Study of the Nude
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
An instant later, returning to the idea which is so dear to him, he said: “In short, Beauty is everywhere. It is not she that is lacking to our eye, but our eyes which fail to perceive her. Beauty is character and expression. Well, there is nothing in nature which has more character than the human body. In its strength and its grace it evokes the most varied images. One moment it resembles a flower: the bending torso is the stalk; the breasts, the head, and the splendor of the hair answer to the blossoming of the corolla. The next moment it recalls the pliant creeper, or the proud and upright sapling. ‘In seeing you,’ says Ulysses to Nausicaa, ‘I seem to see a certain palm-tree which at Delos, near the altar of Apollo, rose from earth to heaven in a single shoot.’ Again, the human body bent backwards is like a spring, like a beautiful bow upon which Eros adjusts his invisible arrows. At another time it is an urn. I have often asked a model to sit on the ground with her back to me, her arms and legs gathered in front of her. In this position the back, which tapers to the waist and swells at the hips, appears like a vase of exquisite outline.
“The human body is, above all, the mirror of the soul, and from the soul comes its greatest beauty.
“‘Chair de la femme, argile idéale, o merveille,
O pénétration sublime de l’esprit
Dans le limon que l’Etre ineffable petrit.
Matière où l’âme brille à travers son suaire.
Boue où l’on voit les doigts du divine statuaire.
Fange auguste appelant les baisers et le cœur.