Page 29 - Studio International - December 1972

several masterpieces: which is not to say that beginning of the release of structure from
Monet, Pissaro and Renoir especially suffered subject, the articulation of an illusioned
hardship and poverty equal to Rodin's in this envelope of space created by the animation of
period and all endured a similar humiliation the surface, independent of the traditional
and ridicule at the Salon. (Rodin had the illusion of 'life' of the figure (to which the
bronze mask of The Man with the Broken studied illusion of 'movement' in Rodin was
Nose rejected by the Salon in 1864, and a more simply a modern twist).
acceptable marble version of the same piece In discussions of Rodin's modernity, the
accepted in 1875.) But whatever their physical emphasis on his modelling, his use of clay,
privations the painters at least enjoyed the has correctly, in my view, been the dominant
sense of a common enterprise, a new attitude to feature. But I suspect a tendency to see in his
nature repeatedly realized in achieved modelling a renewal of possibly long-forgotten
paintings of variety and ambition. traditional usage, rather than what it really is,
Rodin could have no such satisfaction: but a total and violent break with the past,
indeed it was simply not within the nature of achieved no doubt through the persistence of
sculpture as an art to achieve the immediacy, other recognizable factors, the uninhibited
the directness of realization of Impressionist manipulation of substance to the point at
painting. Its ideal of objectivity, of truth to which the intelligible communication of form
sensation - the necessity to work in the open breaks down: and would do so but for the
air and at great speed without correction or figure as vehicle, which I will come to later —
re-working - gave ambitious painting a clay being asserted for what it is, soft, inert,
flexibility it has not enjoyed before or since. structureless, essentially passive, taking form
That kind of directness could only be achieved from the action of the hands and fingers,
in sculpture at the time by an enormous and and however rich and various, especially in
expensive preliminary effort of organization, response to the resource, talent and training of
unthinkable without the backing of a Adam c. 1880 Rodin, yet one material among many. The
substantial commission, for which this kind of Bronze, 75 1/2 x 29 1/2 x 29 1/2 in. first materials of modern sculpture, clay in
Rodin Museum, Paris
expression would likely prove quite the hands of Rodin, carved stone, wood, in the
unsuitable. Never have the physical natures hands of Brancusi, being the traditional
of painting or sculpture stood in greater expanded and enriched itself as its companion materials, felt and used, as it were for the first
contrast than at this period: painting had degenerated. time, to be of necessity passed by when this
functioning with a maximum of economy, If one must choose one in particular of his regained innocence hardened into a dogma as
with the richest effects issuing from the contemporaries in painting to compare with brittle as that of the Academy. Rodin's
simplest of means; sculpture, apparently Rodin, I would favour Manet. His Olympia discovery of clay points forward to a new
doomed to complete impotence by the at the Salon of 1865 anticipated the impact of economy for sculpture in which the chosen
complexity and inertia of the medium itself. The Age of Bronze some twelve years later: material is the vehicle of the articulation
However, new as the perceptual basis, the the general components and ambitions of both of space and of feeling: the plasticity
handling of paint and use of colour were in the both works relate. Both are based on of clay or stone — the continuity of small
painting of Monet and Renoir, they depended Renaissance models, but the physical types actions in a continuous whole — has since
ultimately upon an established 'language' of depicted seemed aggressively and Cubism been replaced with the infinite variety
painting that had emerged about three uncomfortably 'real': most importantly, both of relations between large divisions of form,
centuries previously; optical, technical and works are characterized by a freedom of and, in David Smith, defined characteristics
economic innovation in the Renaissance made handling, a studied and skilful response to of different varieties of one material, in his
possible the easel painting in oils, given by the qualities of the medium - brushed oil paint case steel.
perspective a satisfying and homogeneous on a flat rectangle, clay literally handled, Of the originality of Rodin's handling of
illusion of depth and volume. The inability modelled with equal feeling and intensity clay, there can be no question. It is true that
of Renaissance sculpture to capture space and throughout the figure. From here on, the bronze was the material of 'romantic'
atmosphere, to say nothing of the obvious differences become more significant than the sculpture before Rodin, notably in the hands of
physical problems of making, handling and similarities, but the main point of comparison Barye and Préault, and of the most vigorous
disposing of masses of bronze and stone, between Rodin and the Impressionists is public monuments — such as Rude's
precluded sculpture, from Michelangelo established not in the realization of light as is Marseillaise and Marshal Ney; that sculptors
onwards, as an art in which a substantial sometimes stated - it was necessary to await had for centuries produced small sketch
dialogue between the personal vision of the Brancusi for a comparable achievement in models in clay that are sometimes
artist and the common components of the sculpture - but in the affirmation of surface, remarkably 'free'; and that Carpeaux had
medium could function: sculpture became an of the perceptible physicality of the medium. carried over this freedom of surface into
art in which the taste and ambition of the This single common preoccupation has a larger-scale work, a deliberate challenge to
public patron became the determining factor, special significance, moreover; it represents academic conceptions of 'finish'. But if one
and virtuosity and craftsmanship the the point at which illusioned space in compares, for example, the celebrated clay
criterion of artistic achievement. The sculpture and painting passed, each art sketch models of Canova, the feeling is utterly
academic sculpture of the nineteenth century travelling, as it were, in opposite directions. different: the surface is brittle, torn, ragged,
with its appalling virtuosity, the vulgarity of its Just as the affirmation of surface in, for gouged-out, but, however loose, it remains a
subject matter, the total lack of real feeling, example, Monet, by clearly perceptible surface, a skin. In Rodin one senses the identity
intelligence or sensitivity, was as much the brushmarks of equal emphasis, goes far to of external event with internal force: clay
prisoner of conditions established centuries eliminate the illusion of deep space persisting is felt as substance, not over the surface, but
earlier as Impressionism was the final and from Renaissance perspective, so the through every cubic inch of volume. Rilke
convulsive gesture of liberation in a affirmation of surface in Rodin, of clay felt describes how Rodin discovered 'the
continuous and parallel tradition, which had and handled for itself, as material, signifies the fundamental element of his art; as it were,
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