{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_59799/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_59799","id":"gutenberg_59799","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59799","summary":null,"tags":["Art","Artists","Artists -- France -- Interviews","Category: Art","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Sculpture"],"text":"Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  ART\n\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  _Copyright, 1912 by Small, Maynard and Company, Inc._\n]\n\n\n\n\n                                  ART\n\n\n                                   BY\n                             AUGUSTE RODIN\n\n\n    TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF PAUL GSELL BY MRS. ROMILLY FEDDEN\n\n         _WITH 106 ILLUSTRATIONS IN HALF-TONE AND PHOTOGRAVURE_\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                                 BOSTON\n                        SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY\n                               PUBLISHERS\n\n\n                           _Copyright, 1912_\n                      BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY\n                             (INCORPORATED)\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  AUGUSTE RODIN\n\n  From a photograph by Edouard J. Steichen, 1907\n]\n\n\n\n\n                                PREFACE\n\n\nNot far from Paris, on the Seine, near Meudon, is a hamlet bearing the\ndelightful name of Val-Fleury. Crowning the little hill above this\nvillage rises a group of buildings which in their charm and originality\nat once attract interest. You might almost guess that they belonged to\nan artist, and it is there, in fact, that Auguste Rodin has made his\nhome.\n\nApproaching, you find that the main buildings are three. The first, a\nLouis XIII. pavilion of red brick and freestone with a high-gabled roof,\nserves as his dwelling. Close by stands a great rotunda, entered through\na columned portico, which is the one that in 1900 sheltered the special\nexhibition of Rodin\u2019s work at the angle of the Pont de l\u2019Alma in Paris;\nas it pleased him, he had it reerected upon this new site and uses it as\nhis atelier. A little further on at the edge of the hill, which here\nfalls steeply away, you see an eighteenth-century ch\u00e2teau\u2014or rather only\na fa\u00e7ade\u2014whose fine portal, under a triangular pediment, frames a\nwrought-iron gate; of this, more later.\n\nThis group, so diverse in character, is set in the midst of an idyllic\norchard. The spot is certainly one of the most enchanting in the\nenvirons of Paris. Nature has done much for it, and the sculptor who\nsettled here has beautified it with all the embellishments that his\ntaste could suggest.\n\nLast year, at the close of a beautiful day in May, as I walked with\nAuguste Rodin beneath the trees that shade his charming hill, I confided\nto him my wish to write, from his dictation, his ideas upon Art.\n\n\u201cYou are an odd fellow,\u201d he said. \u201cSo you are still interested in Art!\nIt is an interest that is out-of-date.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE FLIGHT OF LOVE\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts\n]\n\n\u201cTo-day, artists and those who love artists seem like fossils. Imagine a\nmegatherium or a diplodocus stalking the streets of Paris! There you\nhave the impression that we must make upon our contemporaries. Ours is\nan epoch of engineers and of manufacturers, not one of artists.\n\n\u201cThe search in modern life is for utility; the endeavor is to improve\nexistence materially. Every day, science invents new processes for the\nfeeding, clothing, or transportation of man; she manufactures cheaply\ninferior products in order to give adulterated luxuries to the greatest\nnumber\u2014though it is true that she has also made real improvements in all\nthat ministers to our daily wants. But it is no longer a question of\nspirit, of thought, of dreams. Art is dead.\n\n\u201cArt is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches\ninto nature and which there divines the spirit by which Nature herself\nis animated. It is the joy of the intellect which sees clearly into the\nUniverse and which recreates it, with conscientious vision. Art is the\nmost sublime mission of man, since it is the expression of thought\nseeking to understand the world and to make it understood.\n\n\u201cBut to-day, mankind believes itself able to do without Art. It does not\nwish to meditate, to contemplate, to dream; it wishes to enjoy\nphysically. The heights and the depths of truth are indifferent to it;\nit is content to satisfy its bodily appetites. Mankind to-day is\nbrutish\u2014it is not the stuff of which artists are made.\n\n\u201cArt, moreover, is taste. It is the reflection of the artist\u2019s heart\nupon all the objects that he creates. It is the smile of the human soul\nupon the house and upon the furnishing. It is the charm of thought and\nof sentiment embodied in all that is of use to man. But how many of our\ncontemporaries feel the necessity of taste in house or furnishing?\nFormerly, in old France, Art was everywhere. The smallest bourgeois,\neven the peasant, made use only of articles which pleased the eye. Their\nchairs, their tables, their pitchers and their pots were beautiful.\nTo-day Art is banished from daily life. People say that the useful need\nnot be beautiful. All is ugly, all is made in haste and without grace by\nstupid machines. The artist is regarded as an antagonist. Ah, my dear\nGsell, you wish to jot down an artist\u2019s musings. Let me look at you! You\nreally are an extraordinary man!\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  AUGUSTE RODIN\n\n  From a drawing by William Rothenstein\n\n  Reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n\u201cI know,\u201d I said, \u201cthat Art is the least concern of our epoch. But I\ntrust that this book may be a protest against the ideas of to-day. I\ntrust that your voice may awaken our contemporaries and help them to\nunderstand the crime they commit in losing the best part of our national\ninheritance\u2014an intense love of Art and Beauty.\u201d\n\n\u201cMay the gods hear you!\u201d Rodin answered.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe were walking along the rotunda which serves as the atelier. There\nunder the peristyle many charming bits of antique sculpture have found\nshelter. A little vestal, half-veiled, faces a grave orator wrapped in\nhis toga, while not far from them a cupid rides triumphant upon a great\nsea-monster. In the midst of these figures two Corinthian columns of\ncharming grace raise their shafts of rose-colored marble. The collection\nhere of these precious fragments shows the devotion of my host to the\nart of Greece and Rome.\n\nTwo swans were drowsing upon the bank of a deep pool. As we passed they\nunwound their long necks and hissed with anger. Their savageness\nprompted me to the remark that this bird lacks intelligence, but Rodin\nreplied, laughing:\n\n\u201cThey have that of line, and that is enough!\u201d\n\nAs we strolled on, small cylindrical altars in marble, carved with\ngarlands, appeared here and there in the shade. Beneath a bower, clothed\nwith the luxuriant green of a sophora, a young Mithra without a head\nsacrificed a sacred bull. At a green crossway an Eros slept upon his\nlion-skin, sleep having overcome him who tames the beasts.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE CREATION OF MAN, OR ADAM\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n\u201cDoes it not seem to you,\u201d Rodin asked, \u201cthat verdure is the most\nappropriate setting for antique sculpture? This little drowsy Eros\u2014would\nyou not say that he is the god of the garden? His dimpled flesh is\nbrother to this transparent and luxuriant foliage. The Greek artists\nloved nature so well that their works bathe in it as in their element.\u201d\n\nLet us notice this attitude of mind. We place statues in a garden to\nbeautify the garden. Rodin places them there that they may be beautified\nby the garden. For him, Nature is always the sovereign mistress and the\ninfinite perfection.\n\nA Greek amphora, in rose-colored clay, which in all probability had lain\nfor centuries under the sea, so encrusted is it with charming\nsea-growths, lies upon the ground at the foot of a box-tree. It seems to\nhave been forgotten there, and yet it could not have been presented to\nour eyes with more grace\u2014for what is natural is the supreme of taste.\n\nFurther on we see a torso of Venus. The breasts are hidden by a\nhandkerchief knotted behind the back. Involuntarily one thinks of some\nTartuffe who, prompted by false modesty, has felt it his duty to conceal\nthese charms.\n\n             \u201cPar de pareils obj\u00eats les \u00e2mes sont bless\u00e9es\n             Et cela fait venir de coupables pens\u00e9es.\u201d\n\nBut surely my host has nothing in common with Moli\u00e8re\u2019s prude. He\nhimself explained his reason.\n\n\u201cI tied that around the breast of this statue,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause that\npart is less beautiful than the rest.\u201d\n\nThen, through a door which he unbolted, he led me on to the terrace\nwhere he has raised the eighteenth-century fa\u00e7ade of which I have\nspoken.\n\nSeen close to, this noble fragment of architecture is imposing. It is a\nfine portal raised upon eight steps. On the pediment, which is supported\nby columns, Themis surrounded by Loves is carved.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  EVE\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cFormerly,\u201d said my host, \u201cthis beautiful ch\u00e2teau rose on the slope of a\nneighboring hill at Issy. I often admired it as I passed. But the land\nspeculators bought it and tore it down.\u201d As he spoke his eyes flashed\nwith anger. \u201cYou cannot imagine,\u201d he continued, \u201cwhat horror seized me\nwhen I saw this crime committed. To tear down this glorious building! It\naffected me as much as though these criminals had mangled the fair body\nof a virgin before my eyes!\u201d\n\nRodin spoke these words in a tone of deep devotion. You felt that the\nfirm white body of the young girl was to him the masterpiece of\ncreation, the marvel of marvels!\n\nHe continued:\n\n\u201cI asked the sacrilegious rascals not to scatter the materials and to\nsell them to me. They consented. I had all the stones brought here to\nput them together again as well as I could. Unfortunately, as you see, I\nhave as yet raised only one wall.\u201d\n\nIn fact, in his impatience to enjoy this keen artistic pleasure, Rodin\nhas not followed the usual and logical method which consists in raising\nall parts of a building at once. Up to the present time he has rebuilt\nonly one side of the ch\u00e2teau, and when you approach to look through the\niron entrance gate, you see only broken ground where lines of stones\nindicate the plan of the building to be. Truly a ch\u00e2teau of dreams! An\nartist\u2019s ch\u00e2teau!\n\n\u201cVerily,\u201d murmured my host, \u201cthose old architects were great men,\nespecially when one compares them with their unworthy successors of\nto-day!\u201d\n\nSo speaking, he drew me to a point on the terrace from which the outline\nof the fa\u00e7ade seemed to him most beautiful.\n\n\u201cSee,\u201d he cried, \u201chow harmoniously the silhouette cuts the silvery sky,\nand how it dominates the valley which lies below us.\u201d\n\nLost in ecstasy, his loving gaze enveloped this monument of a day that\nis past and all the landscape.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  EVE\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\nFrom the height on which we stood our eyes took in an immense expanse.\nThere, below, the Seine, mirroring long lines of tall poplars, traces a\ngreat loop of silver as it rushes towards the solid bridge at S\u00e8vres....\nStill further, the white spire of Saint-Cloud against a green hillside,\nthe blue heights of Suresnes and Mont Valerian seem powdered with a mist\nof dreams.\n\nTo the right, Paris, gigantic Paris, spreads away to the horizon her\ngreat seed plot, sown with innumerable houses, so small in the distance\nthat one might hold them in the palm of one\u2019s hand. Paris, vision at\nonce monstrous and sublime, colossal crucible wherein bubbles\nunceasingly that strange mixture of pains and pleasures, of active\nforces and of fevered ideals!\n\n                                                             PAUL GSELL.\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\n PREFACE                                                               5\n\n                                CHAPTER I\n\n REALISM IN ART                                                       25\n\n                               CHAPTER II\n\n TO THE ARTIST ALL IN NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL                             37\n\n                               CHAPTER III\n\n MODELLING                                                            53\n\n                               CHAPTER IV\n\n MOVEMENT IN ART                                                      65\n\n                                CHAPTER V\n\n DRAWING AND COLOR                                                    93\n\n                               CHAPTER VI\n\n THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN                                                 111\n\n                               CHAPTER VII\n\n OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY                                          121\n\n                              CHAPTER VIII\n\n THOUGHT IN ART                                                      151\n\n                               CHAPTER IX\n\n MYSTERY IN ART                                                      175\n\n                                CHAPTER X\n\n PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO                                          191\n\n                               CHAPTER XI\n\n AT THE LOUVRE                                                       211\n\n                               CHAPTER XII\n\n ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST                                     227\n\n TRANSLATIONS                                                        249\n\n INDEX                                                               255\n\n\n\n\n                             ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n ETERNAL SPRING. By Rodin                                 _Frontispiece_\n\n                                                             FACING PAGE\n\n AUGUSTE RODIN. From a photograph by Edouard J. Steichen,\n   1907                                                                5\n\n THE FLIGHT OF LOVE. By Rodin                                          6\n\n AUGUSTE RODIN. From a drawing by William Rothenstein                  8\n\n THE CREATION OF MAN, OR ADAM. By Rodin                               10\n\n EVE. By Rodin                                                        12\n\n EVE. By Rodin                                                        14\n\n PLASTER CASTS OF THE GATE OF HELL. By Rodin                          26\n\n STUDY FOR A FIGURE. By Rodin                                         28\n\n STUDY FOR A HAND. By Rodin                                           28\n\n STUDY. By Rodin                                                      30\n\n STUDY. By Rodin                                                      30\n\n INVOCATION. By Rodin                                                 32\n\n STUDY. By Rodin                                                      34\n\n STUDY. By Rodin                                                      34\n\n THE OLD COURTESAN. By Rodin                                          38\n\n THE MAGDALENE. By Donatello                                          38\n\n A HAND IN BRONZE. By Rodin                                           40\n\n SEBASTIAN, FOOL OF PHILIP IV. By Velasquez                           42\n\n THE MAN WITH THE HOE. By Millet                                      44\n\n THE DANA\u00cfD. By Rodin                                                 52\n\n VENUS DI MEDICI                                                      54\n\n ANTIQUE TORSO                                                        56\n\n A DRAWING. By Michael Angelo. _See page 98_                          56\n\n CROUCHING VENUS                                                      58\n\n FAUN. By Praxiteles                                                  60\n\n THE AGE OF IRON. By Rodin                                            64\n\n MAN WALKING. By Rodin                                                66\n\n THE TEMPEST. By Rodin                                                68\n\n MARSHAL NEY. By Rude                                                 70\n\n SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST. By Rodin                                     72\n\n SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST. By Rodin. (Two different\n   aspects)                                                           74\n\n EUROPA. Italian School of the Fifteenth Century                      76\n\n EPSOM RACES. By Gericault                                            76\n\n THE EMBARKATION FOR THE ISLAND OF CYTHERA. By Watteau                78\n\n THE MARSEILLAISE. By Rude                                            80\n\n THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS. By Rodin                                     82\n\n EUSTACHE DE SAINT-PIERRE. By Rodin                                   84\n\n ONE OF THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS. By Rodin                              84\n\n ONE OF THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS. By Rodin                              86\n\n ONE OF THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS. By Rodin                              86\n\n ONE OF THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS. By Rodin                              88\n\n CUPID AND PSYCHE. By Rodin                                           92\n\n THE EMBRACE. Study-sketch by Rodin                                   94\n\n STUDY OF THE NUDE. By Rodin                                          94\n\n TORSO OF A WOMAN. By Rodin                                           98\n\n A DRAWING. By Michael Angelo                                        100\n\n A DRAWING. By Rembrandt                                             102\n\n STUDY. By Rodin                                                     104\n\n STUDY FOR A FIGURE. By Rodin                                        104\n\n TRITON AND NEREID. By Rodin                                         106\n\n THE CARYATID. By Rodin                                              106\n\n THE BATHER. By Rodin                                                110\n\n TORSO OF A WOMAN. By Rodin                                          112\n\n TORSO OF A WOMAN. By Rodin                                          112\n\n PYGMALION AND GALATEA. By Rodin                                     114\n\n STUDY OF HANAKO, THE JAPANESE ACTRESS. By Rodin                     116\n\n STUDY OF THE NUDE. By Rodin                                         116\n\n MADAME X. By Rodin                                                  118\n\n MLLE. BRONGNIART. By Houdon                                         124\n\n EGYPTIAN SPARROW-HAWK. _See page 180_                               124\n\n VOLTAIRE. By Houdon                                                 126\n\n MIRABEAU. By Houdon                                                 126\n\n FRANCIS I. By Titian                                                130\n\n HENRI ROCHEFORT. By Rodin                                           138\n\n JEAN-PAUL LAURENS. By Rodin                                         140\n\n JULES DALOU. By Rodin                                               140\n\n PUVIS DE CHAVANNES. By Rodin                                        142\n\n THE SCULPTOR FALGUI\u00c8RE. By Rodin                                    144\n\n STUDY FOR A HEAD, PRESUMABLY MADAME R. By Rodin                     146\n\n STUDY HEAD, FOR THE STATUE OF BALZAC. By Rodin                      146\n\n THE STATUE OF VICTOR HUGO. By Rodin                                 154\n\n BUST OF MLLE. CLAUDEL (LA PENS\u00c9E). By Rodin                         156\n\n THE SHIPWRECK OF DON JUAN. By Delacroix                             158\n\n UGOLINO. By Rodin                                                   160\n\n ILLUSION, THE DAUGHTER OF ICARUS. By Rodin                          162\n\n NYMPH AND FAUN. By Rodin                                            164\n\n THE CENTAURESS. By Rodin                                            166\n\n ITALIAN LANDSCAPE. By Corot                                         168\n\n AN OLD MAN. By Rembrandt                                            170\n\n LAURA DIANTI. By Titian                                             170\n\n THE THINKER. By Rodin                                               174\n\n THE HAND OF GOD. By Rodin                                           176\n\n THE STATUE OF BALZAC. By Rodin                                      178\n\n THE GLEANERS. By Millet                                             182\n\n THE THREE FATES. From the Parthenon                                 184\n\n THE KISS. By Rodin                                                  186\n\n BUST OF MADAME MORLA VICUNA. By Rodin                               188\n\n A CAPTIVE. By Michael Angelo                                        198\n\n THE THREE GRACES. By Raphael                                        200\n\n DIADUMENES. By Polycletus                                           212\n\n VENUS OF MILO                                                       214\n\n THE VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE                                           216\n\n A CAPTIVE. By Michael Angelo                                        218\n\n LA PIET\u00c0. By Michael Angelo                                         222\n\n ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. By Rodin                                      226\n\n LA FRANCE. By Rodin                                                 228\n\n THE BROKEN LILY. By Rodin                                           230\n\n CERES. By Rodin                                                     234\n\n THE TORN GLOVE. By Titian                                           236\n\n VICTOR HUGO OFFERING HIS LYRE TO THE CITY OF PARIS. By\n   Puvis de Chavannes                                                238\n\n MOTHER AND BABE. By Rodin                                           240\n\n SISTER AND BROTHER. By Rodin                                        242\n\n BUST OF MR. THOMAS FORTUNE RYAN. By Rodin                           244\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n                             REALISM IN ART\n\n\nAt the end of the long rue de l\u2019Universit\u00e9, close to the Champ-de-Mars,\nin a corner, so deserted and monastic that you might think yourself in\nthe provinces, is the D\u00e9p\u00f4t des Marbres.\n\nHere in a great grass-grown court sleep heavy grayish blocks, presenting\nin places fresh breaks of frosted whiteness. These are the marbles\nreserved by the State for the sculptors whom she honors with her orders.\n\nAlong one side of this courtyard is a row of a dozen ateliers which have\nbeen granted to different sculptors. A little artist city, marvellously\ntranquil, it seems the fraternity house of a new order. Rodin occupies\ntwo of these cells; in one he houses the plaster cast of his Gate of\nHell, astonishing even in its unfinished state, and in the other he\nworks.\n\nMore than once I have been to see him here towards evening, when his day\nof toil drew to its close, and taking a chair, I have waited for the\nmoment when the night would oblige him to stop, and I have studied him\nat his work. The desire to profit by the last rays of daylight threw him\ninto a fever.\n\nI see him now, rapidly shaping his little figures from the clay. It is a\ngame which he enjoys in the intervals of the more patient care which he\ngives to his big figures. These sketches flung off on the instant\ndelight him, because they permit him to seize the fleeting beauty of a\ngesture whose fugitive truth would escape deeper and longer study.\n\nHis method of work is singular. In his atelier several nude models walk\nabout or rest.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  PLASTER CASTS OF THE GATE OF HELL\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\nRodin pays them to furnish him constantly with the sight of the nude\nmoving with all the freedom of life. He observes them without ceasing,\nand it is thus that he has long since become familiar with the sight of\nmuscles in movement. The nude, which for us moderns is an exceptional\nrevelation and which even for the sculptors is generally only an\napparition whose length is limited to a sitting, has become to Rodin a\ncustomary sight. The constant familiarity with the human body which the\nancient Greeks acquired in watching the games\u2014the wrestling, the\nthrowing of the discus, the boxing, the gymnastics, and the foot\nraces\u2014and which permitted their artists to talk naturally on the subject\nof the nude, the creator of the _Penseur_ has made sure of by the\ncontinual presence of unclothed human beings who come and go before his\neyes. In this way he has learned to read the feelings as expressed in\nevery part of the body. The face is generally considered as the only\nmirror of the soul; the mobility of the features of the face seems to us\nthe only exterior expression of the spiritual life. In reality there is\nnot a muscle of the body which does not express the inner variations of\nfeeling. All speak of joy or of sorrow, of enthusiasm or of despair, of\nserenity or of madness. Outstretched arms, an unconstrained body, smile\nwith as much sweetness as the eyes or the lips. But to be able to\ninterpret every aspect of the flesh, one must have been drawn patiently\nto spell out and to read the pages of this beautiful book. The masters\nof the antique did this, aided by the customs of their civilization.\nRodin does this in our own day by the force of his own will.\n\nHe follows his models with his earnest gaze, he silently savors the\nbeauty of the life which plays through them, he admires the suppleness\nof this young woman who bends to pick up a chisel, the delicate grace of\nthis other who raises her arms to gather her golden hair above her head,\nthe nervous vigor of a man who walks across the room; and when this one\nor that makes a movement that pleases him, he instantly asks that the\npose be kept. Quick, he seizes the clay, and a little figure is under\nway; then with equal haste he passes to another, which he fashions in\nthe same manner.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY FOR A HAND\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY FOR A FIGURE\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\nOne evening when the night had begun to darken the atelier with heavy\nshadows, I had a talk with the master on his method.\n\n\u201cWhat astonishes me in you,\u201d said I, \u201cis that you work quite differently\nfrom your confr\u00e8res. I know many of them and have seen them at work.\nThey make the model mount upon a pedestal called the throne, and they\ntell him to take such or such a pose. Generally they bend or stretch his\narms and legs to suit them, they bow his head or straighten his body\nexactly as though he were a lay figure. Then they set to work. You, on\nthe contrary, wait till your models take an interesting attitude, and\nthen you reproduce it. So much so that it is you who seem to be at their\norders rather than they at yours.\u201d\n\nRodin, who was engaged in wrapping his _figurines_ in damp cloths,\nanswered quietly:\n\n\u201cI am not at their orders, but at those of Nature! My confr\u00e8res\ndoubtless have their reasons for working as you have said. But in thus\ndoing violence to nature and treating human beings like puppets, they\nrun the risk of producing lifeless and artificial work.\n\n\u201cAs for me, seeker after truth and student of life as I am, I shall take\ncare not to follow their example. I take from life the movements I\nobserve, but it is not I who impose them.\n\n\u201cEven when a subject which I am working on compels me to ask a model for\na certain fixed pose, I indicate it to him, but I carefully avoid\ntouching him to place him in the position, for I will reproduce only\nwhat reality spontaneously offers me.\n\n\u201cI obey Nature in everything, and I never pretend to command her. My\nonly ambition is to be servilely faithful to her.\u201d\n\n\u201cNevertheless,\u201d I answered with some malice, \u201cit is not nature exactly\nas it is that you evoke in your work.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\nHe stopped short, the damp cloth in his hands. \u201cYes, exactly as it is!\u201d\nhe replied, frowning.\n\n\u201cYou are obliged to alter\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cNot a jot!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, after all, the proof that you do change it is this, that the cast\nwould give not at all the same impression as your work.\u201d\n\nHe reflected an instant and said: \u201cThat is so! Because the cast is less\ntrue than my sculpture!\n\n\u201cIt would be impossible for any model to keep an animated pose during\nall the time that it would take to make a cast from it. But I keep in my\nmind the ensemble of the pose and I insist that the model shall conform\nto my memory of it. More than that,\u2014the cast only reproduces the\nexterior; I reproduce, besides that, the spirit which is certainly also\na part of nature.\n\n\u201cI see all the truth, and not only that of the outside.\n\n\u201cI accentuate the lines which best express the spiritual state that I\ninterpret.\u201d\n\nAs he spoke he showed me on a pedestal near by one of his most beautiful\nstatues, a young man kneeling, raising suppliant arms to heaven. All his\nbeing is drawn out with anguish. His body is thrown backwards. The\nbreast heaves, the throat is tense with despair, and the hands are\nthrown out towards some mysterious being to which they long to cling.\n\n\u201cLook!\u201d he said to me; \u201cI have accented the swelling of the muscles\nwhich express distress. Here, here, there\u2014I have exaggerated the\nstraining of the tendons which indicate the outburst of prayer.\u201d\n\nAnd, with a gesture, he underlined the most vigorous parts of his work.\n\n\u201cI have you, Master!\u201d I cried ironically; \u201cyou say yourself that you\nhave _accented_, _accentuated_, _exaggerated_. You see, then, that you\nhave changed nature.\u201d\n\nHe began to laugh at my obstinacy.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  INVOCATION\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d he replied. \u201cI have not changed it. Or, rather, if I have done it,\nit was without suspecting it at the time. The feeling which influenced\nmy vision showed me Nature as I have copied her.\n\n\u201cIf I had wished to modify what I saw and to make it more beautiful, I\nshould have produced nothing good.\u201d\n\nAn instant later he continued:\n\n\u201cI grant you that the artist does not see Nature as she appears to the\nvulgar, because his emotion reveals to him the hidden truths beneath\nappearances.\n\n\u201cBut, after all, the only principle in Art is to copy what you see.\nDealers in \u00e6sthetics to the contrary, every other method is fatal. There\nis no recipe for improving nature.\n\n\u201cThe only thing is to _see_.\n\n\u201cOh, doubtless a mediocre man copying nature will never produce a work\nof art; because he really looks without _seeing_, and though he may have\nnoted each detail minutely, the result will be flat and without\ncharacter. But the profession of artist is not meant for the mediocre,\nand to them the best counsels will never succeed in giving talent.\n\n\u201cThe artist, on the contrary, _sees_; that is to say, that his eye,\ngrafted on his heart, reads deeply into the bosom of Nature.\n\n\u201cThat is why the artist has only to trust to his eyes.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER II\n                TO THE ARTIST ALL IN NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL\n\n\nIn Rodin\u2019s great atelier at Meudon stands a cast of that statuette, so\nmagnificently ugly, which the great sculptor wrought upon the text of\nVillon\u2019s poem, _La Belle Heaulmi\u00e8re_.\n\nThe courtesan, once radiant with youth and grace, is now repulsive with\nage and decrepitude. Once proud of her beauty, she is now filled with\nshame at her ugliness.\n\n                \u201cHa, vieillesse felonne et fi\u00e8re,\n                Pourquoi m\u2019as tu si t\u00f4t abattue?\n                Qui me tient que je ne me fi\u00e8re (frappe)\n                Et qu\u2019\u00e0 ce coup je ne me tue!\u201d[1]\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  See page 249.\n\nThe sculptor has followed the poet step by step. The old hag, more\nshrivelled than a mummy, mourns her physical decay. Bent double,\ncrouching on her haunches, she gazes despairingly upon her breasts so\npitiably shrunken, upon her hideously wrinkled body, upon her arms and\nlegs more knotty than vine stocks.\n\n        \u201cQuand je pense, las! au bon temps,\n        Quelle fus, quelle devenue,\n        Quand me regarde toute nue\n        Et je me vois si tr\u00e8s chang\u00e9e.\n        Pauvre, s\u00eache, maigre, menue,\n        Je suis presque tout enrag\u00e9e!\n        Qu\u2019est devenue ce front poli,\n        Ces cheveux blonds....\n        Ces gentes \u00e9paules menues,\n        Petite tetins, hanches charnues,\n        Elev\u00e9es, propres, faictisse (faites \u00e0 souhait)\n        A tenir d\u2019amoureuses lices;\n\n        C\u2019est d\u2019humaine beaut\u00e9 l\u2019issue!\n        Les bras courts et les mains contraictes (contract\u00e9es),\n        Les \u00e9paules toutes bossue.\n        Mamelles, quoi! toutes retraites (dessech\u00e9es)\n        Telles les hanches et que les tettes!\n                Quant aux cuisses,\n        Cuisses ne sont plus, mais cuissettes\n        Grivel\u00e9es comme saucisses!\u201d[2]\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  See page 249.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE OLD COURTESAN\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE MAGDALENE\n\n  By Donatello\n]\n\nThe sculptor does not fall below the poet in realism. On the contrary,\nhis work, in the horror which it inspires, is perhaps even more\nimpressive than the truculent verses of Ma\u00eetre Villon. The skin hangs in\nflaccid folds upon the skeleton; the ribs stand out beneath the\nparchment that covers them, and the whole figure seems to totter, to\ntremble, to shrivel, to shrink away.\n\nYet from this spectacle, at once grotesque and heartrending, a great\nsorrow breathes.\n\nFor what we have before us is the infinite distress of a poor foolish\nsoul which, enamoured of eternal youth and beauty, looks on helpless at\nthe ignominious disgrace of its fleshly envelope; it is the antithesis\nof the spiritual being which demands endless joy and of the body which\nwastes away, decays, ends in nothingness. The substance perishes, the\nflesh dies, but dreams and desires are immortal.\n\nThis is what Rodin has wished to make us understand.\n\nAnd I do not think that any other artist has ever pictured old age with\nsuch savage crudity, except one. In the Baptistery at Florence you see\nupon an altar a strange statue by Donatello\u2014an old woman naked, or at\nleast draped only in the long, thin hair which clings foully to her\nruined body. It is Saint Magdalene in the desert, bowed with age,\noffering to God the cruel mortifications to which she subjects her body\nas a punishment for the care which she formerly lavished upon it.\n\nThe savage sincerity of the Florentine master is so great that it is not\neven surpassed by Rodin himself. But, aside from this, the sentiment of\nthe two works differs completely, for, while Saint Magdalene in her\nvoluntary renunciation seems to grow more radiant as she sees herself\ngrowing more repulsive, the old Heaulmi\u00e8re is terrified at finding\nherself like a very corpse.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  A HAND IN BRONZE\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\nThe modern sculpture is, therefore, much more tragic than the older\nwork.\n\nOne day, having studied this figure in the atelier for some moments in\nsilence, I said:\n\n\u201cMaster, no one admires this astonishing figure more than I, but I hope\nyou will not be annoyed if I tell you the effect it produces upon many\nof the visitors to the Mus\u00e9e du Luxembourg, especially upon the women.\u201d\n\n\u201cI shall be much obliged to you if you will.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, the public generally turn away from it, crying, \u2018Oh, how ugly it\nis!\u2019 and I have often seen women cover their eyes with their hands to\nshut out the sight.\u201d\n\nRodin laughed heartily.\n\n\u201cMy work must be eloquent,\u201d he said, \u201cto make such a vivid impression,\nand doubtless these are people who dread stern philosophic truths.\n\n\u201cBut what solely matters to me is the opinion of people of taste, and I\nhave been delighted to gain their approbation for my _Vieille\nHeaulmi\u00e8re_. I am like that Roman singer who replied to the jeers of the\npopulace: _Equitibus cano_. I sing only for the nobles! that is to say,\nfor the connoisseurs.\n\n\u201cThe vulgar readily imagine that what they consider ugly in existence is\nnot fit subject for the artist. They would like to forbid us to\nrepresent what displeases and offends them in nature.\n\n\u201cIt is a great error on their part.\n\n\u201cWhat is commonly called _ugliness_ in nature can in art become full of\ngreat beauty.\n\n\u201cIn the domain of fact we call _ugly_ whatever is deformed, whatever is\nunhealthy, whatever suggests the idea of disease, of debility, or of\nsuffering, whatever is contrary to regularity, which is the sign and\ncondition of health and strength: a hunchback is _ugly_, one who is\nbandy-legged is _ugly_, poverty in rags is _ugly_.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  SEBASTIAN, FOOL OF PHILIP IV\n\n  By Velasquez\n]\n\n\u201c_Ugly_ also are the soul and the conduct of the immoral man, of the\nvicious and criminal man, of the abnormal man who is harmful to society;\n_ugly_ the soul of the parricide, of the traitor, of the unscrupulously\nambitious.\n\n\u201cAnd it is right that beings and objects from which we can expect only\nevil should be called by such an odious epithet. But let a great artist\nor a great writer make use of one or the other of these _uglinesses_,\ninstantly it is transfigured: with a touch of his fairy wand he has\nturned it into beauty; it is alchemy; it is enchantment!\n\n\u201cLet Velasquez paint Sebastian, the dwarf of Philippe IV. He endows him\nwith such a touching gaze that we instantly read in it all the painful\nsecret of this poor afflicted creature, forced, for his livelihood, to\nlower his human dignity, to become a plaything, a living bauble. And the\nmore poignant the martyrdom of the conscience lodged in this grotesque\nbody, the more beautiful is the artist\u2019s work.\n\n\u201cLet Fran\u00e7ois Millet represent a peasant resting for a moment as he\nleans on the handle of his hoe, a wretched man worn by fatigue, baked by\nthe sun, as stupid as a beast of burden dulled by blows\u2014he has only to\nput into the expression of this poor devil a sublime resignation to the\nsuffering ordained by Destiny, to make this creature of a nightmare\nbecome for us the great symbol of all Humanity.\n\n\u201cLet Beaudelaire describe a festering corpse, unclean, viscid, eaten by\nworms, and let him but imagine his beloved mistress under this frightful\naspect, and nothing can equal in splendor his picture of this terrible\njuxtaposition of beauty which we could wish eternal and the atrocious\ndisintegration which awaits it.\n\n         \u201cEt pourtant vous serez semblable \u00e0 cette ordure,\n             A cette horrible infection.\n         Etoile de mes yeux, Soleil de ma nature,\n             O mon ange et ma passion!\n         Oui, telle vous serez, o la reine des Gr\u00e2ces\n             Apr\u00e8s les derniers sacrements.\n         Quand vous irez sous l\u2019herbe et les floraisons grasses\n             Pourrir parmi les ossements.\n\n         Alors, o ma Beaut\u00e9, d\u00eetes \u00e0 la vermine\n             Qui vous mangerez de baisers,\n         Que j\u2019ai gard\u00e9 la forme et l\u2019essence divine\n             De mes amours d\u00e9compos\u00e9s![3]\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  See page 250.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE MAN WITH THE HOE\n\n  By Millet\n]\n\n\u201cIt is the same when Shakespeare depicts Iago or Richard III., when\nRacine paints Nero and Narcissus; moral ugliness when interpreted by\nminds so clear and penetrating becomes a marvellous theme of beauty.\n\n\u201cIn fact, in art, only that which has _character_ is beautiful.\n\n\u201c_Character_ is the essential truth of any natural object, whether ugly\nor beautiful; it is even what one might call a _double truth_, for it is\nthe inner truth translated by the outer truth; it is the soul, the\nfeelings, the ideas, expressed by the features of a face, by the\ngestures and actions of a human being, by the tones of a sky, by the\nlines of a horizon.\n\n\u201cNow, to the great artist, everything in nature has character; for the\nunswerving directness of his observation searches out the hidden meaning\nof all things. And that which is considered ugly in nature often\npresents more _character_ than that which is termed beautiful, because\nin the contractions of a sickly countenance, in the lines of a vicious\nface, in all deformity, in all decay, the inner truth shines forth more\nclearly than in features that are regular and healthy.\n\n\u201cAnd as it is solely the power of _character_ which makes for beauty in\nart, it often happens that the uglier a being is in nature, the more\nbeautiful it becomes in art.\n\n\u201cThere is nothing ugly in art except that which is without character,\nthat is to say, that which offers no outer or inner truth.\n\n\u201cWhatever is false, whatever is artificial, whatever seeks to be pretty\nrather than expressive, whatever is capricious and affected, whatever\nsmiles without motive, bends or struts without cause, is mannered\nwithout reason; all that is without soul and without truth; all that is\nonly a _parade_ of beauty and grace; all, in short, that lies, is\n_ugliness_ in art.\n\n\u201cWhen an artist, intending to improve upon nature, adds green to the\nspringtime, rose to the sunrise, carmine to young lips, he creates\nugliness because he lies.\n\n\u201cWhen he softens the grimace of pain, the shapelessness of age, the\nhideousness of perversion, when he arranges nature\u2014veiling, disguising,\ntempering it to please the ignorant public\u2014then he is creating ugliness\nbecause he fears the truth.\n\n\u201cTo any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because\nhis eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an\nopen book, all the inner truth.\n\n\u201cHe has only to look into a human face in order to read there the soul\nwithin\u2014not a feature deceives him; hypocrisy is as transparent as\nsincerity\u2014the line of a forehead, the least lifting of a brow, the flash\nof an eye, reveal to him all the secrets of a heart.\n\n\u201cOr he may study the hidden mind of the animal. A mixture of feelings\nand of thoughts, of dumb intelligences and of rudimentary affections, he\nreads the whole humble moral life of the beast in its eyes and in its\nmovements.\n\n\u201cHe is even the confidant of nature. The trees, the plants talk to him\nlike friends. The old gnarled oaks speak to him of their kindliness for\nthe human race whom they protect beneath their sheltering branches. The\nflowers commune with him by the gracious swaying of their stalks, by the\nsinging tones of their petals\u2014each blossom amidst the grass is a\nfriendly word addressed to him by nature.\n\n\u201cFor him life is an endless joy, a perpetual delight, a mad\nintoxication. Not that all seems good to him, for suffering, which must\noften come to those he loves and to himself, cruelly contradicts his\noptimism. But all is beautiful to him because he walks forever in the\nlight of spiritual truth.\n\n\u201cYes, the great artist, and by this I mean the poet as well as the\npainter and the sculptor, finds even in suffering, in the death of loved\nones, in the treachery of friends, something which fills him with a\nvoluptuous though tragic admiration.\n\n\u201cAt times his own heart is on the rack, yet stronger than his pain is\nthe bitter joy which he experiences in understanding and giving\nexpression to that pain. In all existence he clearly divines the\npurposes of Destiny. Upon his own anguish, upon his own gaping wounds,\nhe fixes the enthusiastic gaze of the man who has read the decrees of\nFate. Deceived by a beloved one, he reels beneath the blow; then,\nstanding firm, he looks upon the traitor as a fine example of the base.\nHe salutes ingratitude as an experience which shall enrich his soul. His\necstasy is terrifying at times, but it is still happiness, because it is\nthe continual adoration of truth.\n\n\u201cWhen he sees beings everywhere destroying each other; when he sees all\nyouth fading, all strength failing, all genius dying, when he is face to\nface with the will which decreed these tragic laws, more than ever he\nrejoices in his knowledge, and, seized anew by the passion for truth, he\nis happy.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE DANA\u00cfD\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n                               MODELLING\n\n\nOne late afternoon, when I was with Rodin in his atelier, darkness set\nin while we talked.\n\n\u201cHave you ever looked at an antique statue by lamplight?\u201d my host\nsuddenly demanded.\n\n\u201cNo, never,\u201d I answered, with some surprise.\n\n\u201cI astonish you. You seem to consider the idea of studying sculpture\nexcepting by daylight as an odd whim. Of course you can get the effect\nas a whole better by daylight. But, wait a moment. I want to show you a\nkind of experiment which will doubtless prove instructive.\u201d\n\nHe lighted a lamp as he spoke, took it in his hand, and led me towards a\nmarble statue which stood upon a pedestal in a corner of the atelier.\n\nIt was a delightful little antique copy of the _Venus di Medici_. Rodin\nkept it there to stimulate his own inspiration while he worked.\n\n\u201cCome nearer,\u201d he said.\n\nHolding the lamp at the side of the statue and as close as possible, he\nthrew the full light upon the body.\n\n\u201cWhat do you notice?\u201d he asked.\n\nAt the first glance I was extraordinarily struck by what was suddenly\nrevealed to me.\n\nThe light so directed, indeed, disclosed numbers of slight projections\nand depressions upon the surface of the marble which I should never have\nsuspected. I said so to Rodin.\n\n\u201cGood!\u201d he cried approvingly; then, \u201cWatch closely.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  VENUS DI MEDICI\n]\n\nAt the same time he slowly turned the moving stand which supported the\nVenus. As he turned, I still noticed in the general form of the body a\nmultitude of almost imperceptible roughnesses. What had at first seemed\nsimple was really of astonishing complexity. Rodin threw up his head\nsmiling.\n\n\u201cIs it not marvellous?\u201d he cried. \u201cConfess that you did not expect to\ndiscover so much detail. Just look at these numberless undulations of\nthe hollow which unites the body to the thigh. Notice all the voluptuous\ncurvings of the hip. And now, here, the adorable dimples along the\nloins.\u201d\n\nHe spoke in a low voice, with the ardor of a devotee, bending above the\nmarble as if he loved it.\n\n\u201cIt is truly flesh!\u201d he said.\n\nAnd beaming, he added: \u201cYou would think it moulded by kisses and\ncaresses!\u201d Then, suddenly, laying his hand on the statue, \u201cYou almost\nexpect, when you touch this body, to find it warm.\u201d\n\nA few moments later he said:\n\n\u201cWell, what do you think now of the opinion usually held on Greek art?\nThey say\u2014it is especially the academic school which has spread abroad\nthis idea\u2014that the ancients, in their cult of the ideal, despised the\nflesh as low and vulgar, and that they refused to reproduce in their\nworks the thousand details of material reality.\n\n\u201cThey pretend that the ancients wished to teach Nature by creating an\nabstract beauty of simplified form which should appeal only to the\nintellect and not consent to flatter the senses. And those who talk like\nthis take examples which they imagine they find in antique art as their\nauthority for correcting, for emasculating nature, reducing it to\ncontours so dry, cold, and meagre that they have nothing in common with\nthe truth.\n\n\u201cYou have just proved how much they are mistaken.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  A DRAWING\n\n  By Michael Angelo\n\n  _See page 98_\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ANTIQUE TORSO\n\n  Biblioth\u00e8que Nationale\n]\n\n\u201cWithout doubt the Greeks with their powerfully logical minds\ninstinctively accentuated the essential. They accented the dominant\ntraits of the human type; nevertheless they never suppressed living\ndetail. They were satisfied to envelop it and melt it into the whole. As\nthey were enamoured of calm rhythms, they involuntarily subjected all\nsecondary reliefs which should disturb the serenity of a movement; but\nthey carefully refrained from entirely obliterating them.\n\n\u201cThey never made a method out of falsehood.\n\n\u201cFull of respect and love for Nature, they always represented her as\nthey saw her. And on every occasion they passionately testified their\nworship of the flesh. For it is madness to believe that they despised\nit. Among no other people has the beauty of the human body excited a\nmore sensuous tenderness. A transport of ecstasy seems to hover over all\nthe forms that they modelled.\n\n\u201cThus is explained the unbelievable difference which separates the false\nacademic ideal from Greek art. While among the ancients the\ngeneralization of lines is totalization, a result made up of all the\ndetails, the academic simplification is an impoverishment, an empty\nbombastry. While life animates and warms the palpitating muscles of the\nGreek statues, the inconsistent dolls of academic art look as if they\nwere chilled by death.\u201d\n\nHe was silent for a time, then\u2014\n\n\u201cI will tell you a great secret. Do you know how the impression of\nactual life, which we have just felt before that Venus, is produced?\n\n\u201cBy the _science of modelling_.\n\n\u201cThese words seem banal to you, but you will soon gauge their\nimportance.\n\n\u201cThe _science of modelling_ was taught me by one Constant, who worked in\nthe atelier where I made my d\u00e9but as a sculptor. One day, watching me\nmodel a capital ornamented with foliage\u2014\u2018Rodin,\u2019 he said to me, \u2018you are\ngoing about that in the wrong way. All your leaves are seen flat. That\nis why they do not look real. Make some with the tips pointed at you, so\nthat, in seeing them, one has the sensation of depth.\u2019 I followed his\nadvice and I was astounded at the result that I obtained. \u2018Always\nremember what I am about to tell you,\u2019 went on Constant. \u2018Henceforth,\nwhen you carve, never see the form in length, but always in thickness.\nNever consider a surface except as the extremity of a volume, as the\npoint, more or less large, which it directs towards you. In that way you\nwill acquire the _science of modelling_.\u2019\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  CROUCHING VENUS\n]\n\n\u201cThis principle was astonishingly fruitful to me. I applied it to the\nexecution of figures. Instead of imagining the different parts of a body\nas surfaces more or less flat, I represented them as projectures of\ninterior volumes. I forced myself to express in each swelling of the\ntorso or of the limbs the efflorescence of a muscle or of a bone which\nlay deep beneath the skin. And so the truth of my figures, instead of\nbeing merely superficial, seems to blossom from within to the outside,\nlike life itself.\n\n\u201cNow I have discovered that the ancients practised precisely this method\nof modelling. And it is certainly to this technique that their works owe\nat once their vigor and their palpitating suppleness.\u201d\n\nRodin contemplated afresh his exquisite Greek Venus. And suddenly he\nsaid:\n\n\u201cIn your opinion, Gsell, is color a quality of painting or of\nsculpture?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf painting, naturally.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, just look at this statue.\u201d\n\nSo saying, he raised the lamp as high as he could in order to light the\nantique torso from above.\n\n\u201cJust see the high lights on the breasts, the heavy shadows in the folds\nof the flesh, and then this paleness, these vaporous half-tones,\ntrembling over the most delicate portions of this divine body, these\nbits so finely shaded that they seem to dissolve in air. What do you say\nto it? Is it not a great symphony in black and white?\u201d\n\nI had to agree.\n\n\u201cAs paradoxical as it may seem, a great sculptor is as much a colorist\nas the best painter, or rather, the best engraver.\n\n\u201cHe plays so skilfully with all the resources of relief, he blends so\nwell the boldness of light with the modesty of shadow, that his\nsculptures please one as much as the most charming etchings.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  FAUN\n\n  By Praxiteles\n]\n\n\u201cNow color\u2014it is to this remark that I wished to lead\u2014is the flower of\nfine modelling. These two qualities always accompany each other, and it\nis these qualities which give to every masterpiece of the sculptor the\nradiant appearance of living flesh.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE AGE OF IRON\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER IV\n                            MOVEMENT IN ART\n\n\nThere are two statues by Rodin at the Mus\u00e9e du Luxembourg which\nespecially attract and hold me; _l\u2019Age d\u2019Airain_ (the Iron Age) and\n_Saint-Jean-Baptiste_. They seem even more full of life than the others,\nif that is possible. The other works of the Master which bear them\ncompany are certainly all quivering with truth; they all produce the\nimpression of real flesh, they all breathe, but these move.\n\nOne day in the Master\u2019s atelier at Meudon I told him my especial\nfondness for these two figures.\n\n\u201cThey are certainly among those in which I have carried imitative art\nfarthest,\u201d he replied. \u201cThough I have produced others whose animation is\nnot less striking; for example, my _Bourgeois de Calais_, my _Balzac_,\nmy _Homme qui marche_ (Man walking).\n\n\u201cAnd even in those of my works in which action is less pronounced, I\nhave always sought to give some indication of movement. I have very\nrarely represented complete repose. I have always endeavored to express\nthe inner feelings by the mobility of the muscles.\n\n\u201cThis is so even in my busts, to which I have often given a certain\nslant, a certain obliquity, a certain expressive direction, which would\nemphasize the meaning of the physiognomy.\n\n\u201cArt cannot exist without life. If a sculptor wishes to interpret joy,\nsorrow, any passion whatsoever, he will not be able to move us unless he\nfirst knows how to make the beings live which he evokes. For how could\nthe joy or the sorrow of an inert object\u2014of a block of stone\u2014affect us?\nNow, the illusion of life is obtained in our art by good modelling and\nby movement. These two qualities are like the blood and the breath of\nall good work.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  MAN WALKING\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cMaster,\u201d I said, \u201cyou have already talked to me of modelling, and I\nhave noticed that since then I am better able to appreciate the\nmasterpieces of sculpture. I should like to ask a few questions about\nmovement, which, I feel, is not less important.\n\n\u201cWhen I look at your figure of the _Iron Age_, who awakes, fills his\nlungs and raises high his arms; or at your _Saint John_, who seems to\nlong to leave his pedestal to carry abroad his words of faith, my\nadmiration is mixed with amazement. It seems to me that there is sorcery\nin this science which lends movement to bronze. I have also studied\nother _chefs-d\u2019\u0153uvre_ of your great predecessors; for example, _Mar\u00e9chal\nNey_ and the _Marseillaise_ by Rude, the _Dance_ by Carpeaux, as well as\nBarye\u2019s wild animals, and I confess that I have never found any\nsatisfactory explanation for the effect which these sculptures produce\nupon me. I continue to ask myself how such masses of stone and iron can\npossibly seem to move, how figures so evidently motionless can yet\nappear to act and even to lend themselves to violent effort.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs you take me for a sorcerer,\u201d Rodin answered, \u201cI shall try to do\njustice to my reputation by accomplishing a task much more difficult for\nme than animating bronze\u2014that of explaining how I do it.\n\n\u201cNote, first, that _movement is the transition from one attitude to\nanother_.\n\n\u201cThis simple statement, which has the air of a truism, is, to tell the\ntruth, the key to the mystery.\n\n\u201cYou have certainly read in Ovid how Daphne was transformed into a\nbay-tree and Progne into a swallow. This charming writer shows us the\nbody of the one taking on its covering of leaves and bark and the\nmembers of the other clothing themselves in feathers, so that in each of\nthem one still sees the woman which will cease to be and the tree or\nbird which she will become. You remember, too, how in Dante\u2019s _Inferno_\na serpent, coiling itself about the body of one of the damned, changes\ninto man as the man becomes reptile. The great poet describes this scene\nso ingeniously that in each of these two beings one follows the struggle\nbetween two natures which progressively invade and supplant each other.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE TEMPEST\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n\u201cIt is, in short, a metamorphosis of this kind that the painter or the\nsculptor effects in giving movement to his personages. He represents the\ntransition from one pose to another\u2014he indicates how insensibly the\nfirst glides into the second. In his work we still see a part of what\nwas and we discover a part of what is to be. An example will enlighten\nyou better.\n\n\u201cYou mentioned just now the statue of Marshal Ney by Rude. Do you recall\nthe figure clearly?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I said. \u201cThe hero raises his sword, shouting \u2018Forward\u2019 to his\ntroops at the top of his voice.\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly! Well\u2014when you next pass that statue, look at it still more\nclosely. You will then notice this: the legs of the statue and the hand\nwhich holds the sheath of the sabre are placed in the attitude that they\nhad when he drew\u2014the left leg is drawn back so that the sabre may be\neasily grasped by the right hand, which has just drawn it; and as for\nthe left hand, it is arrested in the air as if still offering the\nsheath.\n\n\u201cNow examine the body. It must have been slightly bent toward the left\nat the moment when it performed the act which I have described, but here\nit is erect, here is the chest thrown out, here is the head turning\ntowards the soldiers as it roars out the order to attack; here, finally,\nis the right arm raised and brandishing the sabre.\n\n\u201cSo there you have a confirmation of what I have just said; the movement\nin this statue is only the change from a first attitude\u2014that which the\nMarshal had as he drew his sabre\u2014into a second, that which he had as he\nrushes, arm aloft, upon the enemy.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  MARSHAL NEY\n\n  By Rude\n]\n\n\u201cIn that is all the secret of movement as interpreted by art. The\nsculptor compels, so to speak, the spectator to follow the development\nof an act in an individual. In the example that we have chosen, the eyes\nare forced to travel upward from the lower limbs to the raised arm, and,\nas in so doing they find the different parts of the figure represented\nat successive instants, they have the illusion of beholding the movement\nperformed.\u201d\n\nAs it happened, the casts of the _Iron Age_ and of _Saint John the\nBaptist_ stood in the great hall where we were. Rodin asked me to look\nat them. And I at once recognized the truth of his words.\n\nI noticed that in the first of these works the movement appears to\nmount, as in the statue of Ney. The legs of the youth, who is not yet\nfully awake, are still lax and almost vacillating, but as your eye\nmounts you see the pose become firmer\u2014the ribs rise beneath the skin,\nthe chest expands, the face is lifted towards the sky, and the two arms\nstretch in an endeavor to throw off their torpor.\n\nThe subject of this sculpture is exactly that\u2014the passage from\nsomnolence to the vigor of the being ready for action.\n\nThis slow gesture of awakening appears, besides, still more grand when\none understands its symbolic meaning. For it represents, as the title of\nthe work indicates, the first palpitation of conscience in a humanity\nstill young, the first victory of reason over the brutishness of the\nprehistoric ages.\n\nIn the same way I next studied _Saint John_. And I saw that the rhythm\nof this figure led, as Rodin had said, to a sort of evolution between\ntwo balances. The figure leaning, at first, all its weight upon the left\nfoot, which presses the ground with all its strength, seems to balance\nthere while the eyes look to the right. You then see all the body bent\nin that direction, then the right leg advances and the foot takes hold\nof the ground. At the same time the left shoulder, which is raised,\nseems to endeavor to bring the weight of the body to this side in order\nto aid the leg which is behind to come forward. Now, the science of the\nsculptor has consisted precisely in imposing all these facts upon the\nspectator in the order in which I have stated them, so that their\nsuccession will give the impression of movement.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\nMoreover, the gesture of Saint John, like that of the Iron Age, contains\na spiritual significance. The prophet moves with an almost automatic\nsolemnity. You almost believe you hear his footsteps, as you do those in\nthe statue of the _Commander_. You feel that a force at once mysterious\nand formidable sustains and impels him. So the act of walking, usually a\ncommonplace movement, here becomes majestic because it is the\naccomplishment of a divine mission.\n\n\u201cHave you ever attentively examined instantaneous photographs of walking\nfigures?\u201d Rodin suddenly asked me.\n\nUpon my reply in the affirmative, \u201cWell, what did you notice?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat they never seem to advance. Generally they seem to rest motionless\non one leg or to hop on one foot.\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly! Now, for example, while my Saint John is represented with both\nfeet on the ground, it is probable that an instantaneous photograph from\na model making the same movement would show the back foot already raised\nand carried toward the other. Or else, on the contrary, the front foot\nwould not yet be on the ground if the back leg occupied in the\nphotograph the same position as in my statue.\n\n\u201cNow it is exactly for that reason that this model photographed would\npresent the odd appearance of a man suddenly stricken with paralysis and\npetrified in his pose, as it happened in the pretty fairy story to the\nservants of the Sleeping Beauty, who were all suddenly struck motionless\nin the midst of their occupations.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cAnd this confirms what I have just explained to you on the subject of\nmovement in art. If, in fact, in instantaneous photographs, the figures,\nthough taken while moving, seem suddenly fixed in mid-air, it is\nbecause, all parts of the body being reproduced exactly at the same\ntwentieth or fortieth of a second, there is no progressive development\nof movement as there is in art.\u201d\n\n\u201cI understand you perfectly, Master,\u201d I answered. \u201cBut it seems to me,\nif you will excuse me for risking the remark, that you contradict\nyourself.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow so?\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you not declared many times to me that the artist ought always to\ncopy nature with the greatest sincerity?\u201d\n\n\u201cWithout doubt, and I maintain it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, when in the interpretation of movement he completely\ncontradicts photography, which is an unimpeachable mechanical testimony,\nhe evidently alters truth.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d replied Rodin, \u201cit is the artist who is truthful and it is\nphotography which lies, for in reality time does not stop, and if the\nartist succeeds in producing the impression of a movement which takes\nseveral moments for accomplishment, his work is certainly much less\nconventional than the scientific image, where time is abruptly\nsuspended.\n\n\u201cIt is that which condemns certain modern painters who, when they wish\nto represent horses galloping, reproduce the poses furnished by\ninstantaneous photography.\n\n\u201cGericault is criticised because in his picture _Epsom Races_ (_Course\nd\u2019Epsom_), which is at the Louvre, he has painted his horses galloping,\nfully extended, _ventre \u00e0 terre_, to use a familiar expression, throwing\ntheir fore feet forward and their hind feet backward at the same\ninstant. It is said that the sensitive plate never gives the same\neffect. And, in fact, in instantaneous photography, when the forelegs of\na horse are forward, the hind legs, having by their pause propelled the\nbody onward, have already had time to gather themselves under the body\nin order to recommence the stride, so that for a moment the four legs\nare almost gathered together in the air, which gives the animal the\nappearance of jumping off the ground, and of being motionless in this\nposition.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  EUROPA. Italian School of the Fifteenth Century\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  EPSOM RACES\n\n  By Gericault\n]\n\n\u201cNow I believe that it is Gericault who is right, and not the camera,\nfor his horses _appear_ to run; this comes from the fact that the\nspectator from right to left sees first the hind legs accomplish the\neffort whence the general impetus results, then the body stretched out,\nthen the forelegs which seek the ground ahead. This is false in reality,\nas the actions could not be simultaneous; but it is true when the parts\nare observed successively, and it is this truth alone that matters to\nus, because it is that which we see and which strikes us.\n\n\u201cNote besides that painters and sculptors, when they unite different\nphases of an action in the same figure, do not act from reason or from\nartifice. They are na\u00efvely expressing what they feel. Their minds and\ntheir hands are as if drawn in the direction of the movement, and they\ntranslate the development by instinct. Here, as everywhere in the domain\nof art, sincerity is the only rule.\u201d\n\nI was silent for several instants, thinking over what he had said.\n\n\u201cHaven\u2019t I convinced you?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cYes, indeed. But while admiring this miracle of painting and of\nsculpture which succeeds in condensing the action of several moments\ninto a single figure, I now ask myself how far they can compete with\nliterature, and especially with the theatre, in the notation of\nmovement. To tell the truth, I am inclined to believe that this\ncompetition does not go very far, and that on this score the masters of\nthe brush and chisel are necessarily inferior to those of language.\u201d\n\n\u201cOur disadvantage,\u201d he exclaimed, \u201cis not as great as you would think.\nIf painting and sculpture can endow figures with motion, they are not\nforbidden to attempt even more. And at times they succeed in equalling\ndramatic art by presenting in the same picture or in the same sculptural\ngroup several successive scenes.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE EMBARKATION FOR THE ISLAND OF CYTHERA\n\n  By Watteau\n]\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I replied, \u201cbut they cheat, in a way. For I suppose that you are\ntalking of those old compositions which celebrate the entire history of\na personage, representing him several times on the same panel in\ndifferent situations.\n\n\u201cAt the Louvre, for example, a small Italian painting of the fifteenth\ncentury relates in this way the story of Europa. You first see the young\nprincess playing in the flowery field with her companions, who help her\nto mount the bull, Jupiter, and further on the same heroine, terrified\nnow, is carried off through the waves by the god.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is a very primitive method,\u201d Rodin answered, \u201cthough it was\npractised even by great masters\u2014for example, in the ducal palace at\nVenice this same fable of Europa has been treated in an identical manner\nby Veronese. But it is in spite of this defect that Caliari\u2019s painting\nis admirable, and I did not refer to any such childish method: for, as\nyou may imagine, I disapprove of it. To make myself understood, I must\nask you first whether you can call to mind _The Embarkation for the\nIsland of Cythera_ by Watteau.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs plainly as if it was before my eyes,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cThen I shall have no trouble in explaining myself. In this masterpiece\nthe action, if you will notice, begins in the foreground to the right\nand ends in the background to the left.\n\n\u201cWhat you first notice in the front of the picture, in the cool shade,\nnear a sculptured bust of Cypris garlanded with roses, is a group\ncomposed of a young woman and her adorer. The man wears a cape\nembroidered with a pierced heart, gracious symbol of the voyage that he\nwould undertake.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE MARSEILLAISE\n\n  By Rude\n]\n\n\u201cKneeling at her side, he ardently beseeches his lady to yield. But she\nmeets his entreaties with an indifference perhaps feigned, and appears\nabsorbed in the study of the decorations on her fan. Close to them is a\nlittle cupid, sitting halfnaked upon his quiver. He thinks that the\nyoung woman delays too long, and he pulls her skirt to induce her to be\nless hard-hearted. But still the pilgrim\u2019s staff and the script of love\nlie upon the ground. This is the first scene.\n\n\u201cHere is the second: To the left of the group of which I have spoken is\nanother couple. The lady accepts the hand of her lover, who helps her to\narise. She has her back to us, and has one of those blonde napes which\nWatteau painted with such voluptuous grace.\n\n\u201cA little further is the third scene. The lover puts his arm around his\nmistress\u2019s waist to draw her with him. She turns towards her companions,\nwhose lingering confuses her, but she allows herself to be led passively\naway.\n\n\u201cNow the lovers descend to the shore and all push laughing towards the\nbarque; the men no longer need to entreat, the women cling to their\narms.\n\n\u201cFinally the pilgrims help their sweethearts on board the little ship,\nwhich, decked with flowers and floating pennons of red silk, rocks like\na golden dream upon the water. The sailors, leaning on their oars, are\nready to row away. And already, borne by the breezes, little cupids fly\nahead to guide the travellers towards that azure isle which lies upon\nthe horizon.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see, Master, that you love this picture, for you have remembered\nevery detail,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cIt is a delight that one cannot forget. But have you noted the\ndevelopment of this pantomime? Truly now, is it the stage? or is it\npainting? One does not know which to say. You see, then, that an artist\ncan, when he pleases, represent not only fleeting gestures, but a long\n_action_, to employ a term of dramatic art.\n\n\u201cIn order to succeed, he needs only to place his personages in such a\nmanner that the spectator shall first see those who begin this action,\nthen those who continue it, and finally those who complete it. Would you\nlike an example in sculpture?\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\nOpening a book, he searched for a moment and drew out a photograph.\n\n\u201cHere,\u201d he said, \u201cis the _Marseillaise_ which Rude carved for one of the\npiers of the Arc de Triomphe.\n\n\u201cLiberty, in a breastplate of brass, cleaving the air with unfolded\nwings, roars in a mighty voice, \u2018Aux armes, citoyens!\u2019 She raises high\nher left arm to rally all the brave to her side, and, with the other\nhand, she points her sword towards the enemy. It is she, beyond\nquestion, whom you first see, for she dominates all the work, and her\nlegs, which are wide apart as if she were running, seem like an accent\nplaced above this sublime war-epic. It seems as though one must hear\nher\u2014for her mouth of stone shrieks as though to burst your eardrum. But\nno sooner has she given the call than you see the warriors rush forward.\nThis is the second phase of the action. A Gaul with the mane of a lion\nshakes aloft his helmet as though to salute the goddess, and here, at\nhis side, is his young son, who begs the right to go with him\u2014\u201cI am\nstrong enough, I am a man, I want to go!\u201d he seems to say, grasping the\nhilt of a sword. \u201cCome,\u201d says the father, regarding him with tender\npride.\n\n\u201cThird phase of the action: a veteran bowed beneath the weight of his\nequipment strives to join them\u2014for all who have strength enough must\nmarch to battle. Another old man, bowed with age, follows the soldiers\nwith his prayers, and the gesture of his hand seems to repeat the\ncounsels that he has given them from his own experience.\n\n\u201cFourth phase: an archer bends his muscular back to bind on his arms. A\ntrumpet blares its frenzied appeal to the troops. The wind flaps the\nstandards, the lances point forward. The signal is given, and already\nthe strife begins.\n\n\u201cHere, again, we have a true dramatic composition acted before us. But\nwhile _L\u2019Embarquement pour Cyth\u00e8re_ recalls the delicate comedies of\nMarivaux, the _Marseillaise_ is a great tragedy by Corneille. I do not\nknow which of the two works I prefer, for there is as much genius in the\none as in the other.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  EUSTACHE DE SAINT-PIERRE. ONE OF THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ONE OF THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\nAnd, looking at me with a shade of malicious challenge, he added, \u201cYou\nwill no longer say, I think, that sculpture and painting are unable to\ncompete with the theatre?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly not.\u201d At this instant, I saw in the portfolio where he had\nreplaced the reproduction of the _Marseillaise_, a photograph of his\nwonderful _Burghers of Calais_. \u201cTo prove to you,\u201d I said, \u201cthat I have\nprofited by your teaching, let me apply it to one of your most beautiful\nworks, for I see that you have yourself put into practice the principles\nwhich you have revealed to me.\n\n\u201cHere, in your _Burghers of Calais_, I recognize a scenic succession\nlike that which you have cited in the _chefs-d\u2019\u0153uvre_ of Watteau and of\nRude.\n\n\u201cThe figure in the centre first attracts attention. No one can doubt\nthat it is Eustache de Saint-Pierre. He bows his venerable head with its\nlong gray hair. He does not hesitate, he is not afraid. He advances\nsteadily, his eyes half closed in silent communion. If he totters a\nlittle, it is because of the privations that he has endured during a\nlong siege. It is he who inspires the others, it is he who offered\nhimself first as one of the six notables whose death, according to the\nconditions of the conqueror, should save their fellow-townsmen from\nmassacre.\n\n\u201cThe burgher beside him is not less brave. But if he does not mourn for\nhis own fate, the capitulation of the city causes him terrible sorrow.