7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

1/14

The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The

Burlington Magazine.

http://www.jstor.org

Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'Author(s): Albert ElsenSource: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 109, No. 776 (Nov., 1967), pp. 604+606-617Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/875432

Accessed: 17-08-2015 17:47 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of contentin a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bmplhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/875432http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/875432http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bmplhttp://www.jstor.org/

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

2/14

EDITORIAL

A few indications

can

be

given

as to

what of crucial

im-

portance

is hidden behind the

scenes.

There are

Rodin's own

books;

about

700ooo

nexhibited

drawings;

the contents of

the

basement

of

the Meudon

museum;

a

great

file of

clippings

from

newspapers

and

magazines

which was

begun during

Rodin's

lifetime;

many

photographs

of Rodin

himself;

and

photographs

which

helped

him

with his work

on,

for

example,

the statue of

Balzac.

Grappe

in

his

catalogue

refers

to

atelier

notes,

known

to be in the

attic of the

Musde

Rodin.

(And conversely

there

is the material

that should be

there,

and is

not.

Many

of the

photographs

n

the museum's

album

are old and of

poor quality,

and not all the workshave

been

photographed.

There is no

photographic

record of

the draw-

ings,

so that

a

scholar could

examine them even if

the

originals

were denied

to

him.)

It would not be fair to

Mme

Goldscheider o claim that

literally

none of this

material

has

been

seen

by any foreign

scholar since

she took over

the

Directorship

of the Musee

Rodin some

eighteen years ago.

It is fair to claim that most

Rodin

scholarship

still

proceeds

in

the absence of that museum's

leadership

or

assistance.

ALBERT

ELSEN

R o d i n s

N a k e d

B a l z a c

'There was

nothing

in him

of the man

of this

century.

One

might think,

on

seeing him,

that

one

had

passed

into

another

age

and

was

in

the

society

of

those

few who

by

their nature

were

immortal,

of

whom Louis

XV

was the

centre . .

.

It

was the

face of

an

element:

big

head,

hair dishevelled over his

collar and

cheeks,

like a wave

which the

scissors never

clipped...

He

was

big,

thick,

square

at

the

base and

shoulders

... There

was so much

soul

that he

carried himself

lightly, gaily.

So that his

body

was like a

flexible

covering

and

not a burden. This

weight

seemed

to add and

not

detract from his

strength.

His

short arms

gestured

with ease and he

chatted the

way

an

orator

speaks...

his

legs

on

which he

occasionally

rocked a

little,

easily

carried his

body;

his

large

fat

hands

responded

expressively

to

his

thought.

Such was the man

in

his

robust

frame..,

his

black

eyes

were as

piercing

as darts... his

rosy

cheeks

were

full..,

the nose was well modelled

although

a little

long;

the

ample lips

were

gracefully

shaped

and

turned

up

at

the corners . . .

the head

often

rested to

one side

on the

neck and then with

an heroic

pride

straightened

itself as he

became

animated

in

the

discussion.

That

expressive

face,

from which one could

not

detach one's

gaze,

was

entirely charming

and

fascinating.

But its

predom-

inant

characteristic,

even more than

its

intelligence,

was the

goodness

it com-

municated

. .

.

No

passion

of hatred or

envy

could have

been

expressed

on that

face;

it

was

impossible

for

it

to be

anything

but kind. ..

it was a

loving

kind-

ness,

aware of itself and

of others

. . .'

(Lamartine's

escription

f

Balzac)

The

Problems

Rodin's

accomplishment

n

his

sculpture

of

the

naked

Balzac

may

be

best

understood

in

terms of

the

problems,

apparent

and

real,

with

which he had to

cope.1

He was

first

of all a

sculptor

dedicated

to

working

from

life, yet

his

subject

had

died over

forty

years

earlier when

Rodin

was

only

io.

In

his

vanity

Balzac

had

a

cast

made of

his

right

hand,

but there

was no

death

mask to

give

exact facial

dimensions

such as

Rodin

often took

from his

subjects

with

a

pair

of

callipers.

The

most accurate record of

Balzac's

physical

proportions

were in

caricaturesand his

old tailor's

records.

There was no

life-size

sculpture

to

give

the artist

the true

scale

of

the entire

figure

or

to

recall

its

profiles

rom

many points

of

view,

which

for

Rodin

were crucial to the

making

of

any

work

of

art,

whether of

a

clothed

or naked

figure

(whether

Rodin

knew

of Puttinati's

small marble

sculpture

of

a

robed

Balzac,

done

in

I837,

we do not

know).

In his

informative

essay

on

this Rodin

sculpture,

Professor

de

Caso,

like the late

Judith

Cladel,

reminded us of the

difficulties Rodin

encountered with his

patrons,

La

Soci6te

des Gens

de

Lettres.

From the

outset

this

group

was

not

unanimous

in

its

support

of

Rodin to

replace

the

deceased

sculptor

Chapu,

and,

despite

his

silence on the

subject,

Rodin

probably

knew

there

were other

sculptorswaiting

in

the

wings.2

The model for the final

sculpture

which

Rodin

showed

the

Societe

in

1892,

and

which

may

have been

the

one whose cast is discussedin this

essay, brought

no

satis-

faction,

and

subsequent

demands

from his

client for

speed-

ing

the work's

completion

once

reached

the

absurdity

of their

1

This

essay

originated

from

a

talk

given

on

8th

May, 1966,

at the

unveiling

of

Rodin's

sculpture

of

the

naked Balzac at the Rhode Island

School of

Design

Museum.

A

Guggenheim

Fellowship

for

research into the

origins

and

develop-

ment

of modem

sculpture

made

it

possible

to

rethink,

rework and

expand

the

contents of that

lecture into its

present

form.

My gratitude

must also extend

to

Mrs Athena

Spear

for

her

excellent advice on

technical

matters,

and to

Pro-

fessor Leo

Steinberg

for our

discussions

of this

sculpture

and

his

calling

atten-

tion to certain

references.

I

would also like to thank

Professor Harold Lewis of

the

Department

of

Physiology,

London

University,

for

his

interesting

obser-

vations

made

from

viewing

photographs

of the

sculpture.

On

many points

of

interpretation

I

differ from Professor

Jacques

de

Caso's

essay

on

this

sculpture

published

in the

May

1966

Bulletin

of

theRhode sland School

of

DesignMuseum,

but I wish

to

acknowledge

that his work was an

important

stimulation

and

source of information for

my

own

essay.

As I have stated before in this

Magazine,

the difficulties and often

impossi-

bility

of

conducting

research

in

the archives of

the Mus6e

Rodin

make

present

Rodin

research

speculative

in

part.

Some

day,

a

new

generation

of

scholars

will

be able to

use

this museum's vital resources to correct our

errors,

but

alas,

that

generation may

be as

yet

unborn.

If instead

of

the erratic

Cerberus the

doyenne

of

the

Mus6e Rodin had been

guarding

Hell,

Dante's Divine

Comedy

would never have been written.

2

Chapu's maquette appears

to have been lost

and I have

not

found

a

photo-

graph

of

it.

Two

drawings

for

his

project

are

reproduced

by

CHARLES

DU

BOSQUET

n

the

Revue

de

l'Art,

n

[1911

,

p.x

12.

