Auguste Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin was a French Realism sculptor who lived from 1840 to 1917. Rodin is often regarded as the first artist of the modern sculpture, but it took him decades to receive the recognition he sought.
Auguste Rodin was born into a working-class family in Paris. Due to his nearsightedness, he had trouble in school as he couldn’t see what the instructors were teaching in the class. At age 10, he found solace in art and began to sketch. Between 13 and 17, Rodin attended art school. At 17, he applied to attend the prestigious art school, École des Beaux-Arts, but was rejected. He applied two more times and was rejected each time.
During Rodin’s early career, he worked for over two decades in the decorative arts, creating architectural embellishments and other decorative pieces. During the Franco-Prussian war, Rodin briefly served, but was let go due to his nearsightedness. He decided to pursue his art but was rejected repeatedly by the Paris salon as his art was too realistic and didn’t hold to the classical beauty standards that were in vogue during his day.
Rodin was very poor during his early career but was able to save up enough money to visit Italy in 1875. There, he was profoundly affected by Italian sculpture, particularly the works of Michelangelo and Donatello. Rodin has said “It is Michelangelo who has freed me from academic sculpture.”
In 1880, Rodin got a job as a designer at the Sèvres national porcelain factory. One of his commissions that year was to create a set of two large bronze doors for the main entrance into a museum of arts. Rodin decided to create his own interpretation of Dante’s, ‘The Divine Comedy’. He later titled it “The Gates of Hell”. The museum was actually never created. The commission was extremely intricate, and Rodin worked on it for decades. It was never fully completed before his death in 1917. This monumental sculpture contained several figures and included some of his most famous independent works, including “The Kiss” and “The Thinker”.
In 1889, at age 49, Rodin was finally invited to be a judge for the Paris Salon, cementing his position in the art world. Auguste Rodin died in 1917 at age 77. Though his style was at first seen as controversial due to the realism and individualism of his sculpted figures, by the end of his lifetime, Rodin became the most well-known sculptor of his day. Two years after his death, his final studio in Paris was turned into a museum, the Musée Rodin.
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