"The present
volume is especially interesting since the subject's life reflects
two entirely different views of art: trained as an artisan, Rodin
made his work the century's premier example of art as inspiration."
—American Artist
Auguste Rodin, the
greatest sculptor of the nineteenth century, is also widely considered
to be the greatest since Michelangelo, whose genius was a lifelong inspiration
to him. Though the astonishingly lifelike quality of his sculpture was
in total defiance of current academic conventions, Rodin did not have
to face the prolonged and bitter hostility meted out to the Impressionist
painters who were his contemporaries, and in later life he became a
famous and revered figure. This important and authoritative monograph
combines a searching reappraisal of Rodin's achievement—his emotional
expressiveness, his power of characterization and the subtlety of his
modeling—with a revealing account of his troubled private life.
Auguste Rodin, the
greatest sculptor of the nineteenth century, is also widely considered
to be the greatest since Michelangelo, whose genius was a lifelong inspiration
to him. Though the astonishingly lifelike quality of his sculpture was
in total defiance of current academic conventions, Rodin did not have
to face the prolonged and bitter hostility meted out to the Impressionist
painters who were his contemporaries, and in later life he became a
famous and revered figure. This important and authoritative monograph
combines a searching reappraisal of Rodin's achievement—his emotional
expressiveness, his power of characterization and the subtlety of his
modeling—with a revealing account of his troubled private life.