Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin, known as Auguste Rodin, was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past. He was schooled traditionally, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition, although he was never accepted into Paris's foremost school of art...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionSculptor
Date of Birth12 November 1840
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
Even with all the documents, you can never forge nature
Inside you there's an artist you don't know about. He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight.
In front of the model I work with the same will to reproduce truth as if I were making a portrait. I do not correct nature, I incorporate myself into it; it directs me. I can only work with a model. The sight of human forms nourishes and comforts me.
One must work, nothing but work, and one must have patience...
I grant you that the artist does not see Nature as she appears to the vulgar, because his emotion reveals to him the hidden truths beneath appearances.
People say I think too much about women, yet, after all what is there more important to think about?
How painful it is to find that my figure can be of no help to my future... how painful to see it rejected on account of a slanderous suspicion!
If we now seek the spiritual significance of the technique of Michelangelo we shall find that his sculpture expressed restless energy...
The human body is first and foremost a mirror to the soul and its greatest beauty comes from that.
The nude alone is well dressed
My drawings are the result of my sculpture.
The delicate droop of the petals standing out in relief, is like the eyelid of a child.
Genius only comes to those who know how to use their eyes and their intelligence.
I believe that photography can create great works of art, but hitherto it has been extraordinarily bourgeois and babbling. (1908)