Sunday 7 December 2014

#589 The Greeks, Fragments, Rodin, and modern art


Please start this series of blogs with # 584 . . . posted Nov. 19, 2014
The focus of this blog is art history . . . specifically fragments, the Greeks,  Rodin, and modern art.

By accident of the year of his birth, Rodin should be considered an Impressionist,
but that label detracts from the scope of his contributions to sculpture.
The key to his facility as a sculptor rests with his ability to translate emotional gestures and movement.

Rodin achieved movement and life in his sculptures by creating a broad range of surface treatments.
These undulating, uneven surfaces come alive when struck by light as shown in the close-up images below of
"Monumental Head of Balzac", modeled in 1887.





Rodin preserved the sketch-like surface qualities and textures of his clay and wax models when they were cast in bronze.   Rodin's rugged, irregular sculpture surfaces went against the accepted convention of highly finished surfaces.

Shown below in the of image of "Jean d'Aire", 2nd maquette from the "Burgher of Calais", 1885.
Photos were taken last spring at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.



  Rodin's style and talent reasserted sculpture's position as a vital art form in modern times.
He cleared away the academic limits on the sculptor's imagination and prepared the way
 for the twentieth-century modern artist's unlimited experimentation with form and mass.



Go to the BLOG INDEX on the right for more information. 


Blog, text, photos, drawings, and sculpture . . . © Sandy Scott and Trish


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