Auguste Rodin

François Auguste René Rodin was a French sculptor born in Paris on 12 November 1840 and generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He came from a working-class family, the son of Marie Cheffer and Jean-Baptiste Rodin, a police department clerk. He began drawing at age 10 and, from 14 to 17, attended the Petite École, where he studied drawing and painting. Though he was trained in a traditional setting, his mature work broke sharply with the decorative and formulaic habits of much figurative sculpture in his time.

Rodin is best known for sculptures including The Thinker, The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais, Monument to Balzac, and The Gates of Hell. He modeled the human body with naturalism, giving attention to individual character, physical presence, and complex surfaces in clay. Many of his most notable works were criticized at first because they clashed with accepted traditions, but Rodin refused to change his style. Over time, his output brought increasing favor from the French government and the artistic community.

His path was not simple. In 1857, Rodin tried to enter the École des Beaux-Arts with a clay model, but he was rejected, and two later applications also failed. He then earned his living for many years as a craftsman and ornamenter, producing decorative objects and architectural embellishments. After the death of his sister Maria in 1862, he turned away from art for a time and joined the Catholic order of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament as a laybrother. Saint Peter Julian Eymard recognized his talent and encouraged him to return to sculpture.

Several influences shaped Rodin’s way of seeing. His teacher Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran urged students to observe with their own eyes and draw from memory, an approach Rodin later appreciated. Classes with the animal sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye sharpened his attention to detail and to musculature in motion. In 1875, while living outside France and working in Belgium, Rodin traveled to Italy and studied the work of Donatello and Michelangelo. He later said, “It is Michelangelo who has freed me from academic sculpture.” Soon after, he began The Age of Bronze, a life-size male figure whose naturalism brought attention and accusations that he had cast it from a living model.

By 1900, after his World’s Fair exhibit, Rodin was known around the world, and wealthy private clients sought his work. He kept company with high-profile intellectuals and artists. His student Camille Claudel became his associate, lover, and creative rival; his other students included Antoine Bourdelle, Constantin Brâncuși, and Charles Despiau. Rodin lived for decades with Rose Beuret, and they married in the last year of both their lives. He died on 17 November 1917. His words still fit the shape of his life, especially the line, “Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.” In Rodin’s case, setbacks, craft labor, study, controversy, and persistence all fed the work that made him one of the few sculptors widely known beyond the visual arts community.