which was not enough for everyone.
Rodin worked as an apprentice, decorator, assistant sculptor. Sometimes he managed to attend courses at the Museum of Natural History, which was taught by the sculptor Antoine Bari.
In 1862, Marie, the beloved sister of Rodin, dies. Her death was a real shock for Auguste, he even decided to quit sculpture and take tonsure. Rodin became a novice in the monastery at the priest Pierre Eymard, who persuaded him to return to worldly life and not to give up art classes. Rodin returned to sculpture and, in gratitude to Pierre Eymard, sculpted his bust in 1863.
Creation
Roden worked a lot and was soon able to buy a workshop, formerly a stable. It was very cold and damp, so many of the master’s creations were not preserved. In 1864, the sculptor sculpted a bust of a local resident, whose name was Bibi. He had a very interesting face with a broken nose. The bust stored in the workshop cracked from severe frosts, but Auguste sent the sculpture to the Paris Salon anyway. Unfortunately, the Man with a Broken Nose was rejected, as he challenged the classic canons of beauty with his disfigured scars and wrinkles on his face. Soon after the Franco-Prussian war broke out, Rodin was drafted into the army, but was commissioned due to poor vision.
In 1864, Auguste moved to Brussels. In Brussels, Rodin created several sculptures: for the exchange building, for private houses, as well as figures for the monument to the burgomaster Loos.
Rodin managed to save up a large sum of money in order to fulfill his dream in 1876 - a trip to Italy. He really wanted to see firsthand the works of the great Italian masters of the Renaissance. According to Auguste Rodin, Michelangelo's sculptures made a huge impression on him. Returning to France after a year and a half, Rodin, inspired by the works of the great Florentine, sculpted the sculpture "Bronze Age".
In 1880, Auguste Rodin was commissioned to fulfill the state order. He needed to sculpt a sculpture portal for the building of the new Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. Rodin did not have time to finish this work on time, by 1885. Despite the fact that the opening of the museum did not take place, Rodin did not stop working on the sculpture called "The Gates of Hell." Unfortunately, the work remained incomplete. Only after the death of the master, the “Gates of Hell” were cast in bronze.
"The Gates of Hell" is one of the main works of Rodin, is a sculptural composition seven meters high and holds 186 figures. Many of these figures, such as “Kiss”, “Fleeting Love”, as well as “Adam” and “Eve” removed from the general composition, became independent works. The Thinker sculpture, which became the most famous and recognizable creation of Rodin, was created as a portrait of Dante Alighieri, the author of the Divine Comedy, from which Auguste Rodin borrowed images for his sculptures.
Further famous works of Rodin were such works: bust of Victor Hugo; sculpture "The Eternal Idol"; sculpture group "Citizens of Calais"; Monument to Honore de Balzac.
