Auguste Rodin: The Man - His Ideas - His Works

ETERNAL SPRING
MY DEAR FRIENDS, One of you is a great painter, whose art and mind are fraternally akin to Rodin's. The other is the first French Art critic of our day, and has nobly defended Rodin from the outset. For these reasons I felt it just and natural to dedicate this book to both of you, as a testimony of my affection, given in the presence of the English public, and under the auspices of a name that unites all three of us in the love of beauty. C. M.
The photographs used as illustrations to the present volume are kindly lent by M. Buloz, art publisher of Paris, to whom we offer our sincere thanks; and for five of them—very remarkable in their effect (the Bellona, the bust of Hugo , the two studies of torsos for the St. John the Baptist, and the Fair Woman who was a Helmet-maker ) we are indebted to Messrs. Haweis and Coles, to whom we are no less grateful. The very faithful portrait of M. Rodin is the work of M. Eckert, of Prague.

Auguste Rodin is certainly the contemporary French artist about whom most has been written, especially during the last ten years. In addition to innumerable articles in newspapers and reviews, several books have been devoted to him. In offering the present work to the English public I think it desirable to define exactly the aim which I propose to myself. To begin with, as my limits of size are somewhat narrow, I shall endeavour to condense into a restricted space as many interesting details as I can give, and to neglect nothing that may contribute to a clear and precise presentment of Rodin's personality and work. But such details have already been collected in some French works; and if I were to content myself with presenting a new version of them to the public I should have fulfilled but half of my task and my duty.
The other half interests me far more keenly. It seems to me that after having told the reader all that he ought to know about a man, a critic should then try to make a closer and deeper study of him—come into contact with his ideas and his soul, form an original judgment of him, and in short pass from the iconographie or biographic side to the artistic and psychological side of his work. I have tried, therefore, to begin where my fellow-workers have left off and to say exactly what they do not appear to me to have said.