The five following years were marked by various works which did not, however, interfere with the threefold parallel continuation of the Victor Hugo, The Burghers of Calais, and The Gate of Hell, which were exhibited in various states in the Salon. Rodin considers it his duty, indeed, to submit to the public the phases of his work, rough attempts, clay, marbles, or bronzes, before the final completion; and understanding very well that his style is, or seems to be difficult, he thus explains himself to the public in the exhibitions, and allows people to follow the stages through which his thought passes. In addition to these works may be noted, for the year 1890, the bust of a young woman, in silver, Brother and Sister, bronze, and the Torso of St. John the Baptist. In 1891, The Caryatid, a marble figure of a young woman with a stone upon her shoulder, the group of The Young Mother (first bronze and then marble), and A Nymph. In 1892, the busts of Rochefort and of Puvis de Chavannes, which, with those of Dalou, Jean Paul Laurens, Hugo, and Falguière, form an incomparable series from Rodin's hand of portraits that surpass all modern French sculpture, and are admirable alike in execution and expression. The Puvis de Chavannes is perhaps the finest; it is a work that does not pall even beside Donatello himself. In 1892 the Burghers and the Claude Lorraine were completed. The Burghers waited three years for their setting up, but the monument to Lorraine was inaugurated immediately, thanks to the devoted efforts of that great art-worker in glass, Émile Gallé, and of Roger Marx, who by his writings and his incessant activity has had a most noble effect upon modern French art. These two eminent men, both natives of Nancy, enforced the acceptance of the work. The monument consists of a statue of Lorraine, standing, palette in hand, his head raised eagerly towards the east, and of a pedestal from which Apollo and his rearing horses stand out in splendid high-relief. Thus did Rodin seek to pay homage to the master-painter who adored movement in light, by acclaiming both these in his turn. Fault has been found with the importance of the pedestal in comparison with the statue, the objectors failing to understand that this allegory of Apollo incarnated the very soul of the great artist whose effigy towered over the whole work, and that this whole could not be dissevered. The idea animating this composition was criticised by the authorities. Here, once more, Rodin with his symbolic vision, his tendency to bold simplifications of the general, synthetic idea, was found disturbing. He was asked for the sculptured portrait of a man, and he preferred to give prominence to a symbol that expressed the dream and the essential genius of that man, the sun-painter—an idea which was logical, but which ran counter to the received prejudice as to portrait statues. The propagandist persistence of Gallé and Roger Marx, however, convinced the people of Nancy, who are now very proud of their monument. The horses and the Apollo are the most living, palpitating, and lyrical things that Rodin has produced.
PUVIS DE CHAVANNES
JEAN-PAUL LAURENS