The Paper's reporter Lu Linhan compiled
At the beginning of the 20th century, Auguste Rodin broke the rules of classical sculpture and created human sculptures that reflected modern times. Although Rodin was known for his bronze and marble sculptures, he was also a modeler himself, excelling at capturing movement, light, and volume with soft materials such as clay and plaster. To complete The Gates of Hell, Rodin created hundreds of plaster sculptures and experimented with carving, splitting, and reassembling.
The surging news has learned that the exhibition "Rodin's Creation" cooperated by the Tate Modern in the United Kingdom and the Rodin Museum in France will open at the Tate Modern on May 18, exhibiting more than 200 works. The exhibition will focus on Rodin's plaster work, with plaster models of various sizes showing how he continued to experiment in unconventional ways.
Rodin's art is considered by the world to be a bridge between modern and modern sculpture in the West. In the basement of Rodin's studio, his most complete sculptural mold is on display, which Rodin made for experimentation. The exhibition centers on this experimental process, but also shows his relationships with a number of collaborators, including the sculptor Camille Claudel, the Japanese stage actress Hisa Ōta, and the German aristocrat Helene von Nostitz.
Rodin, "The Righteous People of Galley"
Daylight shines through the large windows of the Tate Modern into the exhibition hall, illuminating the sculpture Balzac. In this work, the novelist Balzac has a serious and angry face, and he is wrapped in a huge nightgown. In 1898, when Rodin designed a plaster cast in honor of Balzac, this lack of formal definition shocked Parisians.
For the novelist and art critic Émile Zola, Rodin was the perfect artist who erected monuments to historians of politics and modern life. But when Rodin shows the sculptural mold, everything becomes chaotic. Looking at these peculiar presences, I understood why Rodin could be called the founder of modern sculpture.
Before 1898, sculptural art was about depictions of the human body. Since ancient Greek times, European artists have been studying anatomy and trying to accurately display human forms, muscles, and movements. But the sculpture Balzac does not show a torso, but instead a large nightgown. To highlight the strange structure of his creations, the exhibition also includes a study showing a sculpture of a nightgown made by Rodin with no head on it, only feet supporting standing.
Rodin's study of the thinker
Rodin's Balzac is a surrealist statue that predates the "Artistic Manifesto" by 36 years. Man Ray's The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse is a sewing machine wrapped in a blanket and then tied with rope that masks the strange structure beneath the blanket. The objects in the picture seem to emphasize the importance of "illusion" in the Surrealist movement, and its core is composed of the unknown in imaginary space.
Man Ray, The Mystery of Isidore Ducas
In short, the above is the argument of this exhibition. The curator firmly stated that Rodin was an artist who belonged to Tate Modern. Rodin was the ancestor of Duchamp and Warhol, who was obsessed with "fragments", "appropriation" and "repetition". To prove this, the curators searched the bizarre, inconceivable works in the Musée Rodin in France, most of which were plaster molds, including severed feet placed on the pedestal, fleshless hands, and a series of fantasy works.
Hand sculpture by Rodin
It took Rodin a long time to gain fame and success. Born in 1840 on the working class in Paris, he failed to enter art school and instead studied sculpture techniques as an assistant in some studios in France and Belgium. The Tate Modern exhibition begins with his male sculpture Age of Bronze. Of course, he has also caused some controversy. People say his work is forged from models, not from the use of artistic talent.
But in 1880, he created The Gates of Hell, from which one can see Dante's tormented eyes in hell. In addition, he designed many of the most iconic statues for Hell's Gates, including The Thinker. As you enter the exhibition hall, you'll come across his marble statue, The Kiss, a treasure of Tate that was initially criticized.
Rodin, "The Kiss"
The exhibition shows Rodin using a factory-like system, producing plaster molds, bronze casting molds, but these are not the "diversity" that people expect today. These things are products of the Victorian era. In this day and age, many dwellings that did not reach the middle class often do not have busts of famous people, and mass-produced statues are wildly popular. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Six Napoleons has a research session on this subject.
罗丹，《The Fallen Caryatid Carrying her Stone》
Rodin, Lord Howard
So it's no surprise that Rodin, with his experience in handicraft workshops, sees sculpture as an industry. Of course, it's not that he's like Jeff Koons. Rodin loved to carve clay and shape it by hand. In those clay originals, a lot of things can be seen. Skilled studio staff helped him make plaster models, and a device known as a zoom meter allowed him to calculate the size of the model that was sharply enlarged or reduced. In the exhibition hall, there is a fantastic example, taken from the head of a character in the work "The Righteous People of Calais" and enlarged. He then commissioned a carver to carve it into marble and bronze works.
Unfortunately, the exhibition does not explore this complex process. Instead, the exhibition indulges in the display of plaster molds. The exhibition attempts to present a pure aesthetic. Theory could not suppress his genius, and rodin's way of expressing his ideas through reproduction was not the purpose of his art, but more importantly, his vision and expressiveness. Rodin's exhibitions can be seen everywhere. His imagination was so bold, so radical. One of the marble pieces depicts two women making love. On the side, a misty watercolor depicts a woman bathing in blue water.
Rodin, The Misery Muse, 1890
However, the modernist Rodin constantly clashed with the medievalist Rodin. Removing the context of the text or the interpretation of the work, just to present the beauty of a strange plaster mold, it will lead us to a wrong understanding of its art. A group of writhing figures struggle bitterly on a Renaissance pedestal. It's the story of Imagining Dante in Hell—Count Ugorino and his children starving to death in the dungeon.
Rodin, The Count of Ugorino and His Children
Without Dante's story, Rodin's sculpture loses its purpose. Similarly, we see fragments of the Righteous People of Calais, enlarged heads, twisted hands made into antique ornaments, but these are only artistic studies of Rodin, which are insignificant compared to the complete sculpture "The Righteous People of Calais", a group of fourteenth-century volunteer monuments showing the people of the time who sacrificed themselves to defend their town of Calais.
Those hands, those feet, they are like the requiem of sculpture, and they are moving passionately in sync with the sculpture. Rodin is neither ancient nor modern. He is direct, simple, and persuasive.
The exhibition will run from May 18 to November 21.
(This article is compiled from a review by The Guardian critic Jonathan Jones, some of which was compiled from Tate's website.)
Editor-in-charge: Qian Xue'er
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang