Art Of The Day Weekly

Rodin, the centennial of a giant

PARIS - In 1902, when Rodin was 62 years old, he was invited to Prague and was welcomed like a superstar: in the Manès gallery, 88 of his sculptures and 75 of his drawings attracted the crowds. The decade had started with his large exhibition at the pavillon de l’Alma, in 1900, which he mounted all alone at the time of the Universal Exhibition. He was considered a European value more than solely French. His secretary was Austrian poet Rilke and a great number of his most passionate students came from other horizons, like Scottish Ottilie McLaren or Croatian Ivan Mestrovic. This can only encourage those of this old continent who will discreetly celebrate on 25 March the 70th anniversary of a fragile union. Rodin did not care much about frontiers, neither the ones between countries but even less those between forms of art. The retrospective for the centennial shows his obsession to explore new fields until the end of his life, in volume, in drawing or in photography. At the age of 70 he produced surprising collages or ready-made, by setting up for example a plaster sculpture in an antique vase, or by playing with the concept of the unfinished and forgetting a hand or an arm. The influence of Rodin, seen in a whole generation -Bourdelle, Maillol, Lehmbruck-, petered out when the avant-gardes of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art appeared. His influence appeared again in the 60s, with Dodeigne or Beuys, until today when Marcheschi, Lüpertz and Baselitz gladly refer to him.
• Rodin, l’exposition du centenaire at the Grand Palais, from 22 March to 31 July 2017. Catalogue RMN Grand Palais, 400 p., 49 €.

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