\nHolding in his hand the key which he must deliver to the English, he\nstiffens his whole body in order to find the strength to bear the\ninevitable humiliation.\n\n\u201cOn the same plane with these two, to the left, you see a man who is\nless courageous, for he walks almost too fast: you would say that,\nhaving made up his mind to the sacrifice, he longs to shorten the time\nwhich separates him from his martyrdom.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ONE OF THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ONE OF THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cAnd behind these comes a burgher who, holding his head in his hands,\nabandons himself to violent despair. Perhaps he thinks of his wife, of\nhis children, of those who are dear to him, of those whom his going will\nleave without support.\n\n\u201cA fifth notable passes his hand before his eyes as if to dissipate some\nfrightful nightmare. He stumbles, death so appals him.\n\n\u201cFinally, here is the sixth burgher, younger than the others. He seems\nstill undecided. A painful anxiety contracts his face. Is it the image\nof his sweetheart that fills his thoughts? But his companions advance\u2014he\nrejoins them, his neck outstretched as if offered to the axe of fate.\n\n\u201cWhile these three men of Calais may be less brave than the three first,\nthey do not deserve less admiration. For their devotion is even more\nmeritorious, because it costs them more.\n\n\u201cSo, in your _Burghers_, one follows the action, more or less prompt,\nwhich was the outcome in each one of them according to his disposition\nof the authority and example of Eustache de Saint-Pierre. One sees them,\ngradually won by his influence, decide one after another to go forward\nwith him to pay the price of their city.\n\n\u201cThere, incontestably, is the best confirmation of your ideas on the\nscenic value of art.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf your opinion of my work were not too high,\u201d Rodin answered, \u201cI\nshould acknowledge that you had perfectly understood my intentions. You\nhave justly placed my burghers in the scale according to their degrees\nof heroism. To emphasize this effect still more I wished, as you perhaps\nknow, to fix my statues one behind the other on the stones of the Place,\nbefore the Town Hall of Calais, like a living chaplet of suffering and\nof sacrifice.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ONE OF THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cMy figures would so have appeared to direct their steps from the\nmunicipal building toward the camp of Edward III.; and the people of\nCalais of to-day, almost elbowing them, would have felt more deeply the\ntradition of solidarity which unites them to these heroes. It would have\nbeen, I believe, intensely impressive. But my proposal was rejected, and\nthey insisted upon a pedestal which is as unsightly as it is\nunnecessary. They were wrong. I am sure of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAlas,\u201d I said, \u201cthe artist has always to reckon with the routine of\nopinion, too happy if he can only realize a part of his beautiful\ndreams!\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  CUPID AND PSYCHE\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photogravure reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of\n    Art\n]\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V\n                           DRAWING AND COLOR\n\n\nRodin has always drawn a great deal. He has sometimes used the pen,\nsometimes the pencil. Formerly he drew the outline with a pen, and then\nadded the shading with a brush. These wash-drawings so executed looked\nas if made from bas-reliefs or from sculptured groups. They were purely\nthe visions of a sculptor.\n\nLater he used a lead pencil for his drawings from the nude, washing in\nthe flesh tones in color. These drawings are freer than the first; the\nattitudes are less set, more fugitive. In them the touch seems sometimes\nalmost frenzied\u2014a whole body held in a single sweep of the pencil\u2014and\nthey betray the divine impatience of the artist who fears that a\nfleeting impression may escape him. The coloring of the flesh is dashed\non in three or four broad strokes, the modelling summarily produced by\nthe drying of the pools of color where the brush in its haste has not\npaused to gather the drops left after each touch. These sketches fix the\nrapid gesture, the transient motion which the eye itself has hardly\nseized for one half second. They do not give you merely line and color;\nthey give you movement and life. They are more the visions of a painter\nthan of a sculptor.\n\nYet more recently Rodin, continuing to use the lead pencil, has ceased\nto model with the brush. He is now content to smudge in the contours\nwith his finger. This rubbing produces a silvery gray which envelops the\nforms like a cloud, rendering them of almost unreal loveliness; it\nbathes them in poetry and mystery. These last studies I believe are the\nmost beautiful. They are at once luminous, living, and full of charm.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE EMBRACE\n\n  Study-sketch by Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY OF THE NUDE\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\nAs I was looking at some with Rodin, I said to him how much they\ndiffered from the over-finished drawings which the public usually\napprove.\n\n\u201cIt is true,\u201d he said, \u201cthat it is inexpressive minuti\u00e6 of execution and\nfalse nobility of gesture which please the ignorant. The crowd cannot\nunderstand a daring impression which passes over useless details to\nseize only upon the truth of the whole. It can understand nothing of\nthat sincere observation which, disdaining theatrical poses, interests\nitself in the simple and much more touching attitudes of real life.\n\n\u201cIt is difficult to correct the errors that prevail on the subject of\ndrawing.\n\n\u201cIt is a false idea that drawing in itself can be beautiful. It is only\nbeautiful through the truths and the feelings that it translates. The\ncrowd admires artists, who, strong in subject, elegantly pen contours\ndestitute of significance, and who plant their figures in pretentious\nposes. It goes into ecstasies over poses which are never seen in nature,\nand which are considered artistic because they recall the posturings of\nthe Italian models who offer themselves at the studio door. That is what\nis generally called beautiful drawing. It is really only\nsleight-of-hand, fit to astonish boobies.\n\n\u201cOf course, there is drawing in art as there is style in literature.\nStyle that is mannered, that strains after effect, is bad. No style is\ngood except that which effaces itself in order to concentrate all the\nattention of the reader upon the subject treated, upon the emotion\nrendered.\n\n\u201cThe artist who parades his drawing, the writer who wishes to attract\npraise to his style, resemble the soldier who plumes himself on his\nuniform but refuses to go into battle, or the farmer who polishes the\nploughshare instead of driving it into the earth.\n\n\u201cYou never think of praising either drawing or style which is truly\nbeautiful, because you are carried away by the interest of all that they\nexpress. It is the same with color. There is really neither beautiful\nstyle, nor beautiful drawing, nor beautiful color; there is but one sole\nbeauty, that of the truth which is revealed. When a truth, when a\nprofound idea, when a powerful feeling bursts forth in a great work,\neither literary or artistic, it is evident that the style, or the color\nand the drawing, are excellent; but these qualities exist only as the\nreflection of the truth.\n\n\u201cRaphael\u2019s drawing is admired\u2014and justly\u2014but it should not be admired\nonly for itself, for its skilful balance of line; it should be admired\nfor what it signifies. What forms all its merit is the sweet serenity of\nsoul which saw with the eyes of Raphael and expressed itself with his\nhand, the love in him which seems to overflow from his heart upon all\nnature. Those who, lacking his soul, have sought to borrow the linear\ncadences and the attitudes of his figures, have never executed any but\ninsipid imitations of the great master of Urbino.\n\n\u201cIn the drawing of Michael Angelo it is not his manner, not the\naudacious foreshortening nor the skilful anatomy that should be admired,\nbut the desperate force of the Titan. Those imitators who, without his\nsoul, have copied in their painting his buttressed attitudes and his\ntense muscles have made themselves ridiculous.\n\n\u201cIn the color of Titian, what should be admired is not merely a more or\nless agreeable harmony, but the meaning that it offers. His color has no\ntrue beauty except as it conveys the idea of a sumptuous and dominant\nsovereignty.\n\n\u201cIn the color of Veronese, the true beauty exists in its power to evoke\nin silvery play of color the elegant conviviality of patrician feasts.\n\n\u201cThe color of Rubens is nothing in itself; its flaming wonder would be\nvain did it not give the impression of life, of joy, and of robust\nsensuousness.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  TORSO OF A WOMAN\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cThere does not perhaps exist a single work of art which owes its charm\nonly to balance of line or tone, and which makes an appeal to the eyes\nalone. Take, for example, the stained-glass windows of the twelfth and\nthirteenth centuries\u2014if they enchant us with the velvety depths of their\nblues, with the caress of their soft violets and their warm crimsons, it\nis because their colors express the mystic joy which their pious\ncreators hoped to win in the heaven of their dreams. If certain bits of\nPersian pottery, strewn with flowers of turquoise blue, are adorable\nmarvels of color, it is because, in some strange manner, their exquisite\nshades transport the soul into I know not what valley of dreams and\nfa\u00ebry. So, all drawing and all harmony of colors offer a meaning without\nwhich they would have no beauty.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut do you not fear that disdain of craft in art\u2014?\u201d I broke in.\n\n\u201cWho speaks to you of disdaining it? Craft is only a means. But the\nartist who neglects it will never attain his end, which is the\ninterpretation of feeling, of ideas. Such an artist would be like a\nhorseman who forgot to give oats to his horse.\n\n\u201cIt is only too evident that if drawing is lacking, if color is false,\nthe most powerful emotion cannot find expression. Incorrect anatomy\nwould raise a laugh when the artist wished to be most touching. Many\nyoung artists incur this disgrace to-day. As they have never studied\nseriously, their unskilfulness betrays them at every turn. Their\nintentions are good, but an arm which is too short, a leg which is not\nstraight, an inexact perspective, repels the spectator.\n\n\u201cIn short, no sudden inspiration can replace the long toil which is\nindispensable to give the eyes a true knowledge of form and of\nproportion and to render the hand obedient to the commands of feeling.\n\n\u201cAnd when I say that craft should be forgotten, my idea is not for a\nmoment that the artist can get along without science. On the contrary,\nit is necessary to have consummate technique in order to hide what one\nknows. Doubtless, to the vulgar, the jugglers who execute eccentric\nflourishes of line, who accomplish astounding pyrotechnics of color, or\nwho write long phrases encrusted with unusual words, are the most\nskilful men in the world. But the great difficulty and the crown of art\nis to draw, to paint, to write with ease and simplicity.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  A DRAWING\n\n  By Michael Angelo\n]\n\n\u201cYou see a picture, you read a page; you notice neither the drawing, the\ncolor, nor the style, but you are moved to the soul. Have no fear of\nmaking a mistake; the drawing, the color, the style are perfect in\ntechnique.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet, Master, can it not happen that great and touching _chefs-d\u2019\u0153uvre_\nare wanting in technique? Is it not said, for instance, that Raphael\u2019s\ncolor is often bad and Rembrandt\u2019s drawing debatable?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is wrong, believe me. If Raphael\u2019s masterpieces delight the soul, it\nis because everything in them, color as well as drawing, contributes to\nthe enchantment. Look at the little _Saint George_ in the Louvre, at the\n_Parnassus_ in the Vatican, at the cartoons for the tapestry at South\nKensington; the harmony in these works is charming. Sanzio\u2019s color is\ndifferent from Rembrandt\u2019s, but it is exactly suited to his inspiration.\nIt is clear and enamelled. It offers fresh, flowery, joyous tonalities.\nIt has the eternal youth of Raphael himself. It seems unreal, but only\nbecause the truth as observed by the master of Urbino is not that of\npurely material things; his is the domain of feeling, a region where\nforms and colors are transfigured by the light of love. Doubtless an\nout-and-out realist would call this coloring inexact; but a poet finds\nit true.\n\n\u201cWhat is certain is that the color of Rembrandt or of Rubens joined to\nRaphael\u2019s drawing would be ridiculous and monstrous, just as Rembrandt\u2019s\ndrawing differs from that of Raphael, but is not less good. Raphael\u2019s\nlines are sweet and pure; Rembrandt\u2019s are often rude and jarring. The\ngreat Dutchman\u2019s vision was arrested by the roughness of garments, by\nthe asperity of wrinkled faces, by the callousness of plebeian hands;\nfor to Rembrandt beauty is only the antithesis between the triviality of\nthe physical envelope and the inner radiance. How could he express this\nbeauty composed of apparent ugliness and moral grandeur if he tried to\nrival Raphael in elegance? You must recognize that his drawing is\nperfect because it corresponds absolutely to the exigencies of his\nthought.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  A DRAWING\n\n  By Rembrandt\n]\n\n\u201cSo, according to you, it is an error to believe that the same artist\ncannot be at once a great colorist and a great draughtsman?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly, and I do not know how this idea has become as firmly\nestablished as it seems to be. If the great masters are eloquent, if\nthey carry us away, it is clearly because they possess exactly all the\nmeans of expression that are necessary to them. I have just proved it to\nyou in the case of Raphael and Rembrandt. The same demonstration could\nbe made in the case of all the great artists. For instance, Delacroix\nhas been accused of ignorance of drawing. On the contrary, the truth is\nthat his drawing combines marvellously with his color; like it, it is\nabrupt, feverish, exalted, it is full of vivacity, of passion; like it,\nit is sometimes mad, and it is then that it is the most beautiful. Color\nand drawing, one cannot be admired without the other, for they are one.\n\n\u201cWhere the demi-connoisseur deceives himself is in allowing for the\nexistence of but one kind of drawing; that of Raphael, or perhaps it is\nnot even that of Raphael, but that of his imitators, that of David or of\nIngres. There are really as many kinds of drawing and of color as there\nare artists.\n\n\u201cAlbrecht D\u00fcrer\u2019s color is called hard and dry. It is not so at all. But\nhe is a German; he generalizes; his compositions are as exact as logical\nconstructions; his people are as solid as essential types. That is why\nhis drawing is so precise and his color so restrained.\n\n\u201cHolbein belongs to the same school. His drawing has none of the\nFlorentine grace; his color has none of the Venetian charm; but his line\nand color have a power, a gravity, an inner meaning, which perhaps are\nfound in no other painter.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY FOR A FIGURE\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n\u201cIn general, it is possible to say that in artists as deliberate, as\ncareful as these, drawing is particularly tight and the color is as cold\nas the verity of mathematics. In other artists, on the contrary, in\nthose who are the poets of the heart, like Raphael, Correggio, Andrea\ndel Sarto, line has more suppleness and color, more winning tenderness.\nIn others whom we call _realists_, that is to say, whose sensibility is\nmore exterior, in Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, for example, line has a\nliving charm with its force and its repose, and the color sometimes\nbursts into a fanfare of sunlight, sometimes fades into mist.\n\n\u201cSo, the modes of expression of men of genius differ as much as their\nsouls, and it is impossible to say that in some among them drawing and\ncolor are better or worse than in others.\u201d\n\n\u201cI understand, Master; but in refusing the usual classification of\nartists as draughtsmen or colorists, you do not stop to think how you\nembarrass the poor critics. Happily, however, it seems to me that in\nyour words those who like categories may find a new method of\nclassification. Color and drawing, you say, are only means, and it is\nthe soul of the artist that it is important to know. So painters should\nbe grouped according to their dispositions. For example, Albrecht D\u00fcrer\nwith Holbein\u2014both are logicians. Raphael, Correggio, Andrea del Sarto,\nwhom you have named together, make a class in which sentiment is\npredominant; they are in the front rank of the elegiacs. Another class\nwould be composed of the masters who are interested in active existence,\nin daily life, and the trio of Rubens, Velasquez and Rembrandt would be\nits greatest constellation. Finally, artists such as Claude Lorraine and\nTurner, who considered nature as a tissue of brilliant and fugitive\nvisions, would comprise a fourth group.\u201d\n\nRodin smiled. \u201cSuch a classification would not be wanting in ingenuity,\u201d\nhe said, \u201cand it would be much more just than that which divides the\ncolorists from the draughtsmen.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  TRITON AND NEREID\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE CARYATID\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n\u201cHowever, because of the complexity of art, or rather of the human souls\nwho take art for a language, all classification runs the risk of being\nfutile. So Rembrandt is often a sublime poet and Raphael often a\nvigorous realist.\n\n\u201cLet us force ourselves to understand the masters\u2014let us love them\u2014let\nus go to them for inspiration; but let us refrain from labelling them\nlike drugs in a chemist\u2019s shop.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE BATHER\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER VI\n                          THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN\n\n\nThat fine old house known as \u201cl\u2019H\u00f4tel de Biron,\u201d which stands in a quiet\nstreet on the left bank of the Seine in Paris, and which was but lately\nthe Convent of the Sacred Heart, has, since the suppression of the\nsisterhoods, been occupied by several tenants, among whom is Rodin.\n\nThe Master, as we have seen, has other ateliers at Meudon and at the\nD\u00e9p\u00f4t des Marbres in Paris, but he has a special liking for this one.