The things written about Rodin have been mainly literary compositions, admiring and lyrical passages, to which his favourite subjects have served as texts. Much less has been heard about his personal ideas upon the technical principles of sculpture, or about his methods of work. The reason of this is primarily a fear of fatiguing the public, to whom the technicalities of an art—which involve dry explanations—are less interesting than the results. Moreover, it must be owned that few writers understand these questions. In painting, as in sculpture, persons who do not practise these arts, or who are not sufficiently familiar with the brush and the chisel to understand the secrets of works of art, even if not to produce them, generally prefer to avoid these dangerous aspects and keep to literary eulogy. A work is proclaimed great, and the reader is adjured to believe it so, but it is infinitely more difficult to give him a clear, technical explanation of why that work is great. Towards that quarter, therefore, I have chosen to turn, expecting to find there things to say that cannot be read elsewhere.
Rodin has not merely created beautiful statues. He is an innovator, (or rather a renovator), in his methods of sculpture, and that fact has called down severe criticism on his head. A long-standing friendship, which I reckon as an honour, has allowed me to have numerous conversations with him upon the very basis of his art, upon the manner in which he practises it, and upon his ideas in relation to his own work and to ancient and modern sculpture. To these ideas the synthetic mind of Rodin imparts so much vigour that they are the motives of his work and cannot be separated from it. My desire has been to present them; and instead of giving the public my own opinions, in passages of more or less brilliancy, I wished to give those—so infinitely more interesting—which have been uttered by the artist himself. Often, in the course of this book, I shall be merely the transcriber while he speaks, and I think my readers will be grateful to me for that. Furthermore, in regard to technical points and to the way in which Rodin conceives composition and modelling, I may—and even, in order to inspire a just and necessary confidence, I should—say that when Rodin exhibited his Balzac his first innovation in his present manner, he had so much faith in my friendship and in my critical powers that he entrusted to me the duty of explaining these delicate points in the French reviews,[1] and in a later lecture given at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, in the pavilion where he was exhibiting the whole of his works. These explanations, in their main lines, I have rewritten here. In that portion I have endeavoured to do original critical work, after having satisfied the biographical demands of the reader. I have avoided discussions of too abstract an æstheticism; I believe that everything can be said simply and in simple forms; I believe also that even in the most subtle questions of art there is an inner light that renders them accessible to all whose minds are sincere, and whose hearts are open to emotion. But I hope that, in reading this book, people will understand very exactly why a statue by Rodin is different from any other statue, and why he made it so—a matter which too few writers have explained. It is not so much my business to display abundantly the admiration which I feel, but which, no more than my friendship, shall induce me to turn my essay into a hymn of praise.
Rodin himself is the first man to be wearied by some praises, and a just observation upon his methods gives him much more pleasure. Like every man of high intelligence, he would rather be understood than praised.
I believe myself to be filling a gap and satisfying a wish by giving at the end of this volume some remarks upon the artists whom Rodin has influenced. He is commonly treated as "a force of nature"; "an isolated phenomenon"; people affect to consider him as a sort of immense unconscious producer. These are absurd hyperboles. Rodin is a man of strong will, logical, and conscious of what he is doing, and strongly linked to the Greeks and to the Gothic school; he has very definite theories, and several sculptors, of whom Rodin's extreme admirers do not speak, preferring to leave their divinity alone in the clouds, draw their inspiration from his views. I shall name some men to whom Rodin is much attached and in whose work he takes pleasure in following the development of his principles, for he knows what he wishes, whence he comes and whither he goes, and has a horror of being thought a visionary—a phenomenon, as people say in their indiscreet zeal; on the contrary, he holds himself to be a real classical artist, whose example cannot possibly be harmful. I have thought it well, also, to conclude by a summary of the principal works or essays dealing with Rodin, at least in France; and by a chronological list of his statues—that is to say, of course, an approximate list, for many fragments of this great mass of work have been destroyed by Rodin himself, especially in the earlier part of his career, before 1877. No such list has ever been made, and it may add to the interest of the present volume; I give it under the artist's authorisation, for I made it in his house and according to his advice.
It is bad to repeat oneself. Yet I am anxious to say once more—and my insistence will be understood—that my long friendship and personal admiration for Auguste Rodin and my gratitude for the affectionate regard that he shows me count for nothing here. A study is asked of me, not a panegyric. When I have reckoned up the vast quantity of work, the maker's life, theories, talks, doings, and influence, very little room will be left for compliments. It will be for the reader to think them. Many people who would have had a difficulty in talking of sculpture have found Rodin a convenient subject for literary declamations—too many for me to wish to imitate them. Such a course would be pleasing neither to the artist nor to the public, and would content them no more than it would content me. Precise details about the man, the work, and the iconography; clear explanations of technicalities and ideas—these form all my ambition. The statement of facts will be enough to arouse love and admiration for Rodin; louder than all praises and with a stronger claim speaks the work of thirty years.
C. M.
[1] "The Art of Rodin," Revue des Revues, Paris, 15th June, 1898; and lecture, 31st July, 1900.