19th Century Sculpture

Rodin's Sculpture

Naturalism and Expressiveness

• Rodin is often associated with late 19th-century sculpture.

• Art historians debate whether he fits into the realist movement, especially compared to French realism in painting, as his works rarely focus on political or socioeconomic issues.

• His early works are considered naturalistic, emphasizing that he captures nature as its essence.

• Although his style is very expressive, it doesn't cleanly fit into romanticism either.

• Rodin argued he didn't like either of this term and he learned everything he needed to know from Michelangelo.

• Michelangelo's unfinished works inspired him.

• Early works could be recognized by peers as virtuoso, rivaling Renaissance masters.

Lost Wax Casting Technique

• Rodin creates his sculptures using the lost wax casting technique.

• The Greeks used to cast in component parts and then join them, to avoid mistakes.

• Donatello and Verrocchio mastered this technique in one go.

• Rodin found this technique to be a limitation, as it requires recreating the entire process from modeling to casting for each artwork.

• He gained attention for his naturalistic and physically expressive sculptures.

Evolution Towards Modernism

• Rodin has a very long career

• By the 1880s and 1890s, Rodin started questioning what constitutes an original work of art.

• His works are often seen as never completely finished.

• Rodin received a commission for an art museum that never materialized, turning the project into a creative playground.

• The commission was originally for the gates of hell, inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy.

• Rodin wanted to explore the body's expression of emotion through various situations and sufferings depicted in Dante's Inferno.

The Thinker

• The thinker represents the artist or creative person and serves as a conduit for exploring ideas.

• In the 1880s, Rodin began creating multiples from the same mold, raising questions about originality.

• He realized that he needed a bronze foundry and machinists to cast bronze works on a large scale.

• Rodin began to explore the idea of extracting individual figures from larger works, like the Thinker from the Gates of Hell, and presenting them as standalone pieces.

• He also explored changing the scale and materials of his works.

Copyright and Artistic Control

• Rodin was one of the first modern artists to copyright his work, maintaining control over its