Page 68 - Studio International - July August 1972

and 'I say plainly that I have no ideas when I literature and the imagination. Within this grid- The evidence so far is conflicting. According
don't have something to copy'. 'Nature', like framework the authors well represent the to Ludovici, his secretary in the 1900s, the
however, was the life model, always. Medically range of Rodin's work, and supply revealing Master felt his drawings to be of little
myopic, Rodin relied on observing the human anecdotage and documentation, largely from importance. On the other hand, Varnedoe notes
contour line in close proximity to impart a his letters and the notes of Judith Cladel. that Rodin asked Bourdelle in 1906 to write a
sense of the model's bodily existence. Individual Needless to say, few life studies turn out to special article to clear up misunderstanding
character was evinced by gesture, meaning be straightforwad observations from 'nature'. about their importance; and at about this time
through symbolic or conservative motifs. The typology is further complicated by the fact he insisted on displaying them prominently in
For his first twenty years Rodin struggled in that many sketches were reworked into his major shows. One suspects that he envied
vain to turn his convincing figure studies into sculptural ideas, even among those initially artists to whom drawing came easily, and that
successful drawings—works, that is, which conceived solely as literary illustrations. In such he, who produced so many drawings, might have
considered the whole page and yet retained the areas significant shifts in Rodin's thought may felt unease about their function, as well as their
exhilarating flow of emotion between artist and be observed. For example, in the black gouache status, in his oeuvre. For while in his early days it
model. The weakness of the earlier two- period of the early 188os he did a conservative certainly improved his sculpture to use drawing's
dimensional work is the more apparent because version of the equestrian theme called Centaur, lessons of contour and value, after thirty years
Rodin accomplished such brilliant sculpture where the muscular creature envelops an of tirelessly modelling clay, making endless
while fairly young. Perhaps the physical chores armless rubbery body. Here the wash supports revisions and working on a large scale, Rodin's
of modelling lessened his self-consciousness, the volumes and creates dramatic highlights. early graphic goal was abandoned, that ambition
or perhaps the wet clay soothed his highly In another drawing of two years later, Witches' `to render with absolute sincerity, without
sexed temperament. In any case, to succeed as a Sabbath, the rider is a plump woman indicated attenuation or exaggeration...' q
draughtsman Rodin had to compromise with by her suggestive white thighs. She straddles a CATHERINE LAMPERT
his publicly-avowed 'truth to nature'; in the rearing horse, the animal blacked out totally
1870s he reworked his previous life studies except for its erect tail. Apparently Rodin's
several times over, using collage and wash; vision proved too alarming, for the wash
after 190o he traced the best silhouette from the swallows the form, literally ruining the image.
Drawings various and marvellous
rapid sketches to simulate a casually flowing Varnedoe tells us that after this period Rodin
contour line. Even on the basis of fully- abandoned imaginative drawings completely The Drawings of Georges Seurat with an
authenticated work, there is evidence of failure and returned to safer ground. 'I started all over introduction by Gustave Kahn. xix + 134 pp
in the reworking and especially indecision in again from Nature, working with my models'. with 15o illustrations. Dover Publications. £1.75
the drawings, the indecision coming from a Nonetheless, although Rodin verbally rejected Felix Vallotton: catalogue raisonné of the printed
mixture of styles and the successive influences the principles of Symbolism during the 1890s, graphic work by Maxime Vallotton and Charles
on him of late nineteenth-century art he clearly borrowed ideas from friends such as Goerg. xxiii 4- 263 pages with 234 illustrations.
movements. He was a professed realist forced Felicien Rops and Odilon Redon. Vamedoe's Editions de Bonvent, Geneva. S.Fr. 13o,
to re-examine his own motivation under the research in this area is inconclusive. For de luxe S.Fr. Boo.
influence of the ideas of his Symbolist friends. instance, he associates Rops's use of a snake to
Equally, literature and tradition were represent lust with Rodin's Woman with a Snake, American printers do marvels with black and
personalized for his own artistic purposes. where between the legs of a sleeping woman, white. Thanks to them and to Seurat the new
Within the 700o extant drawings have whose lower half is underwater, may be addition to the popular Dover large-format
always lain the answers to the questions raised observed a fat serpent. The drawing itself surely paperback series is visually a great success. It
by Rodin's career, but the unprecedented gives more information about Rodin's personal lacks, however, all the information one has a
number of forgeries has meant that few problems in representing sexual matters; the right to expect. Gustave Kahn's 1928
institutions have been willing to risk an upper torso is a serenely drawn contour study, introduction to the same selection of drawings
exhibition. As recently as 1965 Sotheby's had while in the lower portion the line lacks (published by Bernheim-Jeune in Paris) is used
to withdraw 15o works from a sale when it was structural reason and becomes a scribble. In here in translation, but it is only traditional
revealed that they were by a known forger. So it fact, the majority of his sketches of spread legs French art writing, all rhetorical questions and
is fortunate that grants have been given by two and crouching women are encircled by a web oblique assertions. After that comes a mere list
American foundations to the Rodin scholars A. of frantically drawn parallel lines. Rodin must of titles, dealers' titles. Go to Robert L.
Elsen and Kirk Varnedoe to authenticate some have realized that these detracted from the Herbert's study of Seurat's drawings (Studio
140 drawings for a recent exhibition at the drawing as a work of art; he often retraced the Vista 1962) for information and commentary.
National Gallery of Art in Washington and the figure studies onto a clean sheet of paper. His There is no reference to further reading in this
Guggenheim Museum. Their research is attitude to the opposite sex as seen in his erotic Dover book; come to think of it, even the title
published in this book. The resulting five drawings—the lively experience of a male is misleading.
essays, the two weightiest by Varnedoe on chauvinist surrounded by domineering women— The drawings reproduced cover the whole
chronology and principles for authentication, was seldom reconcilable with either the straight of Seurat's brief life (he died at 32 in 1891),
were regrettably useless for the intended experience of 'nature' in the studio or the from early compositional exercises and studies
purpose of an exhibition catalogue, simply demands of artistic intention. The authors of after old masters, via the superbly self-
because the unindexed references to single this book, just as they leave alone the boring, sufficient tonal drawings of his early twenties,
works are dispersed among many paragraphs in rote work of the last decade, avoid comment on to specific studies for his paintings up to Le
one or more essays. Visitors to this show were the aesthetic quality of such tortured drawings. Cirque. Seurat was one of the really great
invited to judge for themselves which were With further research Varnedoe may be able draughtsmen. The large, lush pages permit
True and False drawings—part of a trend in to verify the dating of certain influential and reproductions that you can really look at and
American exhibitions to interest the public in important sheets, such as the drawings after into. But no indication of dimensions, nor any
the techniques of art history, whose initial steps Michelangelo and those on the Dante theme. sort of sequence or grouping of the illustrations.
are repeated here in the system of classifying the It would also be good to know more on the Seurat's drawings are as various as they are
drawings. They are first sorted out by types — question of whether Rodin wanted to show his marvellous. They are as contradictory amongst
contour, water-colour, wash, and decoupage; and two-dimensional work. This obviously reflects themselves as are Cézanne's paintings. One
by sources and inspirations —the life model, on his own aesthetic valuation of the drawings. thinks first of those velvety encounters of soft

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