\n\nBuilt in the eighteenth century, the town house of a powerful family, it\nis certainly as beautiful a dwelling as any artist could desire. The\ngreat rooms are lofty, panelled in white, with beautiful mouldings in\nwhite and gold. The one in which Rodin works is a rotunda opening by\nhigh French windows into a delightful garden.\n\nFor several years now this garden has been neglected. But it is still\npossible to trace, among the riotous weeds, the ancient lines of box\nwhich bordered the alleys, to follow, beneath fantastic vines, the shape\nof green trellised arbors; and there each spring the flowers reappear,\npushing through the grasses in the borders. Nothing induces a more\ndelicious melancholy than this spectacle of the gradual effacement of\nhuman toil at the hands of invading nature.\n\nAt l\u2019H\u00f4tel de Biron Rodin passes nearly all his time in drawing.\n\nIn this quiet retreat he loves to isolate himself and to consign to\npaper, in numberless pencil sketches, the graceful attitudes which his\nmodels take before him.\n\nOne evening I was looking over a series of these studies with him, and\nwas admiring the harmonious lines by which he had reproduced all the\nrhythm of the human body upon paper.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  TORSO OF A WOMAN\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  TORSO OF A WOMAN\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\nThe outlines, dashed in with a single stroke, evoked the fire or the\n_abandon_ of the movements, and his thumb had interpreted by a very\nslight shade the charm of the modelling. As he studied the drawings he\nseemed to see again in mind the models who were their originals. He\nconstantly exclaimed:\n\n\u201cAh! this one\u2019s shoulders, what a delight! A curve of perfect beauty! My\ndrawing is too heavy! I tried indeed, but\u2014! See, here is a second\nattempt from the same woman. This is more like her. And yet!\n\n\u201cAnd just look at this one\u2019s throat, the adorable elegance of this\nswelling line, it has an almost intangible grace!\u201d\n\n\u201cMaster,\u201d I asked, \u201cis it easy to find good models?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen beauty is not very rare in France?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I tell you.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut tell me, do you not think that the beauty of the antique much\nsurpassed that of our day, and that modern women are far from equalling\nthose who posed for Phidias?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet the perfection of the Greek Venuses\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cThe artists in those days had eyes to see, while those of to-day are\nblind; that is all the difference. The Greek women were beautiful, but\ntheir beauty lived above all in the minds of the sculptors who carved\nthem.\n\n\u201cTo-day there are women just like them. They are principally in the\nSouth of Europe. The modern Italians, for example, belong to the same\nMediterranean type as the models of Phidias. This type has for its\nspecial characteristic the equal width of shoulders and hips.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut did not the invasion of the barbarians by a mixture of race alter\nthe standard of antique beauty?\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  PYGMALION AND GALATEA\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n\u201cNo. Even if we suppose that the barbarians were less beautiful, less\nwell-proportioned than the Mediterranean race, which is possible, time\nhas effectually wiped out any stains produced by a mixed blood, and has\nagain produced the harmony of the ancient type. In a union of the\nbeautiful and the ugly, it is always the beautiful which triumphs in the\nend. Nature, by a Divine law, tends constantly towards the best, tends\nceaselessly towards perfection. Besides the Mediterranean type, there\nexists a Northern type, to which many Frenchwomen, as well as the women\nof the Germanic and Slavic races, belong. In this type the hips are\nstrongly developed and the shoulders are narrower; it is this structure\nthat you observe, for example, in the nymphs of Jean Goujon, in the\nVenus of the _Judgment of Paris_ by Watteau, and in the _Diana_ by\nHoudon. In this type, too, the chest is generally high, while in the\nantique and Mediterranean types the thorax is, on the contrary,\nstraight. To tell the truth, every human type, every race, has its\nbeauty. The thing is to discover it. I have drawn with infinite pleasure\nthe little Cambodian dancers who lately came to Paris with their\nsovereign. The fine, small gestures of their graceful limbs had a\nstrange and marvellous beauty.\n\n\u201cI have made studies of the Japanese actress Hanako. Her muscles stand\nout as prominently as those of a fox-terrier; her sinews are so\ndeveloped that the joints to which they are attached have a thickness\nequal to the members themselves. She is so strong that she can rest as\nlong as she pleases on one leg, the other raised at right angles in\nfront of her. She looks as if rooted in the ground, like a tree. Her\nanatomy is quite different from that of a European, but, nevertheless,\nvery beautiful in its singular power.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY OF HANAKO, THE JAPANESE ACTRESS\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY OF THE NUDE\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\nAn instant later, returning to the idea which is so dear to him, he\nsaid: \u201cIn short, Beauty is everywhere. It is not she that is lacking to\nour eye, but our eyes which fail to perceive her. Beauty is character\nand expression. Well, there is nothing in nature which has more\ncharacter than the human body. In its strength and its grace it evokes\nthe most varied images. One moment it resembles a flower: the bending\ntorso is the stalk; the breasts, the head, and the splendor of the hair\nanswer to the blossoming of the corolla. The next moment it recalls the\npliant creeper, or the proud and upright sapling. \u2018In seeing you,\u2019 says\nUlysses to Nausicaa, \u2018I seem to see a certain palm-tree which at Delos,\nnear the altar of Apollo, rose from earth to heaven in a single shoot.\u2019\nAgain, the human body bent backwards is like a spring, like a beautiful\nbow upon which Eros adjusts his invisible arrows. At another time it is\nan urn. I have often asked a model to sit on the ground with her back to\nme, her arms and legs gathered in front of her. In this position the\nback, which tapers to the waist and swells at the hips, appears like a\nvase of exquisite outline.\n\n\u201cThe human body is, above all, the mirror of the soul, and from the soul\ncomes its greatest beauty.\n\n          \u201c\u2018Chair de la femme, argile id\u00e9ale, o merveille,\n          O p\u00e9n\u00e9tration sublime de l\u2019esprit\n          Dans le limon que l\u2019Etre ineffable petrit.\n          Mati\u00e8re o\u00f9 l\u2019\u00e2me brille \u00e0 travers son suaire.\n          Boue o\u00f9 l\u2019on voit les doigts du divine statuaire.\n          Fange auguste appelant les baisers et le c\u0153ur.\n          Si sainte qu\u2019en ne sait, tant l\u2019amour est vainqueur\n          Tant l\u2019\u00e2me est, vers ce lit myst\u00e9rieux, pouss\u00e9e.\n          Si cette volupt\u00e9 n\u2019est pas une pens\u00e9e.\n          Et qu\u2019on ne peut, \u00e0 l\u2019heure o\u00f9 les sens sont en feu.\n          Etreindre la Beaut\u00e9 sans croire embrasser Dieu!\u2019[4]\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n  See page 250.\n\n\u201cYes, Victor Hugo understood! What we adore in the human body more even\nthan its beautiful form is the inner flame which seems to shine from\nwithin and to illumine it.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  MADAME X\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII\n                       OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-DAY\n\n\nA few days ago I accompanied Auguste Rodin, who was on his way to the\nLouvre, to see once again the busts by Houdon.\n\nWe were no sooner in front of the bust of Voltaire than the Master\ncried:\n\n\u201cWhat a marvel it is! It is the personification of malice. See! his\nsidelong glance seems watching some adversary. He has the pointed nose\nof a fox; it seems smelling out from side to side for abuses and\nfollies. You can see it quiver! And the mouth\u2014what a triumph! It is\nframed by two furrows of irony. It seems to mumble sarcasms.\n\n\u201cA cunning old gossip\u2014that is the impression produced by this Voltaire,\nat once so lively, so sickly, and so little masculine.\u201d\n\nAfter a moment of contemplation he continued:\n\n\u201cThe eyes! I always come back to them. They are transparent. They are\nluminous.\n\n\u201cBut you can say as much of all busts by Houdon. This sculptor\nunderstood how to render the transparency of the pupils better than any\npainter or pastellist. He perforated them, bored them, cut them out; he\ncleverly raised a certain unevenness in them which, catching or losing\nthe light, gives a singular effect and imitates the sparkle of life in\nthe pupil. And what diversity in the expression of the eyes of all these\nfaces! Cunning in Voltaire, good fellowship in Franklin, authority in\nMirabeau, gravity in Washington, joyous tenderness in Madame Houdon,\nroguishness in his daughter and in the two charming little Brongniart\nchildren. To this sculptor the glance is more than half the expression.\nThrough the eyes he read souls. They kept no secrets from him. So there\nis no need to ask if his busts were good likenesses.\u201d\n\nAt that word I stopped Rodin. \u201cYou consider, then, that resemblance is a\nvery important quality?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly; indispensable.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet many artists say that busts and portraits can be very fine without\nbeing good likenesses. I remember a remark on this subject attributed to\nHenner. A lady complained to him that the portrait which he had painted\nof her did not look like her.\n\n\u201c\u2018H\u00e9! Matame,\u2019 he replied in his Alsatian jargon, \u2018when you are dead\nyour heirs will think themselves fortunate to possess a fine portrait by\nHenner and will trouble themselves very little to know if it was like\nyou or not.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is possible that the painter said that,\u201d Rodin answered, \u201cbut it was\ndoubtless a sally which did not represent his real thought, for I do not\nbelieve that he had such false ideas in an art in which he showed great\ntalent.\n\n\u201cBut first let us understand the kind of resemblance demanded in a bust\nor portrait.\n\n\u201cIf the artist only reproduces superficial features as photography does,\nif he copies the lineaments of a face exactly, without reference to\ncharacter, he deserves no admiration. The resemblance which he ought to\nobtain is that of the soul; that alone matters; it is that which the\nsculptor or painter should seek beneath the mask of features.\n\n\u201cIn a word, all the features must be expressive\u2014that is to say, of use\nin the revelation of a conscience.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut doesn\u2019t it sometimes happen that the face contradicts the soul?\u201d\n\n\u201cNever.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you forgotten the precept of La Fontaine, \u2018Il ne faut point juger\nles gens sur l\u2019apparence\u2019?\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  EGYPTIAN SPARROW-HAWK\n\n  _See page 180_\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  MLLE. BRONGNIART\n\n  By Houdon\n]\n\n\u201cThat maxim is only addressed to superficial observers. For appearances\nmay deceive their hasty examination. La Fontaine writes that the little\nmouse took the cat for the kindest of creatures, but he speaks of a\nlittle mouse\u2014that is to say, of a scatterbrain who lacked critical\nfaculty. The appearance of a cat would warn whoever studied it\nattentively that there was cruelty hidden under that sleepiness. A\nphysiognomist can easily distinguish between a cajoling air and one of\nreal kindness, and it is precisely the r\u00f4le of the artist to show the\ntruth, even beneath dissimulation.\n\n\u201cTo tell the truth, there is no artistic work which requires as much\npenetration as the bust and the portrait. It is sometimes said the\nartist\u2019s profession demands more manual skill than intelligence. You\nhave only to study a good bust to correct this error. Such a work is\nworth a whole biography. Houdon\u2019s busts, for example, are like chapters\nof written memoirs. Period, race, profession, personal character\u2014all are\nindicated there.\n\n\u201cHere is Rousseau opposite Voltaire. Great shrewdness in his glance. It\nis the quality common to all the personages of the eighteenth century;\nthey are critics; they question all the principles which were\nunquestioningly accepted before; they have searching eyes.\n\n\u201cNow for his origin. He is the Swiss plebeian. Rousseau is as\nunpolished, almost vulgar, as Voltaire is aristocratic and\ndistinguished. Prominent cheekbones, short nose, square chin\u2014you\nrecognize the son of the watchmaker and the whilom domestic.\n\n\u201cProfession now: he is the philosopher; sloping, thoughtful forehead,\nantique type accentuated by the classic band about his head. Appearance\npurposely wild, hair neglected, a certain resemblance to some Diogenes\nor Menippus; this is the preacher of the return to nature and to the\nprimitive life.\n\n\u201cIndividual character: a general contraction of the face; this is the\nmisanthrope. Eyebrows contracted, forehead lined with care; this is the\nman who complains, often with reason, of persecution.\n\n\u201cI ask you if this is not a better commentary on the man than his\n_Confessions_?\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  MIRABEAU\n\n  By Houdon\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  VOLTAIRE\n\n  By Houdon\n]\n\n\u201cNow Mirabeau. Period; challenging attitude, wig disarranged, dress\ncareless; a breath of the revolutionary tempest passes over this wild\nbeast, who is ready to roar an answer.\n\n\u201cOrigin; dominating aspect, fine arched eyebrows, haughty forehead; this\nis the former aristocrat. But the democratic heaviness of the pockmarked\ncheeks and of the neck sunk between the shoulders betrays the Count de\nRiquetti to the sympathies of Thiers, whose interpreter he has become.\n\n\u201cProfession: the tribune. The mouth protrudes like a speaking-trumpet\nready to fling his voice abroad. He lifts his head because, like most\norators, he was short. In this type of man nature develops the chest,\nthe barrel, at the expense of height. The eyes are not fixed on any one;\nthey rove over a great assembly. It is a glance at once vague and\nsuperb. Tell me, is it not a marvellous achievement to evoke in this one\nhead a whole crowd\u2014more, a whole listening country?\n\n\u201cFinally, the individual character. Observe the sensuous lips, the\ndouble chin, the quivering nostrils; you will recognize the faults\u2014habit\nof debauch and demand for enjoyment. All is there, I tell you.\n\n\u201cIt would be easy to sketch the same character outline from all the\nbusts of Houdon.\n\n\u201cHere, again, is Franklin. A ponderous air, heavy falling cheeks; this\nis the former artisan. The long hair of the apostle, a kindly\nbenevolence; this is the popular moralizer, good-natured Richard.\n\n\u201cA stubborn high forehead inclined forward, indicative of the obstinacy\nof which Franklin gave proof in winning an education, in rising, in\nbecoming an eminent scholar, finally in freeing his country. Astuteness\nin the eyes and in the corners of the mouth; Houdon was not duped by the\ngeneral massiveness, and he divined the prudent materialism of the\ncalculator who made a fortune, and the cunning of the diplomat who\nwormed out the secrets of English politics. Here, living, is one of the\nancestors of modern America!\n\n\u201cWell! Here, in these remarkable busts, do we not find the fragmentary\nchronicle of half a century? And, as in the finest written narratives,\nwhat pleases most in these memoirs in terra-cotta, in marble and in\nbronze, is the brilliant grace of the style, the lightness of the hand\nthat wrote them, the generosity of this charming personality, so\nessentially French, who created them. Houdon is Saint-Simon without his\naristocratic prejudices; is Saint-Simon as witty but more magnanimous.\nAh! what a divine artist!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt must be very difficult,\u201d I said, verifying in the busts before us\nthe interpretation of my companion, \u201cto penetrate so profoundly into the\nconsciousness of others.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, doubtless.\u201d Then, with a shade of irony, \u201cBut the greatest\ndifficulties for the artist who models a bust or who paints a portrait\ndo not come from the work which he executes. They come from the client\nfor whom he works. By a strange and fatal law, the one who orders his\nown likeness is the one who always desperately combats the talent of the\nartist he has chosen. It is very seldom that a man sees himself as he\nis, and even if he knows himself, he does not wish the artist to\nrepresent him as he is. He asks to be represented under the most banal\nand neutral aspect. He wishes to be an official or worldly marionette.\nIt pleases him to have the function he exercises, the rank he holds in\nsociety, completely efface the man that is in him. The magistrate wishes\nhis robe, the general his gold-laced tunic. They care very little\nwhether one can read their characters.\n\n\u201cThis explains the success of so many mediocre painters and sculptors\nwho are satisfied to give the impersonal appearance of their clients:\ntheir gold lace and their official attitude. These are the artists who\nare generally highest in favor because they lend their models a mask of\nriches and importance. The more bombastic a portrait is, the more it\nresembles a stiff, pretentious doll, the better the client is satisfied.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  FRANCIS I\n\n  By Titian\n]\n\n\u201cPerhaps it was not always so.\n\n\u201cCertain seigneurs of the fifteenth century, for example, seem to have\nbeen pleased to see themselves portrayed as hyenas or vultures on the\nmedals of Pisanello. They were doubtless proud of their individuality.\nOr, better still, they loved and venerated art, and they accepted the\nrude frankness of the artist, as though it were a penance imposed by a\nspiritual director.\n\n\u201cTitian did not hesitate to give Pope Paul III. a marten\u2019s snout, nor to\nemphasize the domineering hardness of Charles V., or the salaciousness\nof Francis I., and it does not appear to have damaged his reputation\nwith them. Velasquez, who portrayed King Philip IV. as a nonentity,\nthough an elegant man, and who unflatteringly reproduced his hanging\njaw, nevertheless kept his favor. And the Spanish monarch has acquired\nfrom posterity the great glory of having been the protector of genius.\n\n\u201cBut the men of to-day are so made that they fear truth and love a lie.