Impressionist Sculpture

Revision

Rodin

• His work was doted of great psychological strength through carving and texture

• This art is considered impressionist because of the rough surfaces and the multiplicity of plans

• The work acquires vital deepness and colossal strength that animated the images

• In his opinion, beauty in art consisted of a truly depiction of the internal state and for achieving that aim he used a certain distort of the anatomy.

Rodin

• His sculpture, in bronze and marble, can be divided into two styles:– The most characteristic is deliberately

strong in the shape and with a careful carving of the texture

An example of it can be his “Doors of Hell”

– The second is marked by a polish surface, with delicate shapes

A characteristic work can be “The Kiss”.

Rodin

• He was publicly recognised in an art exhibition in 1877 where he presented “The Age of Bronze”, a masculine nude

• This work was controversial and he was accused of using wax models of human subjects

• He began working in his “Doors of Hell” of which he created models and studios, even when they are not completely finished

Rodin

• Some of his works were acclaimed such as “The Kiss”, that was realised at the time he was working with Camille Claudel

• The experience of such a relation in which the physical union was linked to a peer friendship more spiritual probably contributed to a change in his conception of love that is evident in the works of this period.

Rodin

• He evolved from the guilty love of the “Doors of Hell” to a more visual depiction with internal strength manifested in links and hugs to beings that manifest in this way the expansion of vital energy, of shared happiness

• “The Kiss” was considered by the contemporaries as too realistic and full of impudicity

• Rodin had operated a kind of democratization of the erotic sensuality

• The work was publicly acclaimed and it supposes the apotheosis of beauty and movement, with multiplicity of plans and smooth wavy surfaces.

Rodin

• His style derived in full maturity towards symbolic forms, such as in “The Cathedral”, reduced to two hands in praying position

• Other work is “The Hand of God”, in which from an ethereal marble cloud a human body emerges.

• In 1886 he finished “The Bourgeois of Calais” in which he announced the deformations of the Expressionism

• This monumental bronze group depicts historical characters with great psychological differences

Rodin

• He produced several portraits in which the emotional states of the characters can be identified

• His work marked, at the same time as Impressionism in painting, the birth of contemporary sculpture

• The sculpture language of the 20th century has its beginning in the work of this extraordinary sculptor.

Camille Claudel

• She always aimed at being an sculptor

• Rodin, impressed by the solidity of her work, accepted her as a student in his workshop

• She collaborated with her master in two important works:– The Doors of Hell– The Bourgeois of Calais

Camille Claudel

• She left her family to work and lived with Rodin, depending on him and also in her own creation

• Sometimes the works of teacher and student are so close one to another that it is difficult to say who influenced on whom

• After this period, she suffered due to two reasons: – The difficulty of her relationship with Rodin, who was

with other woman– The comments of some people saying that her works

were realised by her master.

Camille Claudel

• She tried to separate from her master and this attempt to be autonomous can be recognised in – the way of choosing the subjects and – the treatment she gave to her works

• In this period she produced “The Vals” and “The Little Chatelaine”

• She finally separated from her master in 1898• After this rupture, hurt and disoriented, she

became mad and needed to receive psychiatric treatment

• She expressed the rupture in a woks called “The Age Mur”

Camille Claudel

• She tried to continue with her career in loneliness although the negative critics of some of the art-critics of the time

• Two exhibitions of her works were realised in order to achieve recognition and, at the same time, financial and moral benefit for her

• Critics were very good but Camille was too ill to benefit from these comments.

Camille Claudel

• After 1905 the periods of paranoia were more frequent and worrying

• She accused Rodin of keeping her sculptures and attribute them to himself

• She also thought that unknown people were trying to enter in her home to steal her works

• She was physically and morally deteriorated, not eating and not trusting anyone

• She died in 1943