Le penseur d auguste rodin biography

Summary of Auguste Rodin

Rodin's genius lay in the way he took the classical sculpted figure and gave it an animation and vitality that helped define the modern age. His work shaped the future of sculpture, with his most famous pieces, The Thinker, The Kiss, and The Gates of Hell, sitting proudly amongst the most iconic in the canon of modern art. His controversial monuments to greats of French literature, meanwhile, carry a raw, unpolished, intensity that brought sculpture into line with the aesthetic revolution that made Paris the center of the contemporary artworld. Having withstood early critical disapproval, Rodin would rise up to achieve a level of international fame and popularity that was unprecedented for a sculptor. Indeed, by the time of his death, Rodin was being likened to Michelangelo. His status as the father of modern sculpture remains undiminished and unchallenged.

Accomplishments

• Rodin stripped away many of the narrative references to classical myth that were still attached to the art of sculpture in the late 19 century and placed a new stress on the dignity of simple human moments. Rather than representing gods or muses, he sculpted lifelike figures with distinctively modern attitudes towards love, thought, and physicality.
• Rodin's achievement as a sculptor was to find a way to make the brute density of sculpture express the fleeting mobility of the human form. To achieve this, he abandoned the polished and idealized figures associated with classical sculpture, and produced rougher, unfinished surfaces, which better expressed restlessness and spontaneous movement. While this technique suggests psychological agitation, it also evokes the transient mood of modern times, which was a thematic preoccupation he shared with the Impressionist painters.
• Despite his modern approach to composition, Rodin's art shows a strong respect for the history and conventions of the medium of sculpture. He favored traditional materials, including br

Cast made by Fonderie Alexis Rudier in 1904. Transfered to the musée Rodin in 1922.

Whenconceived in 1880 in its original size (approx. 70 cm) as the crowning element of The Gates of Hell, seated on the tympanum, The Thinker was entitled The Poet. He represented Dante, author of the Divine Comedy which had inspired The Gates, leaning forward to observe the circles of Hell, while meditating on his work. The Thinker was therefore initially both a being with a tortured body, almost a damned soul, and a free-thinking man, determined to transcend his suffering through poetry. The pose of this figure owes much to Carpeaux’s Ugolino (1861) and to the seated portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici carved by Michelangelo (1526-31).

 While remaining in place on the monumental Gates of Hell, The Thinker was exhibited individually in 1888 and thus became an independent work. Enlarged in 1904, its colossal version proved even more popular: this image of a man lost in thought, but whose powerful body suggests a great capacity for action, has become one of the most celebrated sculptures ever known. Numerous casts exist worldwide, including the one now in the gardens of the Musée Rodin, a gift to the City of Paris installed outside the Panthéon in 1906, and another in the gardens of Rodin’s house in Meudon, on the tomb of the sculptor and his wife.

LOCATE THE THINKER IN THE MUSEUM

Sculpture by Auguste Rodin

For other uses, see The Thinker (disambiguation).

The Thinker (French: Le Penseur), by Auguste Rodin, is a bronze sculpture depicting a nude male figure of heroic size, seated on a large rock, leaning forward, right elbow placed upon the left thigh, back of the right hand supporting the chin in a posture evocative of deep thought and contemplation. This universally recognized expression of “deep thought” has made the sculpture one of the most widely known artworks in the world. It has become the iconic symbol of thinking; images of the sculpture in profile are often used to indicate philosophy and other practices of contemplation or introspection.

Rodin conceived the figure as part of his work The Gates of Hell commissioned in 1880, but the first of the familiar monumental bronze castings was made in 1904, and is now exhibited at the Musée Rodin, in Paris.

There are 27 other known full-sized bronze castings of the figure, approximately 185 centimetres (73 in) tall, though not all were made under Rodin's supervision. Various other versions, several in plaster, as well as studies and posthumous castings, exist in a range of sizes.

Origin

The Thinker was initially named The Poet (French: Le Poète), and was part of a large commission begun in 1880 for a doorway surround called The Gates of Hell. Rodin based this on the early 14th century poem The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, and most of the figures in the work represented the main characters in the poem with The Thinker at the center of the composition over the doorway and somewhat larger than most of the other figures. Some critics believe that it was originally intended to depict Dante at the gates of Hell, pondering his great poem.

Other critics reject that theory, pointing out that the figure is naked while Dante is fully clothed throughout his poem, and that the sculpture's physique does not correspond to Dante's effet

French sculptor (1840–1917)

This article is about the sculptor. For the racehorse, see Auguste Rodin (horse).

"Rodin" redirects here. For other people named Rodin, see Rodin (surname). For the 2017 film, see Rodin (film).

François Auguste René Rodin (;French:[fʁɑ̃swaoɡystʁəneʁɔdɛ̃]; 12 November 1840 – 17 November 1917) was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, and deeply pocketed surface in clay. He is known for such sculptures as The Thinker, Monument to Balzac, The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais, and The Gates of Hell.

Many of Rodin's most notable sculptures were criticized, as they clashed with predominant figurative sculpture traditions in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodin's most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory. He modeled the human body with naturalism, and his sculptures celebrate individual character and physicality. Although Rodin was sensitive to the controversy surrounding his work, he refused to change his style, and his continued output brought increasing favor from the government and the artistic community.

From the unexpected naturalism of Rodin's first major figure – inspired by his 1875 trip to Italy – to the unconventional memorials whose commissions he later sought, his reputation grew, and Rodin became the preeminent French sculptor of his time. By 1900, he was a world-renowned artist. Wealthy private clients sought Rodin's work after his World's Fair exhibit, and he kept company with a variety of high-profile intellectuals and artists. His student, Camille Claudel, became his associate, lover, and creative rival. Rodin's other students included Antoine Bourdelle, Constantin Brâncuși, and Charles Despiau