In

1891

the Soci6t6

des Gens de

Lettres asked the

sculptors

Falguiere,

Merci6,

and Dubois for

their

advice.

They

recommended

giving Chapu's maquette

to

a

praticien

or

enlargement.

According

to an

unsigned

article

in

Le

Temps [i8th

July,

1891],

Chapu's

monument showed Balzac dressed

in

a monk's

robe,

seated

in an

armchair

which

in

turn was mounted on

a

pedestal.

On one

side stood

a

woman

who

symbolized

'La

gloire'

and

on

the other 'un

petit

amor'nscribed

with the name

of

Balzac.

6o6

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

3/14

RODIN'S 'NAKED

BALZAC'

voting

to

require

the

sculpture's completion

within

twenty-

four hours.3For Rodin to have satisfied all of

the members'

respective images

of Balzac

would

have been

equal

to

Bal-

zac's

fictive

painter,

Frenhofer,

in

the

Chef

d'oeuvre

nconnu

successfullycreating

a

perfect synthesis

of line

and

colour.

In

his

professional

life and

throughout

his

activity,

and

even

periods

of

inactivity,

on the

Balzac

monument,

Rod-

in's affinities with the

man

he

sought

to

honour

were re-

markable.Like

Balzac,

he

agreed

to a

great undertaking

that

was to

be

realized

in a

period

that

was far

too short as

measured

by

his

own

previous delays

with

similar

com-

missions.

Both artist

and

writer were

compulsive

editors

of

their own

work,

reluctant

to

give

it

up

and

even

then re-

working

in

their minds

or

creating

new versions of

what

they

had

done.

As

they grew

older

their

conceptions

matured with

them.

No more than Balzac could Rodin refrainfrom start-

ing

or

continuing

on other

projects

such

as the

memorial to

Baudelaire,

the monument to Victor

Hugo,

the Tower

of

Labour,

he

completion

and

installation

of

the

Burghers

f

Calais

and

the

Claude

Lorrain

sculpture

at

Nancy.

The

sculptor's

acceptance

of

major

commissions,

unlike that of

Balzac, did not stem from such overwhelming financial

need,

but like his

predecessor,

Rodin was

goaded

by

the

challenge

to

do

many

great things

at the same time

for

the

public.

Balzac

wrote

to live

well;

Rodin

lived to

work

well.

Of

all the male

subjects

Rodin

was to

interpret

in

his

career,

Balzac

provided

the

greatest problem

because he

possessed

the least

likely

body

to be

celebrated

in

serious

sculpture. During

his

lifetime it had been

ripe

for caricature

and Balzac's detractorshad

reaped

the harvest. Balzac was

neither a

man of

physical

action

nor

attraction

and

he

made

much of the fact that for weeks on end he would sit for six-

teen to

eighteen

hours

a

day

at his

writing

table.

According

to various

contemporary descriptions,

when

standing

he

revealed

gnome-like legs,

an

enormous

paunch

and

a

huge

head.

His

profile spurred

comparison

with the Ace of

Spades.

Only

when his audience

could observe his

eyes

or when he

spoke

was he

impressive.

At first

sight

and before

they

talked,

Gavarni

mistook

him

for

a

bookseller's

apprentice.

While

the

great

man

thought

of himself as a

gentleman

of

fashion,

he

was

in

fact

given

to

outlandish dress

in

public,

but

worked

at home in a Dominican monk's

habit.

He was

prematurely

pot-bellied

and

gap-toothed,

so that

even

if Rodin had

fin-

ally

opted

for

a

younger

Balzac,

most of these

physical

characteristics would

have

still confronted

him.

More

interesting

than

the choice of the

subject's

age,

was

why

Rodin consented

to do

a

full

figure

of

a

writer.

For

him

the most

important

problem

in a

public

monument was the

head, which a few years before he felt another artist had

solved for a memorial

to

Balzac.

In an

interview

with

an

unnamed

reporter

that

was

published

in Le

Temps,

12th

September

I888,

both Rodin and Dalou

spoke

of

how,

whoever would

make

a statue to

Balzac,

would

have more

or

less to

copy

and

respect

the

bust

by

David

D'Angers

(Fig.2).

According

to

Rodin,

'That

leaves

the artist to

make

a

choice

of

symbolic figures...

and

I

have

not

thought

about

them.'

(But

Rodin

had

given

some

thought

to

the

body

that should

support

the bust and told the

reporter

it should

have 'broad

shoulders'.)

His

years

of trial and

change

of his

monument

to

Victor

Hugo

were to

culminate

in

the

cutting

away

of

everything

but the author's

bust

which

Rodin

finally

acknowledged

as the best

of his labour.

In

I892,

in

a

statement

concerning

the memorial to Baudelaire that

prob-

ably paralleled

in

time the

making

of the

naked

Balzac,

Rodin

gave

a

persuasive argument

against

including

the

body

of

a

writer

in a commemorative

sculpture:

'I cannot

see

a

statue of Baudelaire.

What is

a

statue after

all? A

body,

arms,

legs,

covered

with banal

clothing.

What do these have

to

do with

Baudelaire,

who

lived

only

by

his

brain?

With

him the

head

is

everything.'4

Not the least of Rodin's problemsand inspirationwas the

fact

that his

sculpture

of Balzac was

originally

intended to

be

placed

near the

Theatre

Frangais

(today

the

Comedie

Frangaise)

n

the Place du Palais

Royal,

where it would have

to

contend with

a

large open space,

traffic,

and

architecture,

particularly

the Louvre

as its

backdrop.

In

sum,

Rodin dedicated

a

large part

of six

years

to re-

creating

for

a

fickle,

disunited,

insatiable

client an heroic

public

monument to

a

deceased

national hero who

in

ap-

pearance

had

been

an

ugly

fat

man,

and who wrote books.

The

problem

of

bringing

Balzac back

to

life was one to

which Rodin did

in

fact

bring

considerable

previous

ex-

perience.

His

John

the

Baptist,

he

Burghersf

Calais,

and

port-

raits

of

Bastien-Lepage

and Claude Lorrain had

been

based

on live models whose

appearance

and

expression

he felt

were

sufficiently

close

to those of

his

subjects.

Rodin's

re-

creation of

a

great subject

was similar to

the

method em-

ployed by

Balzac

when

he

prepared

to

portray

Napoleon,

for

example.

The

sculptor

even reconnoitred the

geograph-

ical terrain

of

Balzac's life

much as

the writer had revisited

old

Napoleonic

battlefields. Balzac

drew

inspiration

for

his

characters

from

close

friends,

chance

acquaintances

or

people

seen

momentarily

on the

streets.

Rodin trusted to

chance encounters

in

Balzac's home

country

of Touraine

and Paris to

give

him ideas and models. The writer's

ap-

pearance

was familiar

through drawings,

caricatures,

prints,

paintings,

some

sculptures,

and

photographs.

The

visual

and

literary documentation came gradually to be fused in the

sculptor's imagination

and it

midwifed

the

emergence

of

many

of the

preliminary

studies.

Why

did

Rodin choose

an

older

rather

than

a

younger

Balzac for

the naked

figure

he showed the Socidtd

in

1892

?