\nThey seem to be displeased to appear in their busts as they are. They\nall want to have the air of hairdressers.\n\n\u201cAnd even the most beautiful women, that is to say, those whose lines\nhave most style, are horrified at their own beauty when a sculptor of\ntalent is its interpreter. They beseech him to make them ugly by giving\nthem an insignificant and doll-like physiognomy.\n\n\u201cSo, to execute a bust is to fight a long battle. The one thing that\nmatters is not to weaken and to rest honest with one\u2019s self. If the work\nis refused, so much the worse. So much the better perhaps; for often, it\nproves that it is full of merit.\n\n\u201cAs for the client who, though discontented, accepts a successful work,\nhis bad humor is only temporary; for soon the connoisseurs compliment\nhim on the bust and he ends by admiring it. Then he declares quite\nnaturally that he has always liked it.\n\n\u201cMoreover, it should be noticed that the busts which are executed\ngratuitously for friends or relations are the best. It is not only\nbecause the artist knows his models better from seeing them constantly\nand loving them. It is, above all, because the gratuitousness of his\nwork confers on him the liberty of working as he pleases.\n\n\u201cNevertheless, the best busts are often refused, even when offered as\ngifts. Though masterpieces, they are considered insulting by those for\nwhom they are intended. The sculptor must go his own way and find all\nhis pleasure, all his reward, in doing his best.\u201d\n\nI was much interested in this psychology of the public with which the\nartist has to deal; but it must be said that a good deal of bitterness\nentered into Rodin\u2019s irony.\n\n\u201cMaster,\u201d I said, \u201camong the trials of your profession, there is one\nthat you seem to have omitted. That is, to do the bust of a client whose\nhead is without expression or betrays obvious stupidity.\u201d\n\nRodin laughed. \u201cThat cannot count among the trials,\u201d he replied. \u201cYou\nmust not forget my favorite maxim: _Nature is always beautiful_. We need\nonly to understand what she shows us. You speak of a face without\nexpression. There is no such face to an artist. To him every head is\ninteresting. Let a sculptor note the insipidity of a face, let him show\nus a fool absorbed by his care of worldly parade, and there we have a\nfine bust.\n\n\u201cBesides, what is called shallowness is often only a conscience which\nhas not developed owing to a lack of education, and in that case, the\nface offers the mysterious and fascinating spectacle of an intellect\nwhich seems enveloped in a veil.\n\n\u201cFinally\u2014how shall I put it?\u2014even the most insignificant head is the\ndwelling-place of life, that magnificent force, and so offers\ninexhaustible matter for the masterpiece.\u201d\n\n\nSeveral days later I saw in Rodin\u2019s atelier at Meudon the casts of many\nof his finest busts, and I seized the occasion to ask him to tell me of\nthe memories they recalled.\n\nHis _Victor Hugo_ was there, deep in meditation, the forehead strangely\nfurrowed, volcanic, the hair wild, almost like white flames bursting\nfrom his skull. It was the very personification of modern lyricism,\nprofound and tumultuous.\n\n\u201cIt was my friend Bazire,\u201d said Rodin, \u201cwho presented me to Victor Hugo.\nBazire was the secretary of the newspaper, _La Marseillaise_, and later\nof _l\u2019Intransigeant_. He adored Victor Hugo. It was he who started the\nidea of a public celebration of the great man\u2019s eightieth birthday.\n\n\u201cThe celebration, as you know, was both solemn and touching. The poet\nfrom his balcony saluted an immense crowd who had come before his house\nto acclaim him; he seemed a patriarch blessing his family. Because of\nthat day, he kept a tender gratitude for the man who had arranged it.\nAnd that was how Bazire introduced me to his presence without\ndifficulty.\n\n\u201cUnfortunately, Victor Hugo had just been martyred by a mediocre\nsculptor named Villain, who, to make a bad bust, had insisted on\nthirty-eight sittings. So when I timidly expressed my desire to\nreproduce the features of the author of _Contemplation_, he knit his\nOlympian brows.\n\n\u201c\u2018I cannot prevent your working,\u2019 he said, \u2018but I warn you that I will\nnot pose. I will not change one of my habits on your account. Make what\narrangements you like.\u2019\n\n\u201cSo I came and I made a great number of flying pencil notes to\nfacilitate my work of modelling later. Then I brought my stand and some\nclay. But naturally I could only install this untidy paraphernalia in\nthe veranda, and as Victor Hugo was generally in the drawing-room with\nhis friends, you may imagine the difficulty of my task. I would study\nthe great poet attentively, and endeavor to impress his image on my\nmemory; then suddenly with a run I would reach the veranda to fix in\nclay the memory of what I had just seen. But often, on the way, my\nimpression had weakened so that when I arrived before my stand I dared\nnot touch the clay, and I had to resolve to return to my model again.\n\n\u201cWhen I had nearly finished my work, Dalou asked me to introduce him to\nVictor Hugo, and I willingly rendered him this service, but the glorious\nold man died soon after, and Dalou could only do his best from a cast\ntaken after death.\u201d\n\nRodin led me as he spoke to a glass case which enclosed a singular block\nof stone. It was the keystone of an arch, the stone which the architect\nsets in the centre to sustain the curve. On the face of this stone was\ncarved a mask, squared along the cheeks and temples, following the shape\nof the block. I recognized the face of Victor Hugo.\n\n\u201cI always imagine this the keystone at the entrance of a building\ndedicated to poetry,\u201d said the master sculptor.\n\nI could easily fancy it. The brow of Victor Hugo thus supporting the\nweight of a monumental arch would symbolize the genius on which all the\nthought and all the activity of an epoch had rested.\n\n\u201cI give this idea to any architect who will put it into execution,\u201d\nRodin added.\n\nClose by stood the cast of the bust of Henri Rochefort. It is well\nknown; the head of an insurgent, the forehead as full of bumps as that\nof a pugnacious child who is always fighting his companions, the wild\ntuft of hair which seems to wave like a signal for mutiny, the mouth\ntwisted by irony, the mad beard; a continual revolt, the very spirit of\ncriticism and combativeness. Admirable work it is, in which one sees one\nside of our contemporary mentality reflected.\n\n\u201cIt was also through Bazire,\u201d said Rodin, \u201cthat I made the acquaintance\nof Henri Rochefort, who was editor-in-chief of his newspaper. The\ncelebrated polemic consented to pose to me. He had such a joyous spirit\nthat it was an enchantment to listen to him, but he could not keep still\nfor a single instant. He reproached me pleasantly for having too much\nprofessional conscience. He said laughingly that I spent one sitting in\nadding a lump of clay to the model and the next in taking it away.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  HENRI ROCHEFORT\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cWhen, some time after, his bust received the approbation of men of\ntaste, he joined unreservedly in their praises, but he would never\nbelieve that my work had remained exactly as it was when I took it away\nfrom his house. \u2018You have retouched it very much,\u2019 he would repeat. In\nreality, I had not even touched it with my nail.\u201d\n\nRodin, placing one of his hands over the tuft of hair and the other over\nthe beard, then asked me, \u201cWhat impression does it make now?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou would say it was a Roman emperor.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is just what I wanted to make you say. I have never found the\nLatin classic type as pure as in Rochefort.\u201d\n\nIf this ancient enemy of the Empire does not yet know this paradoxical\nresemblance of his profile to that of the C\u00e6sars, I wager that it will\nmake him smile.\n\nWhen Rodin, a moment before, had spoken of Dalou, I had seen in thought\nhis bust of this sculptor which is at the Luxembourg. It is a proud,\nchallenging head, with the thin, sinewy neck of a child of the\nfaubourgs, the bristly beard of an artisan, a contracted forehead, the\nwild eyebrows of an ancient communist, and the feverish and haughty air\nof the irreducible democrat. For the rest, the large fine eyes and the\ndelicate incurvation of the temples reveal the passionate lover of\nbeauty.\n\nIn answer to a question, Rodin replied that he had modelled this bust at\na moment when Dalou, profiting by the amnesty, had returned from\nEngland.\n\n\u201cHe never took it away,\u201d he said, \u201cfor our relations ended just after I\nhad introduced him to Victor Hugo.\n\n\u201cDalou was a great artist, and many of his works have a superb\ndecorative value which allies them to the most beautiful groups of our\nseventeenth century.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  JEAN-PAUL LAURENS\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  JULES DALOU\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cIf he had not had the weakness to desire an official position he would\nnever have produced anything but masterpieces. But he aspired to become\nthe Le Brun of our Republic and the leader of all our contemporary\nartists. He died before he succeeded in his ambition.\n\n\u201cIt is impossible to exercise two professions at once. All the activity\nthat is expended in acquiring useful relations and in playing a r\u00f4le is\nlost to art. Intriguers are not fools; when an artist wishes to compete\nwith them he must expend as much effort as they do, and he will have\nhardly any time left for work.\n\n\u201cWho knows? If Dalou had always stayed in his atelier peacefully\npursuing his calling, he would have without doubt brought forth marvels\nwhose beauty would have astonished all eyes, and common consent would\nhave perhaps awarded him that artistic sovereignty to whose conquest he\nunsuccessfully used all his skill.\n\n\u201cHis ambition, however, was not entirely vain for his influence at the\nH\u00f4tel de Ville gave us one of the great masterpieces of our time. It was\nhe who, in spite of the undisguised hostility of the administrative\ncommittee, gave the order to Puvis de Chavannes for the decoration of\nthe stairway at the H\u00f4tel de Ville. And you know with what heavenly\npoetry the great painter illuminated the walls of the municipal\nbuilding.\u201d\n\nThese words called attention to the bust of Puvis de Chavannes.\n\n\u201cHe carried his head high,\u201d Rodin said. \u201cHis skull, solid and round,\nseemed made to wear a helmet. His arched chest seemed accustomed to\ncarry the breastplate. It was easy to imagine him at Pavia fighting for\nhis honor by the side of Francis I.\u201d\n\nIn the bust you recognize the aristocracy of an old race. The high\nforehead and eyebrows reveal the philosopher, and the calm glance,\nembracing a wide outlook, betrays the great decorator, the sublime\nlandscapist. There is no modern artist for whom Rodin professes more\nadmiration, more profound respect, than for the painter of\n_Sainte-Genevi\u00e8ve_.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  PUVIS DE CHAVANNES\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cTo think that he has lived among us,\u201d he cries; \u201cto think that this\ngenius, worthy of the most radiant epochs of art, has spoken to us! That\nI have seen him, have pressed his hand! It seems as if I had pressed the\nhand of Nicolas Poussin!\u201d\n\nWhat a charming remark! To put the figure of a contemporary back into\nthe past, in order to range it there by one of those who shine\nbrightest, and then to be so moved at the very thought of physical\ncontact with this demi-god\u2014could any homage be more touching?\n\nRodin continued: \u201cPuvis de Chavannes did not like my bust of him, and it\nwas one of the bitter things of my career. He thought that I had\ncaricatured him. And yet I am certain that I have expressed in my\nsculpture all the enthusiasm and veneration that I felt for him.\u201d\n\nThe bust of Puvis made me think of that of Jean-Paul Laurens, which is\nalso in the Luxembourg.\n\nA round head, the face mobile, enthusiastic, almost breathless\u2014this is a\nSoutherner\u2014something archaic and rude in the expression\u2014eyes which seem\nhaunted by distant visions\u2014it is the painter of half-savage epochs, when\nmen were robust and impetuous.\n\nRodin said: \u201cLaurens is one of my oldest friends. I posed for one of the\nMerovingian warriors who, in the decoration of the Pantheon, assist at\nthe death of Sainte-Genevi\u00e8ve. His affection for me has always been\nfaithful. It was he who got me the order for the _Bourgeois de Calais_.\nThough it did not bring me much, because I delivered six figures in\nbronze for the price they offered me for one, yet I owe him profound\ngratitude for having spurred me to the creation of one of my best works.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE SCULPTOR FALGUI\u00c8RE\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cIt was a great pleasure to me to do his bust. He reproached me in a\nfriendly way for having done him with his mouth open. I replied that,\nfrom the design of his skull, he was probably descended from the ancient\nVisigoths of Spain, and that this type was characterized by the\nprominence of the lower jaw. But I do not know whether he agreed to the\njustice of this ethnographical observation.\u201d\n\nAt this moment I perceived a bust of Falgui\u00e8re. Fiery, eruptive\ncharacter, his face sown with wrinkles and bumps like a land ravaged by\nstorms, the moustaches of a grumbler, hair thick and short.\n\n\u201cHe was a little bull,\u201d said Rodin.\n\nI noted the thickness of the neck, where the folds of skin almost formed\na dewlap, the square of forehead, the head bent and obstinate, ready for\na forward plunge. A little bull! Rodin often makes these comparisons\nwith the animal kingdom. Such a one, with his long neck and automatic\ngestures, is a bird which pilfers right and left; such another, too\namiable, too coquettish is a King Charles spaniel, and so on. These\ncomparisons evidently facilitate the work of the mind which seeks to\nclass all physiognomies in general categories.\n\nRodin told me under what circumstances he knew Falgui\u00e8re.\n\n\u201cIt was,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Gens de Lettres refused my\nBalzac. Falgui\u00e8re, to whom the order was then given, insisted on showing\nme, by his friendship, that he did not at all agree with my detractors.\nActuated by sympathy I offered to do his bust. He considered it a great\nsuccess when it was finished\u2014he even defended it, I know, against those\nwho criticised it in his presence; and, in his turn, he did my bust,\nwhich is very fine.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY HEAD, FOR THE STATUE OF BALZAC\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  STUDY FOR A HEAD, PRESUMABLY MADAME R.\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\nAs I was turning away I caught sight of a copy in bronze of the bust of\nBerthelot. Rodin made it only a year before the death of the great\nchemist. The great scholar rests in the knowledge of his work\naccomplished. He meditates. He is alone, face to face with himself;\nalone, face to face with the crumbling of ancient faiths; alone before\nnature, some of whose secrets he has penetrated, but which remains so\nimmensely mysterious; alone at the edge of the infinite abyss of the\nskies; and his tormented brow, his lowered eyes, are filled with\nmelancholy. This fine head is like the emblem of modern intelligence,\nwhich, satiated with knowledge, weary of thought, ends by demanding\n\u201cWhat is the use?\u201d\n\nAll the busts which I had been admiring and about which my host had been\ntalking now grouped themselves in my mind, and they appeared to me as a\nrich treasure of documents upon our epoch.\n\n\u201cIf Houdon,\u201d I said, \u201chas written memoirs of the eighteenth century, you\nhave written those of the end of the nineteenth. Your style is more\nharsh, more violent than that of your predecessor, your expressions are\nless elegant, but more natural and more dramatic, if I may say so.\n\n\u201cThe scepticism which in the eighteenth century was distinguished and\nfull of raillery has become, in you, rough and sharp. Houdon\u2019s people\nwere more sociable, yours are more self-centred. Those of Houdon\ncriticised the abuses of a _r\u00e9gime_, yours seem to question the value of\nhuman life itself and to feel the anguish of unrealized desires.\u201d\n\nRodin answered, \u201cI have done my best. I have not lied; I have never\nflattered my contemporaries. My busts have often displeased because they\nwere always very sincere. They certainly have one merit\u2014veracity. Let it\nserve them for beauty!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VIII\n                             THOUGHT IN ART\n\n\nOne morning, finding myself with Rodin in his atelier, I stopped before\nthe cast of one of his most impressive works.\n\nIt is a young woman whose writhing body seems a prey to some mysterious\ntorment. Her head is bent low, her lips and her eyes are closed, and you\nwould think she slept, did not the anguish in her face betray the\nconflict of her spirit. The most surprising thing in the figure,\nhowever, is that it has neither arms nor legs. It would seem that the\nsculptor in a moment of discontent with himself had broken them off, and\nyou cannot help regretting that the figure is incomplete. I could not\nrefrain from expressing this feeling to my host.\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d he cried in astonishment. \u201cDon\u2019t you see that I left\nit in that state intentionally? My figure represents _Meditation_.\nThat\u2019s why it has neither arms to act nor legs to walk. Haven\u2019t you\nnoticed that reflection, when persisted in, suggests so many plausible\narguments for opposite decisions that it ends in inertia?\u201d\n\nThese words corrected my first impression and I could unreservedly\nadmire the fine symbolism of the figure. I now understood that this\nwoman was the emblem of human intelligence assailed by problems that it\ncannot solve, haunted by an ideal that it cannot realize, obsessed by\nthe infinite which it can never grasp. The straining of this body marked\nthe travail of thought and its glorious, but vain determination to\npenetrate those questions which it cannot answer; and the mutilation of\nits members indicated the insurmountable disgust which contemplative\nsouls feel for actual life.\n\nNevertheless, this figure recalled a criticism which is often heard on\nRodin\u2019s works, and, though without agreeing with it, I submitted it to\nthe Master to find out how he would answer it.\n\n\u201cLiterary people,\u201d I said, \u201calways praise the essential truths expressed\nin your sculptures. But certain of your censors blame you precisely for\nhaving an inspiration which is more literary than plastic. They pretend\nthat you easily win the approbation of writers by providing them with\nsubjects which offer an opening for all their rhetoric. And they declare\nthat art is not the place for so much philosophic ambition.