Studio: international art (28.1903)

Auguste Rodin s Dry Points

and not more than two or three have hitherto been twelve years ago, is the last dry point executed by
illustrated. A dry-pointed metal plate yields only a M. Rodin; and the student should compare its
small number of proofs, for the reason that the bur light delicacy and refinement with the more virile
raised by the engraving tool soon wears away in and nervous handling of the Victor Hugo. Further,
the printing press; this may be seen by looking at the Antonin Proust is treated as a portrait in low-
the paler proofs of the Hugo portraits illustrated relief sculpture, and the modelling throughout is
on pages 91 and 93; and thus good impressions of admirably subtle in the management of the planes,
the dry points by Auguste Rodin are inevitably Remark, too, how sensitively and well the ear is
scarce. For all that, they can be brought to the drawn, and remember that a well-drawn ear is a
notice of all students by means of good reproduc- test of skilled draughtsmanship. But if this portrait
tions, and to-day, thanks to the courtesy of M. of Antonin Proust is a good dry point, what are we
Rodin, a complete set is published for the first to say of the masterly character-studies of Victor
time in a magazine. Hugo ? These are nobler prints without doubt:

Twenty years have past since M. Rodin made M. Rodin has produced nothing finer in his
his first dry point. He was in London at the time, engraved work. The poet is represented in his
staying for a short visit with Mr. Legros; and it declining years, tired, but not out-worn, by his long
was to gratify his friend that he experimented with career of astounding energy and toil. He has felt
the dry point. His first attempts were the Sphere more emotion than six ordinary men are subject to
and the Allegory of Spring. In both he made use in a life-time; but he remains Victor Hugo, and
of a common sewing needle, and obtained with it not a spent force of Nature,
some delicious qualities of line. The Allegory of W. S. S.

Spring, with the playful cherubs cluster-
ing about the young girl, is as winsome
as it is admirably drawn, being full of
youth and delightfully fresh and pure.
The composition appeals strongly to
Rodin, for he has drawn it in pen-and-
ink, and made use of it as an intaglio-
like decoration on a Sevres vase.

Then, as regards the J*izntasia, with
the groups of male nude figures, does
it not recall to mind the sketching
manner of Leonardo ? Note with what
ease and assurance the figures 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 justifies 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 firmly is it handled,
and so weighty with the feeling of
bone under the skin. The subtle and
refined portrait of Antonin Proust, done antonin proust from the dry point by auguste rodin

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