(Anatomically

the model

was

probably

in his

early

50's.)

Admittedly

his

various

portrait

reconnaissances,

such as

a

head

in

the Tate

Gallery,

show

various

ages.5

As

a

young

man

Balzac,

like

Rodin,

though

talented

and

energetic

and

3

While the date

of

1892

is

very possible

for

the

clay

and

plaster

versions of

the

naked Balzac as

Professor

de

Caso

concludes,

we still cannot be

absolutely

sure.

Professor

de

Caso cites

CHARLES

CHINCHOLLE's

rticle

to

support

this

date:

'During

the

year

1892

.

. . the

artist

conceived

a

strange

Balzac

in

the

attitude of a

wrestler,

seeming

to

defy

the

world. He

had

put

over

very widely

spread legs

an

enormous

belly.

More

concerned

with an

exact resemblance

than

with the

general

conception

of

Balzac,

he made him

shocking, misshapen,

his

head sunk

into

his

shoulders

. . .'

(p.9).

Chincholle's

description

could

fit

equally

well

the

plaster

naked Balzac at Meudon which

Professor

de

Caso

reproduces

as

plate

9

and

which

for undisclosed reasons

he

dates as

i897-8.

(I agree

with

Athena

Spear

that this

last work more

probably

dates from

1893

or

I894.)

An

unsigned

article in Le

Temps [19th August,

I896]

makes it

clear

that

by

that date Rodin

had settled on the

final robed

figure.

Mrs

Spear

has

published

a

chronology

for

the

Balzac studies

in

her

excellent

catalogue

of

Rodin

sculptures

in the

Cleveland

Museum of Art.

4

This

statement is

from an article of

1892

which is

in

one of

the

few Mus6e

Rodin

files of

clippings

I

was allowed

to

see five

years

ago.

This was

also

the

last time

I was

permitted

to

work

with

any

archival material in

that

museum.

5

This head is

reproduced

in RONALD ALLEY'S

The

Tate,

Foreign Paintings,

Drawings

and

Sculpture

1959],

p.217

and

pl.476.

Mr

Alley

dates

the head of the

607

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

4/14

RODIN'S

'NAKED

BALZAC'

dreaming

of

greater

things,

was

obliged

to

do a

considerable

amount

of hack

work,

even

letting

others

sign

their names

to his efforts or

writing

under the

nom de

plume

of

Horace

de

Saint-Aubin.

Before

he was

30,

Balzac had not written

enough

nor

sufficiently

well

to

warrant

his later commem-

oration

by

the

greatest

living sculptor

or his

patron.

Rodin

was

surely

aware of the

long

apprenticeship

they

both en-

dured,

and

the

tenacity

married

to

energy

that

begot

their

respective

characters.

In

their

productive

early years,

as

well

as

later,

both were

subjected

to bitter

and often scurrilous

attacks.

It was

not until his

late

30's

that Balzac conceived

of

the

grand

plan

for

the Comidie

Humaine.

This

conception,

like

Rodin's Gates

of

Hell,

was

strongly inspired

by

Dante's

Divine

Comedy.

Thus

at

about

the same

age

in

life,

roughly

40,

both

men

working

in Paris and

drawing

from

a

common

inspiration

came

to undertake

an

epic

art that

would

re-

create

their

own societies.

The

bonds

between Rodin

and

Balzac

were

many

and

certainly deeply

felt

by

the

former.

Neither man could

give

himself

completely

to one

woman

and

although

they

oc-

casionally

needed

women

for

support,

obsession

with artistic

creation was their most enduring and faithful love. Both men

experienced

amorous

victories,

defeats,

and

misalliances,

but

drew from these

experiences

to the benefit of

their

art in

terms of

subjects

and

feelings.

If

there

is

a

single

unifying

pre-

occupation

in

their

lives and works it

is with

passion.

In

Bal-

zac's novels

it

is

the monomania

of

passion

for

wealth,

status,

or sex

which drives

so

many

of

his

principal

characters

and

their families to

destruction.

Passion

is the cause

and

pun-

ishment

of those

who

are in the Gates

of

Hell.

Both writer

and

sculptor

were

compassionate

judges

of

their

times,

never

dispassionate reporters.

Neither

man

could

accept

orthodox

religion

in

his

per-

sonal beliefs.

Each

responded

aesthetically

to the

beauty

of

the

cathedrals

and

the

sights

and sounds

of

the

liturgy.

The

Church

as

a

socially

unifying

force

through

education

and

charity

was

valued

by

the two

men

who

regretted

the

ab-

sence

of

social

and moral cohesion

in their societies.

While

after

an

agnostic

phase

Balzac

developed

mystical

and

philo-

sophical

views about

the

unity

of

all

life,

analogous

to but

more

sophisticated

than

those of

Rodin,

both

found

their

spiritual

salvation

in

brutally

unsparing

creative

work.

The

Comidie

Humaine

and

Rodin's

art were born

of intense

observation

of

life.

Both

men

believed,

for

instance,

in

physiognomic

psychology

or

that

a man's character

revealed

itself

in

his

face.

According

to

his

biographers,

Balzac

usually

chose

not to

draw

his characters

entirely

from the

same

person

he

knew

nor

from

himself,

but

they

were

in fact

syn-

thesized and developed from individuals to types, or the

reverse.

This was Rodin's

practice

and

it was

well known

that

he would

make

over

his

portrait

subjects

into

his

own

image.

Some

of the

sculptor's

critics,

like

their

earlier

literary

coun-

terparts,

were

to

complain

in

1898

that

the

final

character

he evolved

for

Balzac

was an abstraction.

Both

artists

shared

the view

that their

problems

were

to

create

portraits

that

were

faithful

to

the

powerful

psychological

and

emotional

forces

that

shaped

the

inner

man and

which

also showed

how

external

appearance

responded

to

the

shaping

pressures

of

nature.

It is hard to

believe that

having

done

so much

personal

research

nto Balzac's

history

Rodin was unaware of

or un-

impressed

with this man's

personal

magnetism

and de-

bauchery

that

were

as

Herculean

as

his

writing. Biograph-

ers wrote

how he feasted while

facing bankruptcy

and how

his

abundant

belly

reverberated

o

joviality,

or

how his

eyes

melted

the resistance of beautiful

women

when

they

first

saw him.

Unlike

Baudelaire,

in

Rodin's

imagination

it

seems

probable

that Balzac lived not

only

by

his brain but

also

through

his

body.

Balzac had referred

to

himself

as

being

many

men,

and

one

can

conjecture

which Balzac

might

Rodin have

imaged

in his

mind

in

i891;

the womanizer

who knew

the other

sex better

than

they

themselves;

the financier

gifted

with

prophecy

but

damned

by

naiveti;

or

the aesthetewho award-

ed himself

bejewelled

canes?

As a

writer,

the

choices for

Rodin

could have been between the Rabelaisian Balzac

of

the Contes

Drolatiques,

r

the

visionary

of

Siraphita,

or

the

astute

sociologist

of the

Physiologies,

o name

but

a

few.

Rodin's

sculpture suggests

that

in

many

respects

he decided

not

to

choose,

but to

fuse.

