Thursday, July 5, 2007

Auguste Rodin

One of the most amazing museums is the Rodin Museum in Paris. His work is housed in the place he lived and worked. Sculpture is an incredible labour of love. There is a large glassed in cabinet that shows step by step how a bronze sculpture is created. Here is how lost wax casting is done. Rodin's marble sculptures are fascinating, the figures look as though they are struggling to emerge from the marble. The Burghers of Calais is an emotional piece. It it larger that life-size. These leaders of the Calais were ready to sacrifice their lives for their city. The emotion caught on their faces can bring you to tears. The Gates of Hell is an enormous piece of work. I didn't know that The Thinker is part of this piece. After seeing the amount of work that goes into a bronze and how much detail there is in The Gates of Hell, it is most certainly is a passionate work.
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 5, 2007 at 8:29 AM

    Another good place to see Rodin -- the Maryhill Museum on the Columbia gorge in Eastern Washington. It's a fun excursion from Portland if you are at Orycon some year.

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  2. ChrisJuly 5, 2007 at 8:32 AM

    Hi Anita, Thanks for that, I didn't know about the Maryhill. Great destination for a field trip.

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  3. Jae LeslieJuly 5, 2007 at 9:46 AM

    Anita! it's good to see you here. I had forgotten about the Rodin stuff there. They had the whole lost-wax exhibit and I seem to recall a lot of smaller sculptures. And then we got to see a lot of big stuff when there was a big Rodin exhibit at Marquette University in Milwaukee (wouldn't let us take any photos though, it was a private collection).

    Chris, Marcia & I went to the Maryhill Museum after the Tacoma calligraphy conference in our week of travels. The other main thing I recall from that museum was the huge collection of Marie of Roumania's stuff. The one in the Dorothy Parker poem. She was a big patron of the arts and native handicrafts in the Art Nouveau era period, so they had some astonishing carved household furniture, and a collection of dresses that made her look in photos like Ozma of Oz.

    O life is a glorious cycle of song,
    A medley of extemporanea,
    And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
    And I am Marie of Roumania.

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