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International studio — 19.1903

DOI Heft:
No. 74 (April 903)
DOI Heft:
Werbung
DOI Artikel:
Sparrow, Walter Shaw: Auguste Rodin's dry-point engravings
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26227#0127

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and not more than two or three have httherto been
iHustrated. A dry-pointed metai piate yieids oniy a
smali number of proofs, for the reason that the bur
raised by the engraving tooi soon wears away in
the printing press; this may be seen by loohing at
the paier proofs of the Hugo portraits iilustrated
on pages Qi and 93 ; and thus good impressions of
the dry points by Auguste Rodin are inevitabiy
scarce. For aii that, they can be brought to the
notice of all students by means of good reproduc-
tions, and to-day, thanks to the courtesy of M.
Rodin, a compiete set is published for the first
time in a magazine.
Twenty years have past since M. Rodin made
his frrst dry point. He was in London at the time,
staying for a short visit with Mr. Legros ; and it
was to gratify his friend that he experimented with
the dry point. His hrst attempts were the .S/^7*<?
and the -4<%y<77y <^7 6^7*77^. In both he rnade use
of a common sewing needle, and obtained with it
some delicious qualities of iine. The <7/
^7-/7^, with the playful cherubs cluster-
ing about the young gir], is as winsome
as it is admirably drawn, being full of
youth and delightfuHy fresh and pure.
The composition appeals strongly to
Rodin, for he has drawn it in pen-and-
ink, and rnade use of it as an intagho-
like decoration on a Sevres .vase.
Then, as regards the 7w;/t7.H'a, with
the groups of male nude hgures, does
it not recah to mind the sketching
manner of Leonardo ? Note with what
ease and assurance the hgures are con-
structed and set in movement. The
play of the muscles is indicated with
knowledge, and the design is alive with
animation. To sketch roughly in this
vital manner is a thing that most artists
try vainly all their lives to do.
But it is in his portraits above all—
in the portraits of Henri Becque, and
Antonin Proust, and Victor Hugo —
that Rodin justihes the enthusiastic
praise with which his engraved work
has been welcomed by French critics
of note, like Gustave Geffroy and Roger
Marx. In these portraits the chief
thing to be noted is the quality and
character of the modelling; it seems
to be chiselled, so hrmly is it handled,
and so weighty with the feeling of
bone under the skin. The subtle and
rehned portrait of Antonin Proust, done
92

twelve years ago, is the last dry point executed by
M. Rodin; and the student should compare its
light delicacy and rehnement with the rnore virile
and nervous handling of the Fiir/cT* A/zzgv. Further,
the -47?/<77z/72 V7*<7?<v/ is treated as a portrait in low-
relief sculpture, and the modelling throughout is
admirably subtle in the management of the planes.
Remark, too, how sensitively and well the ear is
drawn, and remember that a well-drawn ear is a
testof skiHed draughtsmanship. But if thisportrait
of Antonin Proust is a good dry point, what are we
to say of the masterly character-studies of Victor
Hugo? These are nobler prints without doubt:
M. Rodin has produced nothing hner in his
engraved work. The poet is represented in his
declining years, tired, but not out-worn, by his long
career of astounding energy and toil. He has felt
more emotion than six ordinary men are subject to
in a life-time; but he remains Victor Hugo, and
not a spent force of Nature.
W. S. S.

ANTONIN PROUST

FROM THE DRY POINT BY AUGUSTE RODIN
 
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