The

Sculpture

Much

of the brilliance

of

the

sculpture

of the

naked Balzac

derives

from its strident

pose. Psychologically

and aestheti-

cally

it

wins

a

commanding presence

for

the

figure.

The

assertivestance

as much as

bodily

proportionsreadily

lends

itself

to

interpreting

the

figure

as

an

athlete,

a

wrestler,

a

man

whose

aged

body

preserves

the

memory

of

physical

strength.Judith

Cladel

astutely

described

this

work

as

'the

movement

of a

fighter

who

marches

to

combat'.6 Rodin's

decision

to

position

his

figure

thus

was

a

genuinely inspired

one,

not

suggested

by

the visual

iconography

or written

descriptions

of the man.

Paintings,

drawings, prints,

and

sculptures

do not show this

pose,

nor do

such

biographers

as

Lamartine and Werdet specificallydescribethis wide open

stance

as

being

natural or

instinctive to

him.

Danton's

sculp-

tural caricature

(which

Balzac

liked for

showing

his

asser-

tive

inclination),

while true

to

Balzac's

proportions

accord-

ing

to

Werdet,

showsthe

right

foot

only

slighty

advanced and

the

feet not

too

far

apart

(Fig.3).7

Boulanger's painting,

which

Balzac admired for

showing

his

tenacity

and

self-

confidence

in the

future,

does reveal the writer with arms

folded across

his chest

(Fig.4). (Balzac

liked

the

monastic

associations

of

his

white robe

and

he

hoped

it

would con-

vince

his

Polish mistress of his

fidelity during

their

separa-

tion.8)

Rodin's

sense

of the

appropriateness

of

the

folded

naked

Balzac

full

figure

in Rhode

Island,

a

cast

of which

is

in the

Tate,

as

being

I892,

P.247.

Mr

Alley's

scholarship

and

observations

are

exceedingly

fine.

6

JUDITH

CLADEL:

Rodin,

sa vie

glorieuse,

a vie

inconnue,

dition

Definitive,

Paris

[1950],

p.I89.

7 There is a strong possibility that Danton's pose for Balzac may have given

Rodin the

germ

of his

sculptural

idea for

broadening

the

figure's

base.

EDMOND

WERDET: Portrait

ntimede

Balzac,

sa

vie,

son

humeur

t son

caracthre,

aris

[I 859],

P-359.

8

ANDR.

MAUROIS:Prometheus:

The

Life of

Balzac,

London

[1965],

P-327.

This

is

a

superb

biography

which

encouraged

me

to

expand upon

the Rodin and

Balzac

relationship beyond

my

lecture.

Certain

scholars

and

critics

have advanced

the

view that Rodin

took his

idea

for

the

final

robed

figure

of Balzac from either

a

Gothic Pleurant

sculpture,

a

Japanese

ceramic

figurine

in his

collection,

Medardo Rosso's

Bookmaker,

r a

suggestion

from Bourdelle.

Balzac's

well-known

love and constant use

of his

robe,

its recurrence

in

his

visual

iconography

known to

Rodin,

and the

sculp-

tor's

use

of it as

early

as

I891,

make

these

suggested

attributions

irrelevant

in

my

opinion.

For

example,

in Le

Temps

of

I

Ith

January,

1892,

in an

unsigned

article,

we can

read,

'Balzac

is

standing,

arms

crossed,

head

high,

and

he is

draped

in his

legendary

monk's robe'.

Rodin could have been

continuing

Chapu's

choice

of

costume.

608

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

5/14

iii

iiiiiii

.........................

.....................................................

i

l0"~~iii~iiiii~iiiiii

~

i

an......................................................................

i

ii~iiiiiiii~iiiii~iiii~~~iiii i ~~ii i~~i~ ii~ii i i~~ii .

.

i~ii~iiii~

iii~

~~ii~~~~i ii i~

iii

......................

i ~iiii i ~ii%

%

ii~ii

A

"

I

F

B

LA

I

iiiii.~

i~i~ii~ i~~iiiiiii~iii

P.. i~~~~i ~~iii i i iii ii i

i

~ ~

~

~

D

V

D

iiiiiiWAiNiiiiiiG ER"~~~~ ii~i~iii i ii~i~iii~i i

iiiiiiiii%iiii ii~iii ii~~%i i iii~ii4i~iiii

...;?ggi iiilg

ii~ ~i ~

i ii iiiiiiiii~i~iiiiiii

2.

Bust

of

Balzac,

by

David

d'Angers.

Signed

and dated

1844.

Marble.

(Musee

des

Beaux-Arts,

Angers).

Photo

Giraudon.

3.

Caricature

of

Balzac,

by

Danton.

1835.

Terra-cotta.

(Mus&e

Carnavalet,

Paris.)

Photo

Giraudon.

4.

Engraving

by

Paul

Chenay

after

painting

of Balzac

by

Louis

Boulanger.

Photo

Roger

Viollet.

5.

Nude

study

of

Balzac,

by Auguste

Rodin.

Plaster;

height,

43'7

cm.

(Musde

Rodin,

Paris).

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

6/14

6.

The

Naked

Balzac,

by

Auguste

Rodin.

Bronze;

height,

127

cm.

(Rhode

Island

School of

Design,

Providence.)

7.

Another view

of the bronze

reproduced

in

Fig.6.

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

7/14

RODIN'S

'NAKED BALZAC'

arms

may

also have come from

or been

reinforced

by

reading

Autre

Jtude de

Femme,

n

which,

while

describing Napoleon,

Balzac

wrote,

'A man is

depicted

with his

arms

folded,

but

who did

everything

. . .

A

man who

could do

everything

because

he

willed

everything.'9

This

ironic

image

of

the

passive

gesture

for men who in

their

own

ways

reshaped

the

world

may

not have been

lost

upon

Rodin.

It is

in

the

sculptor's

own

art,

in

the small

figure

of the

naked

Balzac,

right

arm

extended,

the

left bent behind his

back

and

legs

apart

in an

oratorical

pose

that Lamartine

could have

suggested,

that there is

possibly

the

immediate

precedent

for the

open

stance

(Fig.5)*.10

Rodin

surely

heard

and

read

of

Balzac's

oratorical skill

either

in

the salon

or on

the

stage

where

he

read

his unfinished

plays

to

prospective

backers.

(A

not

inappropriate

pose

for the site

near

the

ThdeatreFran?ais.)

It was in

such moments

of

forensic dis-

play

that

he

could

dispel

the

audience's consciousness

of his

physical

shortcomings.

The

pose

of the

naked

Balzac satisfies

different

demands.

It

imparts suggestions

of

strong

character and

a

self-assured

attitude towards the

world.

Secondly,

it

was

the

brilliant

artistic solution to the problem of achieving an imposing

sculpture

of

a

short

obese

subject.

In

the

present-day

ab-

sence

of rhetorical

sculpture

we

have

forgotten

how

import-

ant were

figure

composition

and

symbolism

before

and

dur-

ing

Rodin's

lifetime.

(We

have

even

forgotten

of what

single

figure composition

consists

and that since

antiquity

the

naked

body

was used

metaphorically.)

