Studio: international art (72.1918)

Studio-Talk

PARIS.—In the triple persons of Rodin,
Degas, and Eugene Grasset, who have
died recently within a short dis-
tance of each other, were represented
three arts, in the first of which, sculpture, the
French have for centuries been unequalled ; the
second of which, painting, they keep thriving
and vivid beyond all other nations ; in the third
of which, arts and crafts, France was, up to the
nineteenth century, in advance of the rest of
the world. The death of Rodin has provoked
the most universal mourning, and in his person
the world of art suffers the severest loss it has
known for many a long day. Outside France
his name is venerated wherever art is held in
esteem ; within his own country it was the key-
stone binding together all the most divergent
schools and the widest dissensions. This union
sacree seems fated to fall apart and to scatter
its forces now the link connecting them has given
way, for no artist-personality can be suggested
in the place of the great sculptor who exercised
Iris enormous influence with such prestige
and forbearance for all manner of convictions.
The funeral ceremony was expressive together

of his triumphs and of his vicissitudes—vicissi-
tudes which were also and invariably triumphs.
The national obsequies which had been granted
Victor Hugo and to which Rodin was certainly
no less entitled, were at the last moment refused
by M. Clemenceau on grounds which might have
been as valid for granting them—namely, the
country’s state of war. The time deemed
unsuitable by the Government appeared to be
particularly propitious to patriots and artists
for rendering this unique and last homage to
one who so unanimously personified France’s'
superiority in the world. The unforgettable
ceremony took place at M. Rodin’s estate on the
heights of Meudon, and the coffin was, according
to his own wish, laid beneath the statue of the
Penseur in the sepulchre made for his wife, who
preceded him thither by a few months. Thus a
characteristic desire for eternal communion with
his home life and nature is realized by this burial
in the gardens of his house, on the summit of a
hill overlooking a vast expanse both urban and
rural, under an immense sweep of turbulent sky.

Edgar Degas had reached that extreme term

AUGUSTE RODIN AMONG HIS BOOKS AT 77 RUE DE VARENNE

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