Page 43 - Studio International - July/August 1967

Above Rodin, Torso 1875-7, reproduced in a photograph published in a French art angelo's wax and clay torsos in the Casa Buonarroti and
bronze, 20⅞ in. high. periodical, L'Art Francais, on February 4, 1888, indicating one in the British Museum (catalogued as a 'school' piece)
The Petit Palais, Paris. Rodin's approval of it and its early history as a bronze could also have inspired Rodin to test his own abilities
Photo Bulloz.
cast. He gave a plaster cast of this torso, not the Walking and inclinations against those of the older sculptor.
Above centre School of Man, as a gesture of friendship to Medardo Rosso in 1894. During a trip to Italy which included a visit to Florence
Michelangelo, clay and wax In her last book on Rodin, written in 1948, the sculptor's in 1875, Rodin's letters to his wife reveal that he had
torso. The British Museum. most important and informed biographer Judith Cladel decided upon fathoming 'the secrets of Michelangelo.'
wrote that he had kept the legs and torso of the Walking While Moore recognizes that the British Museum draw-
Above right Rodin, St John
the Baptist, bronze, 28¾ in. Man separated until around 1900, when he joined them.3 ing may not have literally served as Rodin's model, he is
high. The Tate Gallery. Apparently this was done with great difficulty as Rodin struck by the strong analogies in the knotted and dense
had lost an earlier study in which the two parts were re- piling up, even adding of pectoral muscle and bone, and
worked into a single form. We also suspect that the head the angle at which the torso is poised in the Walking Man.
of the John the Baptist came from a model other than (Accordingly, he suggested cropping the drawing and one
Pignatelli. It is thus probable that the front of the torso of his photographs of the torso of his cast to make the
came from that in the Petit Palais and from some un- point.) Further, the modelled torso is more finished in
known model or source; the legs, and possibly the back the front than back. Rodin's method was to work by
from Pignatelli; and the head from a third man. silhouettes, surrounding a figure so that all profiles would
Without at first being aware of all these various prob- be expressive, and this adds to the suspicion that the
lems and possibilities, Henry Moore studied photographs Petit Palais torso was not taken from a live model.
of the Petit Palais torso, noticed its repetition in the That Rodin would have made just a torso by 1877 in
Walking Man and then commented on what it was that the manner of antiquarian sculpture that goes back
attracted him to both sculptures. From the beginning of through the Baroque and Renaissance to the Romans, is
his admiration for the latter sculpture he has been drawn understandable because a few years before while working
to 'the strongly Michelangelesque quality of concentrated in Belgium he had copied the ancient Belvedere torso as
tension, of taut muscles over bone in the upper chest part of a symbolic group for the arts located outside
area'. For him no sculptor past or present more than the Brussels Academy of Art. Rodin was thus continuing
Rodin has so understood the possibilities of treating the the old and honoured tradition of making art from art.
figure that were opened up by Michelangelo. Years of Henry Moore is of the view that Rodin first made the
observation and reflection on Michelangelo's art lead Michelangelo-inspired torso without arms, head or legs,
Henry Moore to believe that a drawing by him such as a and that in the final sculpture of John the Baptist the pre-
Study of a Nude Youth in the British Museum, could have viously missing limbs were added. To the suggestion that
inspired Rodin to model this torso. There is another Rodin might have cut away a finished head, arms and
drawing in the Louvre by Michelangelo after an ancient legs from the Petit Palais torso, Moore answered that the
sculpture which would certainly have been available and working of the stumps of arms, legs and neck was not
known to him which shows a similar high concentration from his experience evidence of cutting or breaking, but
All photographs of the
Walking Man taken by of detail in the upper part of the torso, with the limbs and rather that they were modelled, albeit roughly, or shaped
Henry Moore. head handled in a more rudimentary fashion. Michel- by a tool such as a mallet. Rodin, he feels, consciously
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