Rodin's

sculpture

reminds

us

that

good

figure

composition

included minimiz-

ing

and

harmonizing

physical disparities.

Better than

any

alchemist,

Rodin

was

able

to

transform the lead of

Balzac's

physical

liabilities into

artistic

gold.

There

is

every

reason to believe that

for

this

sculpture

Rodin

used the

body

of

one

model

and

the

head of

another.

This was a frequent practice in his art as testified to in the

Gates

of

Hell and

Burghers

f

Calais.

One

of

his

many

con-

siderable

achievements

in this

sculpture

is to

persuade

us

that the

body

can

only belong

to the head on its

shoulders,

and

the reverse.

There were

times when the

body

stood

in

his

studio without a

head. It is

for

this

and

other

reasons

within

the

sculpture

tself

that

I

suggest

an

influence

of

the

legs

of

the

Walking

Man on the

naked

Balzac

(Fig.8).

In

the

1890's,

the

headless,

armless torso

and

striding legs though

probably

not

joined

until

1900,

remained

in

Rodin's studio and there-

fore

were

susceptible

to

study

and

comparison.

As

with the

Walking

Man,

it is

probable

that

Rodin

intended

the

viewer

to read

his

sculpture sequentially

from the base

upward,

the

back

leg

to

the

front

leg.

Such a

reading

can

be

made

with

profit

(Fig.9).

It

seemed to

have been Balzac's habit to stand

with his

toes

pointed

outwards.

In

both

of

Rodin's aforementioned

sculptures

the

figures

are

somewhat

pigeon-toed,

and

the

feet

firmly

identified

with the

base and its

shape

or

peri-

meter.

The

base of the

Balzac sculpture

has

in

fact been

trimmed

more

closely

to

coincide

with

the

angle

and dia-

meter

of the feet

(the

left

foot

overlaps

the

base

as

it

does

in

the

final

version

of

1898).

Examination of

the

right

foot and

leg

of

the

Balzac shows a

discontinuity

of

their axes and

a

drastic

curvature

of the shin-bone

of

the

right leg (Figs.9, 6).

A

surgeon

would correct such

a

condition

by

an

operation,

but

Rodin

has in fact induced this

physical

deformity by

changing

the

position

of the foot

or

leg,

but

not

both.

The

upper

part

of

the

figure's right

leg

seems

to be turned out-

wards as if the foot were

similarly angled.

As

with

the

Walk-

ing

Man,

it is

possible

that

Rodin

wanted

some

closure

to the

open

stance

and found that the

present angle

of the

foot

produced

a

more

dramatic

muscular

tension

and

overall

visual effectiveness.11

By spreading

the feet wide

apart,

Rodin

gained

many

advantages.

A

physiologist

studying

photographs

of the

sculpture suggested

that the stance would

accommodate

a

figure

who had a

shortened

eg

and wishedto

appear

normal.

There is

another reason

to

believe

that

Rodin's model

was

not

so

handicapped

and we must

also

udge

his distortions

within

the

context

of

the whole

sculpture.

Rodin's concerns for

perfection

were aesthetic and

expressive,

not

cosmetic.

The

forked

stance

produced

a

broad base

for

the

figure

which

preserved

the

overall

squarish

appearance

Lamartine des-

cribed,

and

prevented

the stomach

from

visually

overbal-

ancing the whole. This posture also allowed the artist to

build

dramatically

to

the

stomach

area

and

discreetly

to

lengthen

the

subject's

short

legs.

As

in

the

Walking

Man,

the

rear or left

leg

is

a

few

inches

longer

than

the

right

or front

leg.

By spreading

the

legs

Rodin

did himself

and his

subject

a

service

as he was able to hollow the

flanks where there

was

likely

to have been

fat in

his

middle-aged

model.

The

swell

of

the left

thigh

muscle,

most noticeable

from

a

left

rear

view,

is

anatomically

questionable

unless induced

by

a

pressure

exerted on the

inner

part

of

the

leg

(Fig.

i).

But this

area

must be

read

visually

as

part

of

the

passage

from

the

left

ankle

up

through

the stomach and left elbow

in

order to

understand the artistic incentive

of

visual

continuity

for this

exaggeration.

The

mound

between

the

legs

served

as a

quarry

from

which Rodin extracted

clay

to build the

figure.

Its

presence

in the

Rhode

Island,

Chicago

and smaller version

is

some-

thing

of

a

puzzle.

While it

may

have concealed

part

of

the

armature,

which

is

debatable,

the stance

and Rodin's

skill

at

building

armatures

suggest

that the

figure

was

actually

self-sufficient.12

Further,

the mound

has been

deliberately

shaped.

It

can

be

viewed

aesthetically against

the

profiles

of

the

legs

from several

angles

for

example.

It is

quite probable

that

Rodin

left it

there because

he intended

the final

figure

to

be robed and in

studying

it did not

want

daylight

between

the

legs.

Judith

Cladel

wrote of

how

Rodin

would

repeatedly

study

the

sculpture's

intended

site,

measuring

the

cube

of

space

his

figure

would

occupy.13

This

type

of

study

would have

9

MAUROIS, oP. cit.,

p.402.

10

Professor de

Caso

reads

this

pose

as

that of a

'wrestler or

athlete', op. cit.,

P.9.

11

While an anatomistwould

quickly

notice

this

physical imperfection,

Pro-

fessor

Lewis indicated to me

that

Rodin had not created

an

anatomical m-

possibility,

or

the

humanankle

and calf muscles

are

capable

of

wide

variations

in

structureand

position.

The

back

of

Balzac's

right leg

was

not

completely

finished

by

the artist. Its

angular editing

and vector-like hrust

suggest

that

Rodin wanted to contest he natural

curvature

f the model's

eg

and

perhaps

impart

more

strength

and

vigour

into the stance. The variation

n overall

surface

handling

n thisworkseemedto me much

greater

than the Meudon

plaster

version

n

which Professor e

Caso

sees evidence of a

'revolutionary'

change

of

style.

12

Professore Caso

suggests

he mound's

possible

useto

disguise

an

armature.

However,

here s no such

counterpart

n

the

Meudon

version,

or

in

the small-

scale version

of

the

Walking

Man,

or

in

such

daring

feats of

armature

building

as Rodin's

Spirit f

Eternel

epose.

18

LADEL,

p.

cit.,

pp.189-90.

611

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

8/14

RODIN'S

'NAKED

BALZAC'

taken into account a more solid

silhouette than

that

which

the mound's absence

would have

produced.

The rear view of the

sculpture

is

surprising

after one

has

seen

the

figure

from the

front

(Fig.i12).

Anatomically

the

back shows less fat

than the front

and

the

deep trough

of the

spinal

area

tells us that Rodin's model

had

a

history

of

considerable

physical

exertion and

lifted

heavy

weights.

(But

he

was

not

a

weight-lifting athlete,

for

the

chest

by

comparison

has much more subcutaneous

issue

which blurs

the

pectoral area.)

The

pose

of the

folded arms

suggests

strength,

but as Professor

Lewis

points

out,

Rodin

shows

a

kind of

'cuddling

up

of fat'

(Fig.Ii).

