Whether or not we follow what Rodin said, there is no doubt that Gutzon did. He brought home with him from Europe nothing that so continuously affected his life. Again he writes of Rodin:
Rodin meant more. He meant what I will add. The artists have not seen, nor felt, nor understood the present, although they still seem to appreciate the beauty of the Greek.
Great emotion, with great understanding, again united with mastery over medium, are indispensable in the production of masterpieces in song, form or color. Prophetic insight, coupled with great love and trained to be a master in one of the mediums which the human race has invented or discovered to express itself, is lost in our day, as Rodin laments.
This paragraph seems to sum up Gutzon Borglum’s position on the matter of art expression, and it explains his reaction to much of what is called Modern Art. Years afterward he augmented it with another bit of learning out of his two years of study in France. At a meeting in honor of the French during the First World War he said:
France has been a foster mother and I shall always remember her, as Hugo put it, as my second birthplace, because to be “educated in another place is to be reborn there.”
So I was born in France at Auvers-sur-Oise. Here at Auvers I had a quiet little home and for three years grubbed and labored with my stubborn Americanism.
Finally I returned to America after having tried while there to acquire French art. And then it came to me in an hour. I shall never forget that hour. It came to me that the value and greatness of French influence are in their superiority and their devotion to the “inspiration” and not special concern for technique.
France has taught me respect for the sincere effort of other men, courage in my own, and that originality lies in being true to one’s self.
I learned that what is known as “French Art” is not the art which has placed France as art mistress of the modern world. Rather, it is Millet, Corot, Rousseau, Chavannes. It is not the Parisian article, any more than it was Falguière or any other dozens of masters of the technique, but Rodin and Dalou who helped French sculpture to its high place in our century and fixed France with the ancients.
Gutzon was not a pupil of Rodin, but he was a frequent visitor in his studio. He used to tell of watching Rodin make quantities of water-color sketches of his model, who was allowed to sit at ease and to change her position as she wished. He gave Gutzon some of these sketches, which have been preserved. They are inscribed “A mon ami, Borglum” and signed “Rodin.” Letters from him across the years have also been kept. During the First World War, when Paris was being bombed, Gutzon invited Rodin to come to the United States and use his studio in Stamford. Rodin declined and said he had decided to find refuge in Rome.