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Here you can find information about life and work of famous and less well-known sculptors. It gives you an impressions of their work and often you will also find the names of museums in which you can admire examples of the work of the artists.
1850 - 1900 1900 - 1940 1940 -1990 after 1990
Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917) dominated sculpture
at the end of the 19th century and introduced modernistic
elements. His works, that remind us of the expressionism of antiquity
and the 16th century, are complex. His work links with the
non finite-statues, the unfinished of Michelangelo.
Rodin brought monumental public sculpture into the modern era. Though he
was well acquainted with the academic traditions and idealized subjects
of classical and Renaissance sculpture, Rodin's aim in his work was to
be absolutely faithful to nature.
Rodin was rejected from entering the Ecole des Beaux-Arts three times,
due to his earlier training at a technical school of drawing and
mathematics. So instead, at the age of 24, Rodin studied under Barye,
and several years later studied with Carrier-Belleuse.
He finally made an appearance at the Salon in 1875, and sculpted his
first major piece, 'The Age of Bronze', in 1876.
The age of bronze, 1876
In 1844 the town of Calais opened a competition for a monument
commemorating the resistance of the town for eleven months against the
King Edward in 1346-47. Rodin worked for ten years (1876-86) on a
composition of the six burghers that were held hostage. The Municipality
felt that the figures were not heroic enough, and many of his
contemporaries did not understand his group. Rodin preferred to have the
group stand on the soil, to become part of the population again, but
this plan was not adopted.
The burgher of Calais, 1876-86
La Danaide, 1885
Eternal idol, 1889
The most remarkable event of Rodin's career was his work on the statue
of Balzac. In 1888, the Societe des Gens de Lettres (the president was
Emile Zola) had wanted the statue of the great romanticist for a site in
Paris. Chapu had begun the project but had died in 1891. Rodin offered
to deliver a statue in 18 months. Many years went by, and the delay
became the butt of many jokes. There was a lawsuit, and in exchange for
no time limit, he had to return the 10,000 francs advanced for
materials. Rodin found that this was the most difficult sculptural
interpretation he had ever undertaken. He wanted to create the great
thinker in action, with all of Balzac's intensity. After years of
various interpretations and studies of his subject, the statue was
finally exhibited at the Salon of 1898. The Societe refused to recognize
it as a statue of Balzac. The current president, poet Jean Aicard,
resigned as a result. The commission for a new statue was awarded to
Alexandre Falguiere. Rodin did not fight the Societe, and was invited to
exhibit it in London and Brussels. He refused generous offers to sell
the piece, but stated that it belonged to Paris.
The Society didn’t recognize the importance of Rodin’s statues. His
uncanny ability to convey movement and to show the inner feelings of the
men and women he portrayed, the bravura of his light-catching modeling,
and his extraordinary use of similar figures in different mediums, have
established him as one of the greatest sculptors of all time.
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From left to right:
Madame de Morla Vichuna, 1884
Cathedral, 1909
Walking man, 1900-1907
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Legros, bust of Rodin