Rodin's

empirical study

of

many

living subjects

had

shown

him

that

individuals

can

have this

type

of

asymmetry.

Anatomists as well

as

artists

have

admired his

ability

shown in this

sculpture

of dis-

criminating

in

his

modelling

between muscle and

fat.

Bal-

zac's back

gives

at once

the

impression

of

a

firm

but

flexible

skeletal

frame

to which are

attached

strong

muscles with a

thin

layer

of fat

beneath the flesh. The

squared

back's divi-

sion

by

the

graceful

curve

of

the lumbar

region

does much to

ensure

the

sculpture's

beauty

and

power

from this

angle.

The young sculptorswho reacted against Rodin around

1900

felt that he did not have a

sufficient

sense

of the

latent

'architecture' of the

body.

His work

was

thought

of

as too

'soft'

and

susceptible

to dissolution

in

the

open

air.

Today

one

finds it

hard

to

understand

how

his

sculpture

such

as

the

naked Balzac could be

found

guilty

on

either

count.

The

legs,

for

example,

are

like

two

flying

buttresses or canted

pillars

that thrust or

plunge

into the

pelvic

area rather than

passively receiving

the inert

weight

of the

stomach

(Fig.6).

Rodin's

great insight

into

the

body's

structure led

him

to

produce

figures

that are

closer to Eiffel's

engineered

struc-

tures of the

time

than

any

architecture

possessing

the

post

and lintel

system.

Continuing

the

upward sequence

of

reading

the

Balzac,

the torso is like the second act of a

drama. The

stomach's

pugnacious

swell is not into a

perfect sphere

such as

one

finds on

baroque

sculptures

of

Silenus or Tacca's

Bacchus

n

the

Pitti Palace

gardens.

The

latter seems never to have ex-

perienced hunger

and

appears permanently

inflated. The

pliant

surfacesof Rodin's

sculpture

evoke recollections

of

its

owner's

feasting

and

fasting,

and

we

sense

the

presence

of

inner

organs

as

well as the

impressions

made

by clothing.

On

the one

hand

Rodin

gives

us

evidence

that his

model was at

least

a candidate for

a

hernia,

and

on

the

other he handles

fat as

if it

were

muscle.

The

stomach

thrusts forward with

the

impact

of

a

clenched fist.

(Werdet

once

described

Balzac

as

'entering

a

salon

like the

point

of

alance'.14)

Nothing,

least

of all the navel, is played down. Rodin reminds us that the

body

is

the

perfect exemplar

for

sculpture

in

that

sculpture

consists

of the hole and the

lump.

For Rodin there

is

no

such

thing

as an

ugly

model;

only

sculpture

without character

and

beauty

came

from the

sculptor.

Since

the time of

the

Old

Kingdom

Egyptian sculpture

of the

Sheik-el-Beled,

there

is no more

glorious

and

expressive

stomach

in

sculpture

than

that

given

to Balzac.

What

Edmund

Rostand did for

Cyr-

ano's

nose,

Rodin

did

for Balzac's abdomen.

It calls

to

mind

an ironic inversion

of

the writer's

story

of

the

Peau

de

Chagrin,

which

was a

magic

talisman that shrank

with

the

fulfilling

of its owner's

wishes and

thereby

shortened

his

life.

As Balzac's skin

enlarged,

his

own life

decreased.

Like

Raphael

de

Valentin,

Balzac too was a

victim of desire and

action.

He

well

knew that

overworkand

dissipation

made ex-

cessive withdrawalsfrom his

life's

account.

Rodin

often

spoke

of his

use of

'geometry'

as

a

guide

to

the

achieving

of

good

form. What he

meant

is

best

illustrated

by

his

posturing

of

Balzac.

He

would

visualize

a

cube within

which

his

imagined

or

emerging

figure

would be

contained.

At

certain

points

the

figure

would

touch

but not

trespass

he

limits of the cube.

By

folding

the

great flabby

arms

across

the

stomach

(but

concealing

the

hand

of which Balzac was

so

vain),

Rodin called

attention

to

the

figure's

compactness

and

its invisible

Euclidian

container. The folded arms also

concealed

an

unheroic

chest,

and their

elevated

angle

caused

by

their

protruding

support

seems to

further the

propulsive

quality

of the man

when

seen from the

side

(Fig.i

o).

This

viewpoint

also allows us to see

how Rodin

has

made

com-

plementary

the

profiles

of the

stomach

and lower

curve of

the back. The

great

arc formed

by

the

back

in its

erect

pos-

ture adds to the impressionof pushing off from the ground,

while

the line

from

the head to the

right

foot creates

a

brak-

ing

action. It is from

a

left

rear view

that the naked

Balzac

most resembles the

Walking

Man. From the

front

it

is

ap-

parent

that the

squared

shoulders

dip

to

Balzac's

eft,

again

like

those

of

the

Walking

Man. This creates the

suggestion

of

slight

imbalance

(as

if

the

figure

were

listening

and

beginning

to

move)

that stimulates

the beholder to

move around the

sculpture

n order

to

see how its

balance is

recovered.

The head is the final

act,

and

as a

dramatist

(and casting

director)

Rodin does not

let us down. Rather than the fam-

ous

daguerreotype

of

Balzac,

I

believe

the source

of this

head is

from

that of a

living

model

(Figs.i, 14,

I15).

Specifi-

cally, I believe that the head of the naked Balzac is directly

based

upon

the wax head in

the Pollak Collection

in

Paris.15

(The

reader is invited

to make his own

compari-

sons.)

Having

studied

this

head

from all

sides

I am

con-

vinced

that it was

made from life and was not a

conceit

nor

synthetic

piecing

together

of obvious facial traits. Like the

bronze head of the

full

figuresculpture,

t has a

mergence

of

facial areas and featuresin a

three-dimensional

continuum

14

WERDET,

op.

cit.,

p.282.

In the

plaster

version of this

figure

Balzac

appears

to

be much softer in

body.

The bronze

casting,

which Rodin could

have

foreseen,

has the

effect

of

transforming

fat into

muscle in

many

areas.

15

Professor

de

Caso

pointed

out that the

daguerreotype

of

Balzac

had been

published

in

May 1891,

and that Rodin had

said,

'I

decided

to take

my

in-

spiration

from a

daguerreotype

plate

of

Balzac...'

op.

cit.,

P-9..

Doubt is cast

upon

Rodin's

having

seen

the

published

version of the

photo

when

it first

appeared, by

Judith

Cladel. She

wrote that one

day

to Rodin's

profound joy,

his friend Mathias Morhardt

brought

him a

reproduction

of this

daguerreotype

(op.

cit.,

p.x89).

She

does not

give

the date of

this

gift. Secondly,

Rodin's state-

ment about his use of

the

photograph

for

inspiration

was made

in

I899.

Just

when he made the decision to use it we don't

know,

nor how

narrowly

to use

the

word

'inspiration'

in

determining

what he took from it.

(I

find the difference

in hair and mouth areas

to

be

considerable.)

The

photograph

could

have

in-

spired

the

choice

of a

living

model. On more than one occasion Rodin

said he

did not

want a

photographic

type

of

portrait.

