DOI issue:
No. 62 (May, 1898)
DOI article:Mourey, Gabriel: The work of Auguste Rodin
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18391#0242
Auguste Rodin
to most people, even to the enlightened many, the have tried to force upon them a coupling of the
name of Michael Angelo represents the highest two names in which they are unable to coincide,
genius of which a sculptor is capable. Michael The fact remains, however, that Rodin's work
Angelo and Raphael are by universal consent the has a greater analogy with that of Michael Angelo
topmost peaks in sculpture and in painting. There- than with any other j and this is the opinion of all
fore you will never succeed in making any one who know that work intimately. For he is striding
believe that it is possible to equal their work, or in the same direction, aiming at the same ideal-
even to produce anything approaching it; espe- which is to extract from life its deepest secrets, and
cially when their rivals are men of our own day, men to express its eternal mysteries in all sincerity and
whose faces we know, men whom we have seen, truth; to evolve from out the sheer, material shape
dressed in our own fashion, speaking our own of the human body the divine spark hidden within
familiar tongue, and living our own everyday life. it, and for ever unseen by the blind eyes of the
Thus it is wrong to compare Rodin with Michael majority. And surely this is the animating prin-
Angelo ; and I am sure the obstinacy of some of ciple of all lofty art—the revealing to others of that
those who persist in denying the genius of this secret, invisible soul, which is no less real, though
great artist is due simply to the fact that others less apparent, than the mere external form.
Sculpture is far better
adapted to this purpose
than painting; for it is less
conventional, and relies on
principles more nearly
allied to truth, while em-
ploying the simplest and
most normal methods to
this end. Sculpture is the
eternal art. In it humanity
babbles its earliest words,
and generations yet to
come, so long as there are
men and women in the
world, will turn to it to
assuage their thirst for
tangible reality. Without
excess of paradox, one
may indeed almost imagine
the day when men will
have grown tired of paint-
ing, when the flat repre-
sentation of things in line
and colour will bring no
pleasure, when all this
illusion—at once puerile
and sublime — will have
palled. But sculpture, in
an age more material, more
prone to reality, will always
prove a source of delight,
instant and palpable. Un-
like painting, it is indepen-
dent of time and fashion ;
the years roll on and
periods change, but sculp-
ture remains ever much the
saint john the baptist (fragment) by auguste Roiu.n same. If we examine it
218
to most people, even to the enlightened many, the have tried to force upon them a coupling of the
name of Michael Angelo represents the highest two names in which they are unable to coincide,
genius of which a sculptor is capable. Michael The fact remains, however, that Rodin's work
Angelo and Raphael are by universal consent the has a greater analogy with that of Michael Angelo
topmost peaks in sculpture and in painting. There- than with any other j and this is the opinion of all
fore you will never succeed in making any one who know that work intimately. For he is striding
believe that it is possible to equal their work, or in the same direction, aiming at the same ideal-
even to produce anything approaching it; espe- which is to extract from life its deepest secrets, and
cially when their rivals are men of our own day, men to express its eternal mysteries in all sincerity and
whose faces we know, men whom we have seen, truth; to evolve from out the sheer, material shape
dressed in our own fashion, speaking our own of the human body the divine spark hidden within
familiar tongue, and living our own everyday life. it, and for ever unseen by the blind eyes of the
Thus it is wrong to compare Rodin with Michael majority. And surely this is the animating prin-
Angelo ; and I am sure the obstinacy of some of ciple of all lofty art—the revealing to others of that
those who persist in denying the genius of this secret, invisible soul, which is no less real, though
great artist is due simply to the fact that others less apparent, than the mere external form.
Sculpture is far better
adapted to this purpose
than painting; for it is less
conventional, and relies on
principles more nearly
allied to truth, while em-
ploying the simplest and
most normal methods to
this end. Sculpture is the
eternal art. In it humanity
babbles its earliest words,
and generations yet to
come, so long as there are
men and women in the
world, will turn to it to
assuage their thirst for
tangible reality. Without
excess of paradox, one
may indeed almost imagine
the day when men will
have grown tired of paint-
ing, when the flat repre-
sentation of things in line
and colour will bring no
pleasure, when all this
illusion—at once puerile
and sublime — will have
palled. But sculpture, in
an age more material, more
prone to reality, will always
prove a source of delight,
instant and palpable. Un-
like painting, it is indepen-
dent of time and fashion ;
the years roll on and
periods change, but sculp-
ture remains ever much the
saint john the baptist (fragment) by auguste Roiu.n same. If we examine it
218