Sculptor, born in Paris, France. He trained in Paris and Brussels, and began to produce sculptures which, with their varying surfaces and finishes, resembled the Impressionist painters' effects of light and shade. The great La Porte de l'enfer (The Gate of Hell) was commissioned for the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1880, and during the next 30 years he was mainly engaged on the 186 figures for these bronze doors. He also worked on the monument Les Bourgeois de Calais (18846, New York City, The Burghers of Calais), which was finally dedicated in 1895. Among his other works is Le Penseur (1904, The Thinker), in front of the Panthéon in Paris.
Life
Early life
Despite the talent evident in his portrait of the local priest who helped him discover his vocation, Rodin was denied admission to the Beaux Arts academy, having been born to a working class family in Paris.
One of his early works, The Age of Bronze, created during his years in Belgium, looked so realistic that the sculptor was accused of surmoulage (taking plaster moulds from the live model).
Rodin struggled to clear his name and in 1880 was awarded the commission to create a portal for the planned Museum of Decorative Arts. Although the museum was never built, Rodin worked for 37 years on this monumental sculptural group, The Gates of Hell, depicting scenes from Dante's Inferno in high relief.
Main works
Many of his best-known sculptures, such as The Thinker (Le Penseur, originally titled The Poet, representing the poet Dante), The Three Shades (Les Trois Ombres), and The Kiss (Le Baiser) were designed as figures for this monumental landscape of eternal passion and punishment, and only later presented as works in their own right. Other well-known works derived from The Gates are: the Ugolino group, Fugitive Love, The Falling Man, The Sirens, Fallen Caryatid Carrying her Stone, Damned Women, The Standing Fauness, The Kneeling Fauness, The Martyr, She Who Once Was the Beautiful Helmetmaker's Wife, Glaucus, Polyphem.
Instead of copying traditional academic postures, Rodin preferred to work with amateur models, street performers, acrobats, strong men and dancers.
Personal life
Rodin's personal life has captured the attention of history almost as much as his sculpture.
In 1883, Rodin agreed to supervise Alfred Boucher's sculpture course during his absence and so met the 18-year-old sculptress Camille Claudel. Claudel inspired Rodin as a model for many of his tragic love couples and assisted him during his work on another important commission, The Burghers of Calais (Les Bourgeois de Calais). While Rodin used several models for each of his sculptures, Camille Claudel is thought to be the main model for several of his works including the wavelike Danaide.
Although they shared an atelier at a small old castle (68 Boulevard d'Italie, Paris), Rodin refused to give up his ties with Rose Beuret, his loyal companion during his years of poverty in Belgium and birth-mother of his son Auguste-Eugène Beuret, born January 18, 1866.
Later work
Rodin, commissioned to create a Monument to Victor Hugo in the 1890s, dealt extensively with the subject of artist and muse, reflecting the various aspects of his stormy and complex relationship with Claudel in The Poet and Love, The Genius and Pity, The Sculptor and his Muse.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, as President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, had invited the Rodin to display some of his work at the Society's 1898 exhibition.
After Whistler's death in 1903, Rodin himself was elected to become President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers.
During his last creative years, Rodin concentrated on small dance studies (ca.
Death
On January 29, 1917, Rodin finally married Rose Beuret, who died two weeks later.
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