To

give

due

credit

to

Judith

Cladel,

while she did not

quote

Rodin's

state-

ment

on

the

photograph,

she wrote

just

after the above account

that

'this

moving image

definitely

fixed Rodin's

thought'.

With

regard

to the Pollak

wax head of

Balzac,

which was listed

in a

1931

H6tel Drouot

sale

catalogue

as an

6preuve nique',

Professor de

Caso

wrote

that

it 'is

more

likely

to be a

wax

preparation

for

a

cast than an

original

study'.

This

wax head shows no seams that

would

suggest

its

having

been cast

from

a

piece

mould and it does not have

a soft core.

Further,

the wax is thicker

than

would

be

required

for

such

a lost wax cast. Similarities

in

modelling

and

expression

along

with

identical measurements

ties the wax

with the

bronze

head

in the

naked Balzac and

only strengthens

my

belief

that the

77

cm and

46

cm.

high

versions of

the naked Balzac

are reductions.

612

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

9/14

8. Detail of

the

legs

of

the

Walking

Man,

by Auguste

Rodin.

Bronze.

(Collection

Mr

Henry

Moore.)

9.

Detail of the

legs

of

the

Naked

Balzac,

by Auguste

Rodin.

Bronze.

(Rhode

Island School of

Design,

Providence.)

10.

Another

view

of

the

bronze

reproduced

in

Fig.6.

II.

Another

view

of

the

bronze

reproduced

in

Fig.6.

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

10/14

12.

Another

view of the

bronze

reproduced

in

Fig.6.

13.

Another

view

of

the bronze

reproduced

in

Fig.6.

14.

Study

for

the head

of

Balzac,

by

Auguste

Rodin.

Wax;

height,

2

1i

cm.

(Collection

Madame

Marcel

Pollak,

Paris.)

Photo.

Leni

Iselin.

15.

Detail

from

Daguerreotype

of

Balzac.

1842.

Here

illustrated

in reverse.

Photo

Roger

Viollet.

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

11/14

RODIN'S 'NAKED

BALZAC'

of

surface

and subsurface

orms,

an

asymmetry

and

gen-

uineness

of

expression

hat could

only

come from life and

not

a

photograph.

For a

daguerreotype

he

sitter

had

to

sustain

a

pose

for a

long period

of time and was of

course

severely

elf-conscious.

odin has

modelled

a

head

in

which

the

lips

are so

formedas

to

suggest

hat the

man

is about

to

speak.16

As with

the

head of

Baudelaire,

Rodin

eschewed

direct

copying

of

photographs,

ven

avoiding

obvious

acial

characteristicsuchas the cheeks' reasesormed tthe

edge

of

the

nostrils

and

passingdiagonally

downward.'7

One

of Rodin's

elf-imposed roblems

may

well

have been

how

in a

single

head

to show

the

multiple

moodsof his sub-

ject

which

no

single photograph

ould

capture.

Rodin was

often

criticized

or

making culpture

hat was

thought

o

be

prey

to accidental

ighting

effectswhich rendered t

shape-

less.

Yet,

when we move

about,

above and

below this

head

of

Balzacundervarious

ighting

conditions,

we can see that

it

always

holds

ts firmness f form and reveals

new

dimen-

sionsof

the

man's

character.These

plural

viewings

voke he

interpretation

f Balzacas

aloof,

benign,

smiling,

attentive,

meditative,

nd

on the

verge

of

speaking.18

In actual life Balzac had an extremelyexpressiveace,

one

that

instantlyresponded

o

his

thought

and

feeling.

Its

elasticity

was

partly

caused or

reinforced

by

alternating

periods

of

gauntness

and fullness

depending

upon

whether

he

was

working

and

dieting

or

relaxing

and

enjoying

self-

indulgence.

Balzac's

mobility

of

being

hasbeen

brought

back

to

life under

Rodin'shands. No

sculptor

was as

successful

as

he

in

thawing

out the frozen

or

suspended

ook or

two-

dimensional

haracter

of so

much

nineteenth-centuryort-

rait

sculpture.

This

kaleidoscopic

ortrayal

of Balzac

dep-

ends

upon

the

inconstancy

f

the facial surface

hroughout,

including

such

areas as

the

forehead,

where

portrait culp-

tors tended

to leave the surfacecalm. While

retaining

he

impression

of a

solid

cranial

substructure,Rodin,

like

Daumier n his

drawings,

built his surfaces

upon

the

plaus-

ible

if not actual

response

f

the

flesh

to the

contraction nd

expansion

f musclebeneath

t,

the

reaction fskin o

nerves.

Balzac's

modelled face is

figuratively

ike

a

simultaneous

mapping

of the

scope

of movements

nacted

by

each area

while the

head s

in

the same

position.

The

head is like

a

miniatureof

the

body

in

its

blockish-

ness

and violent surfaceundulations.

Observe

he

almost

right

angle

'cubing'

of the

back

and

top

of the

head

when

seen

from

the

side.)

The

subject's

heavy

jowls

are made

into

a

sculptural

asset

by

permitting

Rodin

to

fashion

a

short

but

thick neck

appropriate

in

proportion

and

texture to the

broad

square

shouldersand

softnessof the

pectoral

area. The

richnessand drama of the head are equal to Balzac's state-

ment

that

'I

shall

carry

a

world

in

my

head'.

This

type

of

extravagance

Rodin

readily

understood and

expected

of his

heroes.

As

when

we

judge

the

accuracy

of medieval

manu-

script

illustrations

by

comparing

them with

texts rather

than

nature,

so in

Rodin's

sculpture

must

we

keep

in

mind the

textual

images

such

as

Lamartine's

which nour-

ished his

thought

and

personal

criteria of the

portrait's

accuracy.

When we now take

in

the

sculpture

as

a

whole there

are

still

questions

as

well

as

answers

hat

flood to mind.

Why,

for

example,

is

it not

embarrassing

to look

at this

sculpture

of

such a naked

corpulent

man

standing

in

public?

Rodin once

said

that art

came not from

nature,

but from

the

artist.

We

see Balzac not

just

in

bronze

instead of

living

flesh,

but

through

the

eyes

and

hands of an artist

who had a

more

open

and

searching

view

of the

body

than

any

lover,

doctor,

or

tailor. The attitude

of

Balzac towards himself

in

this

sculp-

ture

strongly

affectsour

response.19

odin was

aware that

he knewof his

physical

defects,

but

arrogantly

nd

certainly

rightly

trusted o his

intelligence

and

personality

o

trans-

form

himself n

the

eyes

of

others.

Why

should

not

a

man

who had had

successful

ampaigns

with

platoons

f

France's

most beautifulwomentakea

commanding

position?Why

shouldnot

a

manwho

fervently

elieved,

and

publicized

his

conviction, hat greatcreative abourrequiredheroic cul-

inary

and sexual

excesses,

herefore

roudly

measure imself

against

his

fellow-men?Rodin shows

the Balzac

who

un-

stintingly

ave

of

himself

o the

public,

even to

assigning

is

physique

and

personality

o

numerous

characters

n

his

novels;

he

Balzacmeditative nd

observantwho was

above,

yet

of the

crowd;

the

Balzacwhosebrain and

vision

armed

himto mine

every

vein of

society.

