Artists - Part 29

 Rodin

Think you know about French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)?  Read on.  You might learn something new.

Of course, you've seen The Thinker, Rodin's most famous statue.  Rodin made many nude sculptures of both males and females.

I have to mention The Age of Bronze.  When Rodin exhibited this life-size sculpture in Paris in 1877, it was so realistic that the exhibition's judges accused Rodin of merely making a cast of a live model, not sculpting the statue.

Rodin was able to clear his artistic reputation and show that it was not a cast of the model by providing photos of the model, a young Belgian soldier named Auguste Neyt, posing for the statue.  Here's one of those photos, which I got from the blog Vintage Muscle Men.  Thanks, Jerry!

But today I'm going to concentrate on Rodin's statue of Honoré de Balzac, a famous French author.  In 1891 the Société des gens de lettres de France, a French writers' association, commissioned Rodin to make a statue of Balzac, who had died over 40 years earlier.

Unfortunately, Balzac was not an ideal subject for a classic heroic statue.  According to one source, "The man was short, fat, rude, clumsy, poorly and often ridiculously dressed, and doused himself with evil-smelling perfume rather than bathe."

Nevertheless, Rodin attempted a statue in the classic nude heroic style.  Above is an 1892 study for the statue.  It doesn't look very heroic.

Here's the finished first attempt, 1893.  The tree-like base conceals the nudity, but the statue still doesn't look like a classical hero.

Rodin decided to abandon the classic heroic style.  He experimented with different poses, reworking some small models left over from his statues of the Burghers of Calais.  That's why the body here isn't short and fat.

This is called Balzac Second Study for Nude F.  Rodin was experimenting with the placement of the arms.  Here the left arm grips the right, but what's the right hand doing?

First Study for Nude F, above, shows what he's doing.  Rodin was thinking of making a statue of Balzac masturbating.  Yes, this is a real statue by Rodin, although it's a plaster study and not a finished statue.

Here's the final statue called Monument to Balzac, 1898.  Balzac is covered with a robe, but he's leaning slightly backward, and his arms are clearly doing something in front under the robe.  Well, from the study statues, we know what he's doing.  The society that commissioned the statue also guessed what he's doing, and they rejected the statue and refused to pay for it.

Ironically, showing Balzac masturbating was actually a realistic portrayal.  Rodin may have heard stories about Balzac's writing habits.  In order to intensify his writing sessions, Balzac would drink many cups of coffee and then masturbate just short of orgasm, stop, write a bit, and then repeat, continuing to alternate edging and writing.  Apparently it worked: today he is considered to be one of the great French writers.