The

Sculpture's eaning

Yes,

Rodin

has

given

us Balzac

the

fighter

and worker. Did

not Werdet describe

him

as

a

'courageous

athlete'

(which

Rodin

underlined),

and

elsewhere recount how he

spoke

of

rolling up

his sleeves to the

elbow, spitting

on

his

hands,

and

labouring

like

a

Negro?20

When

we re-read the life of

Balzac

we see that Rodin has also

given

us a

lie,

or

more

charitably

a

distortion.

Balzac's most

strenuous

physical

activities were

in

bed. How

could

a

man

prostrated

or a

month

by

a

muscle

pulled

while

jumping

a mud

puddle

be

considered

an

ath-

lete

?

Can

we

ascribe

physical bravery

to one who

by

pseudo-

nyms

and

backdoors evaded

military

service

and his

credi-

tors?

Would

a

worker

nearly cripple

himself

climbing

into

a

stage

coach,

or

sleep

on

a

gigantic

fur-covered

circular bed?

The

answer to

these

paradoxes

is that

Rodin used his in-

tense

anatomical

and

physiological study

of

living

models to

create

a

convincing

metaphor

of Balzac's

spirit

as a

creative

artist.

Historically

and

aesthetically,

Rodin's critics

in

the

Socidtd des Gens de Lettres were 'squares'. If they had known

thoroughly

Balzac's

life,

art

history

and what

Rodin had

done,

it is curious to think

that this

sculpture

should have

pleased

the Naturalists

and

displeased

the

Symbolists

instead

of

the

reverse.

Rodin's naked

Balzac

continues the

ancient

16

Professor Lewis

observed that

the conformation

of the

mouth

suggests

a man

about to

speak

or

enunciate

in

French.

17

I

have

discussed

this

sculpture

at

length

in an

essay,

'Rodin's

Portrait

of

Baudelaire',

published

in

25,

a

Festschrift

and

exhibition

catalogue

honouring

Henry Hope

on

his

twenty-five years

at

Indiana

University.

The

catalogue

was

published by

the

university

in

Bloomington,

Indiana in

1966.

18is

occioni's

portrait

of his

mother

titled

Anti-Grazioso

has been

observed

by

many

to

show

changing expressions

as one

moves around

it.

I

do not think

this makes Rodin a

Futurist,

but rather

that it

reflects

Boccioni's

indebtedness

to Rodin.

19

One could

argue

that Balzac's attitude in this

sculpture

presupposes

his

being

clothed.

I

agree

with Professor de

Caso

that

Rodin

probably

did

cast

this

whole

figure

in

bronze

during

his lifetime as well as

having

reductions

made in

plaster

for

gifts

to such devoted friends as

Judith

Cladel.

This

would

indicate that he

was

satisfied with the total

conception.

Here

is

where

we

need

information from the Mus6e

Rodin. MADAME

GOLDSCHEIDER's

recent

catalogue

(i.

JIANOU,

C.

GOLDSCHEIDER:

odin

[1967])

is

of no

help

on

this and

many

other

crucial

questions

of

dating

casts.

20

WERDET,

p.

cit.,

p.274.

615

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:47:03 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

7/24/2019 Rodin's 'Naked Balzac'

12/14

RODIN'S 'NAKED

BALZAC'

tradition

ot

what Colin

Eisler has

called

'the Athlete of

Virtue',

which

comprises

not

only

the

art of

Phidias,

Dona-

tello,

and

Michelangelo,

but

also

that of

Rubens, Bernini,

and

Puget.21

Furthermore,

in

keeping

with

changing

socio-

logical

interests

of

nineteenth-century

art,

Rodin was

broad-

ening

this tradition to include what

might

be

called the

'Virtuous

Labourer',

or

'Spiritual

Workman',

known to

us

in works

of

Daumier, Millet,

Van

Gogh,

Vela, Dalou,

and

Meunier,

as well as Rodin's own

project

for

a

great

Monu-

ment

to

Labour which

he undertook

in

1894.

Rodin

learned

about more

than

anatomy

and

beauty

from

his

study

of the

sculpture

of the

Greeks,

Donatello and

Michelangelo.

From these sources

he

had learned how

to

dramatize

the

movement

of the

spirit

even when the

body

was

not

in

action.

The

origin

of

the

Thinker,

for

instance,

is

in

the

Belvedere

torso of a

satyr, formerly thought

to be

Hercules.

The

past

taught

Rodin about

expressive

posturing

and

the

use of

the

body

as

a

metaphor

of

his

subject's

charac-

ter

and

spirit.

His own

John

the

Baptist

Preaching

was

inspired

by

an

athletic-looking

model,

which

in

turn was

consonant

with

Renaissance

and

baroque

ideals of

the

analogy

between

pagan athletes and Christian saints.22 This sculpture is in

the

Renaissance-baroque

tradition of

the

Baptist

as a

'fore-

runner',

possessed

of

a

vigorous

athletic

body

whose

physi-

cal

strength

makes

apparent

spiritual strength

exercised

in

the

struggle

against

disbelief,

the

desires of the

body,

the

enemies

of Christendom

and

the

Devil. Unlike

Falguiere,

who

inherited

the Balzac commission

after Rodin's

dismissal,

Rodin

continued

the

baroque

belief in the

body

as

a

full,

richly expressive

vehicle for

abstractions. Balzac was made

into

an athlete

of

the

spirit

Werdet

had used

his words

as

metaphorically

as Rodin

used

posture.

As

I

have elsewhere

pointed

out,

Rodin did not

react

against

the

art of

his own time for

its

subject-matter

or

metaphorizing.23

He believed

in

the rhetorical

or

didactic

function

of

sculpture

and

the

celebrating

of

great

men,

even

when

unwittingly

his

art

of

the

partial

figure

contributed

to the

demise

of these ideals.

By

comparison

with his

fel-

low

sculptors

before

1900,

Rodin

sought,

as did

Balzac,

to

make his

metaphors

more

timely,

convincing,

and

aestheti-

cally compelling

by

working

from life.

Posture,

psychological

insight

and flesh rather

than

attributes,

idealized

proportions

or

perfect

physiques

seemed for

Rodin

the

right way

to ex-

tend

this

tradition.

As shown

by

his

portraits

and memorial

sculptures,

Rodin

fully

shared

the

Renaissance and

baroque

attitude

that

there

was

a

fraternity

of heroes that included not

only

saints

and

statesmen

as

before,

but also creative

artists, writers,

painters,

musicians, and poets, and to which he added the

worker.

He

referred

to

himself and Balzac

as

workers,

and

didn't

discourage

others from

calling

him

a

poet.

Robustness

and

strenuous

posture

in

his

sculpture

are the continuations

of

those

qualities

admired

in

Rubens and

Puget,

as

they

evoked

the

spirit's vitality.

This is

why

his memorials to

Claude

Lorrain and Bastien

Lepage

and

Balzac

show active

postures

which

respectively

and

in

part

descend from those

of his own

Adam

and the Saint

John

or

Walking

Man. Balzac

was

certainly

not a full time

ascetic,

a

model of

continence

or

renunciation,

nor one

given

to the care

and

training

of his

body

for moral or

patriotic

reasons.

But