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf my modelling is bad,\u201d Rodin replied sharply, \u201cif I make faults in\nanatomy, if I misinterpret movement, if I am ignorant of the science\nwhich animates marble, the critics are right a hundred times. But if my\nfigures are correct and full of life, with what can they reproach me?\nWhat right have they to forbid me to add meaning to form? How can they\ncomplain if, over and above technique, I offer them ideas?\u2014if I enrich\nthose forms which please the eye with a definite significance? It is a\nstrange mistake, this, to imagine that the true artist can be content to\nremain only a skilled workman and that he needs no intelligence. On the\ncontrary, intelligence is indispensable to him for painting and for\ncarving even those figures which seem most lacking in spiritual\npretensions and which are only meant to charm the eye. When a good\nsculptor models a statue, whatever it is, he must first clearly conceive\nthe general idea; then, until his task is ended, he must keep this idea\nof the whole in his mind in order to subordinate and ally to it every\nsmallest detail of his work. And this is not accomplished without an\nintense effort of mind and concentration of thought.\n\n\u201cWhat has doubtless led to the common idea that artists have little\nintelligence is that it seems lacking in many of them in private life.\nThe biographies of painters and sculptors abound in anecdotes of the\nsimplicity of certain masters. It must be admitted that great men who\nthink ceaselessly of their work are frequently absent-minded in daily\nlife. Above all, it must be granted that many very intelligent artists\nseem narrow because they have not that facility of speech and repartee\nwhich, to superficial observers, is the only sign of cleverness.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE STATUE OF VICTOR HUGO\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cSurely,\u201d I said, \u201cno one can contest the mental vigor of the great\npainters and sculptors. But, to return to our question\u2014is there not a\nsharp line dividing art from literature which the artist should not\ncross?\u201d\n\n\u201cI insist that in matters which concern me I cannot stand these\nlimitations,\u201d Rodin answered. \u201cThere is no rule, according to my idea,\nthat can prevent a sculptor from creating a beautiful work.\n\n\u201cWhat difference does it make whether it is sculpture or literature,\nprovided the public find profit and pleasure in it? Painting, sculpture,\nliterature, music are more closely related than is generally believed.\nThey express all the sentiments of the human soul in the light of\nnature. It is only the means of expression which vary.\n\n\u201cBut if a sculptor, by the means of his art, succeeds in suggesting\nimpressions which are ordinarily only procured by literature or music,\nwhy should the world cavil? A publicist lately criticised my _Victor\nHugo_ in the Palais Royal, declaring that it was not sculpture, but\nmusic. And he na\u00efvely added that this work reminded him of a Beethoven\nsymphony. Would to Heaven that it were true!\n\n\u201cI do not deny, moreover, that it is useful to reflect upon the\ndifferences which separate literary from artistic methods. First of all,\nliterature offers the peculiarity of being able to express ideas without\nrecourse to imagery. For example, it can say: _Profound reflection often\nends in inaction_, without the necessity of figuring a thoughtful woman\nheld in a block of stone.\n\n\u201cAnd this faculty of juggling with abstractions by means of words gives,\nperhaps, to literature an advantage over other arts in the domain of\nthought.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  BUST OF MLLE. CLAUDEL (LA PENS\u00c9E)\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cThe next thing to be noticed is that literature develops stories which\nhave a beginning, a middle, and an end. It strings together different\nevents from which it draws a conclusion. It makes people act and shows\nthe consequences of their conduct. So the scenes that it conjures up\ngain strength by their sequence, and even have no value except as they\nmake part of the progress of a plot.\n\n\u201cIt is not the same with the arts of form. They never represent more\nthan a single phase of an action. That is why painters and sculptors are\nwrong in taking subjects from writers, as they often do. The artist who\ninterprets a part of a story may be supposed to know the rest of the\ntext. His work must prop itself up on that of the writer; it only\nacquires all its meaning if it is illuminated by the facts that precede\nor follow it.\n\n\u201cWhen the painter Delaroche represents, after Shakespeare, or after his\npale imitator, Casimir Delavigne, the _Children of Edward_ (_les Enfants\nd\u2019Edouard_) clinging to each other, it is necessary to know, in order to\nbe interested, that they are the heirs to a throne, that they have been\nimprisoned, and that hired murderers, sent by the usurper, are just\ncoming to assassinate them.\n\n\u201cWhen Delacroix, that genius whose pardon I beg for citing him next to\nthe very mediocre Delaroche, takes from Lord Byron\u2019s poem the subject of\n_Don Juan\u2019s Shipwreck_ (_Naufrage de Don Juan_) and shows us a boat in a\nstorm-swept sea, where the sailors are engaged in drawing bits of paper\nfrom a hat, it is necessary, in order to understand this scene, to know\nthat these unhappy creatures are starving and are drawing lots to see\nwhich of them shall serve as food for the others.\n\n\u201cThese two artists, in treating literary subjects, commit the fault of\npainting pictures which do not carry in themselves their complete\nmeaning.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE SHIPWRECK OF DON JUAN\n\n  By Delacroix\n]\n\n\u201cYet, while that of Delaroche is bad because the drawing is cold, the\ncolor hard, the feeling melodramatic, that of Delacroix is admirable\nbecause this boat really pitches on the glaucous waves, because hunger\nand distress convulse the faces of the shipwrecked, because the sombre\nfury of the coloring announces some horrible crime\u2014because, in short, if\nByron\u2019s tale is found mutilated in the picture, in revenge, the fiery,\nwild, and sublime soul of the painter is certainly wholly there.\n\n\u201cThe moral of these two examples is this; when, after mature reflection,\nyou have laid down prohibitions which seem most reasonable in the matter\nof art, you will rightly reproach the mediocre man because he does not\nsubmit to them, but you will be surprised to observe that the man of\ngenius infringes them almost with impunity.\u201d\n\nRoving round the atelier while Rodin was talking, my eyes found a cast\nof his _Ugolin_.\n\nIt is a figure of majestic realism. It does not at all recall Carpeaux\u2019s\ngroup; if possible, it is even more pathetic. In Carpeaux\u2019s work, the\nPisan count, tortured by madness, hunger, and sorrow at the sight of his\ndying children, gnaws his two fists. Rodin has pictured the drama\nfurther advanced. The children of Ugolin are dead; they lie on the\nground, and their father, whom the pangs of hunger have changed into a\nbeast, drags himself on his hands and knees above their bodies. He bends\nabove their flesh\u2014but, at the same time, he turns away his head. There\nis a fearful contest within him between the brute seeking food and the\nthinking being, the loving being, who has a horror of this monstrous\nsacrifice. Nothing could be more poignant.\n\n\u201cThere,\u201d said I, \u201cis an example to add to that of the shipwreck in\nconfirmation of your words; it is certain that it is necessary to have\nread the _Divine Comedy_ in order to represent the circumstances of\nUgolin\u2019s torment\u2014but even if the stanzas of Dante were unknown, it would\nbe impossible to remain unmoved before the terrible inner conflict which\nis expressed in the attitude and the features of your figure.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  UGOLINO\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cIt is true,\u201d Rodin added, \u201cwhen a literary subject is so well known the\nartist can treat it and yet expect to be understood. Yet it is better,\nin my opinion, that the works of painters and sculptors should contain\nall their interest in themselves. Art can offer thought and imagination\nwithout recourse to literature. Instead of illustrating scenes from\npoems, it need only use plain symbols which do not require any written\ntext. Such has generally been my own method.\u201d\n\nWhat my host indicated, his sculptures gathered around us proclaimed in\ntheir mute language. There I saw the casts of several of his works which\nare most full of ideas.\n\nI began to study them one by one.\n\nI admired the reproduction of the _Pens\u00e9e_, which is at the Mus\u00e9e du\nLuxembourg. Who does not recall this singular work?\n\nIt is the head of a woman, very young, very fine, with features of\nmiraculous subtlety and delicacy. Her head is bent and aureoled with a\nreverie which makes it appear almost immaterial. The edges of a light\ncoif which shadow her forehead seem the wings of her dreams. But her\nneck and even her chin are still held in the heavy, massive block of\nmarble from which they cannot get free.\n\nThe symbol is easily understood. Thought expands within the breast of\ninert matter, and illumines it with the reflection of her splendor\u2014but\nshe vainly endeavors to escape from the heavy shackles of reality.\n\nNext I turned to _Illusion, daughter of Icarus_ (_l\u2019Illusion, fille\nd\u2019Icare_). It is the figure of a youthful angel. As she flew with her\ngreat wings through space, a rude blast of wind dashed her to earth, and\nher charming face was crushed against a rock. But her wings, unbroken,\nstill beat the air, and, immortal, she will rise again, take flight\nagain, fall again to earth, and this to the end of time. Untiring hopes,\neternal disappointments of illusion!\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ILLUSION, THE DAUGHTER OF ICARUS\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\nNow my attention was attracted by a third sculpture, the _Centauress_.\nThe human bust of the fabulous creature yearns despairingly towards an\nend which her longing arms can never attain; but the hind hoofs,\ngrappling the soil, are fast there, and the heavy horse\u2019s flanks, almost\ncrouched in the mud, cannot kick free. It is the frightful opposition of\nthe poor monster\u2019s two natures\u2014an image of the soul, whose heavenly\nimpulses rest miserably captive to the bodily clay.\n\n\u201cIn themes of this kind,\u201d Rodin said, \u201cthe thought, I believe, is easily\nread. They awaken the imagination of the spectators without any outside\nhelp. And yet, far from confining it in narrow limits, they give it rein\nto roam at will. That is, according to me, the r\u00f4le of art. The form\nwhich it creates ought only to furnish a pretext for the unlimited\ndevelopment of emotion.\u201d\n\nAt this instant I found myself before a group in marble representing\nPygmalion and his statue. The sculptor passionately embraces his work,\nwhich awakes to life within his arms.\n\n\u201cI am going to surprise you,\u201d said Rodin, suddenly; \u201cI will show you the\nfirst sketch for this composition,\u201d and he led me towards a plaster\ncast.\n\nI was indeed surprised. This had nothing whatever to do with the story\nof Pygmalion. It was a faun, horned and hairy, who clutched a panting\nnymph. The general lines were about the same, but the subject was very\ndifferent. Rodin seemed amused at my silent astonishment.\n\nThis revelation was somewhat disconcerting to me; for, contrary to all\nthat I had just heard and seen, my host proved himself indifferent, in\ncertain cases, to the subject. He watched me keenly.\n\n\u201cTo sum it up,\u201d he said, \u201cyou must not attribute too much importance to\nthe themes that you interpret. Without doubt, they have their value and\nhelp to charm the public; but the principal care of the artist should be\nto form living muscles. The rest matters little.\u201d Then, suddenly, as he\nguessed my confusion, he added, \u201cYou must not think that my last words\ncontradict what I said before.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  NYMPH AND FAUN\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cIf I say that a sculptor can confine himself to representing\npalpitating flesh, without preoccupying himself with subject, this does\nnot mean that I exclude thought from his work; if I declare that he need\nnot seek symbols, this does not signify that I am a partisan of an art\ndeprived of spiritual significance.\n\n\u201cBut, to speak truly, all is idea, all is symbol. So the form and the\nattitude of a human being reveal the emotions of its soul. The body\nalways expresses the spirit whose envelope it is. And for him who can\nsee, the nude offers the richest meaning. In the majestic rhythm of the\noutline, a great sculptor, a Phidias, recognizes the serene harmony shed\nupon all nature by the divine wisdom; a simple torso, calm, balanced,\nradiant with strength and grace, can make him think of the all-powerful\nmind which governs the world.\n\n\u201cA lovely landscape does not appeal only by the agreeable sensations\nthat it inspires, but by the ideas that it awakens. The lines and the\ncolors do not move you in themselves, but by the profound meaning that\nis in them. In the silhouette of trees, in the line of a horizon, the\ngreat landscape painters, Ruysdael, Cuyp, Corot, Theodore Rousseau, saw\na meaning\u2014grave or gay, brave or discouraged, peaceful or\ntroubled\u2014according to their characters.\n\n\u201cThis is because the artist, full of feeling, can imagine nothing that\nis not endowed like himself. He suspects in nature a great consciousness\nlike his own. There is not a living organism, not an inert object, not a\ncloud in the sky, not a green shoot in the meadow, which does not hold\nfor him the secret of the great power hidden in all things.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE CENTAURESS\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cLook at the masterpieces of art. All this beauty comes from the\nthought, the intention which their creators believed they could see in\nthe universe. Why are our Gothic cathedrals so beautiful? It is because\nin all their presentment of life, in the human images which adorn their\nportals, and even in the plants which flourish in their capitals, you\ncan discover a trace of the divine love. Those gentle craftsmen of the\nMiddle Ages saw infinite goodness shining everywhere. And, with their\ncharming simplicity, they have thrown reflections of this\nloving-kindness even on the faces of their demons, to whom they have\nlent a kindly malice and an air almost of relationship to the angels.\n\n\u201cLook at any picture by a master\u2014a Titian, a Rembrandt, for example. In\nall Titian\u2019s seigneurs you notice a proud energy which, without doubt,\nanimated himself. His opulent, nude women offer themselves to adoration,\nsure of their domination. His landscapes, beautified with majestic trees\nand crimsoned with triumphant sunsets, are not less haughty than his\npeople: over all creation he has set a reign of aristocratic pride; it\nwas the constant thought of his genius.\n\n\u201cAnother kind of pride illumines the wrinkled, smoke-dried face of the\nartisans whom Rembrandt painted; he ennobled the smoky lofts and little\nwindows glazed with bottle ends; he illumined with sudden beauty these\nflat, rustic landscapes, dignified the roofs of thatch which his\netching-point caressed with such pleasure on the copperplate. It was the\nbeautiful courage of the humble, the holiness of things common but\npiously beloved, the grandeur of the humility which accepts and fulfils\nits destiny worthily, which attracted him.\n\n\u201cAnd the mind of the great artist is so active, so profound, that it\nshows itself in any subject. It does not even need a whole figure to\nexpress it. Take any fragment of a masterpiece, you will recognize the\ncharacter of the creator in it. Compare, if you will, the hands painted\nin two portraits by Titian and Rembrandt. The hands by Titian will be\nmasterful; those by Rembrandt will be modest and courageous. In these\nlimited bits of painting all the ideals of these masters are contained.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ITALIAN LANDSCAPE\n\n  By Corot\n]\n\nAs I listened to this profession of faith in the spirituality of art an\nobjection rose to my lips.\n\n\u201cMaster,\u201d I said, \u201cno one doubts that pictures and sculptures can\nsuggest the most profound ideas; but many sceptics pretend that the\npainters and sculptors never had these ideas, and that it is we\nourselves who put them into their works. They believe that artists work\nby pure instinct, like the sibyl who from her tripod rendered the\noracles of God, without herself knowing what she prophesied. Your words\nclearly prove that your hand, at least, is ever guided by the mind, but\nis it so with all the masters? Have they always put thought into their\nwork? Have they always had this clear idea of what their admirers found\nin them?\u201d\n\n\u201cLet us understand each other,\u201d Rodin said, laughing. \u201cThere are certain\nadmirers of such complicated brain that they attribute most unexpected\nintentions to the artist. We are not talking of these. But you may rest\nassured that the masters are always conscious of what they do.\u201d And\ntossing his head, \u201cIf the sceptics of whom you speak only knew what\nenergy it takes for the artist to translate, even feebly, what he thinks\nand feels with the greatest strength, they would not doubt that all that\nappears shining forth from a picture or sculpture was intended.\u201d A few\nmoments later he continued: \u201cIn short, the purest masterpieces are those\nin which one finds no inexpressive waste of forms, lines, and colors,\nbut where all, absolutely all, expresses thought and soul.\n\n\u201cYet it may happen that when the masters animate the Nature of their\nideals, they delude themselves. It may be that it is governed by an\nindifferent force or by a will whose design our intelligence is\nincapable of penetrating. At least, the artist, in representing the\nuniverse as he imagines it, formulates his own dreams. In nature he\ncelebrates his own soul. And so he enriches the soul of humanity. For in\ncoloring the material world with his spirit he reveals to his delighted\nfellow-beings a thousand unsuspected shades of feeling. He discovers to\nthem riches in themselves until then unknown. He gives them new reasons\nfor loving life, new inner lights to guide them.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  AN OLD MAN\n\n  By Rembrandt\n]\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  LAURA DIANTI\n\n  By Titian\n]\n\n\u201cHe is, as Dante said of Virgil, \u2018their guide, their master, and their\nfriend.\u2019\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE THINKER\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER IX\n                             MYSTERY IN ART\n\n\nOne morning, when I arrived at Rodin\u2019s house at Meudon I found the\nmaster in his dressing-gown, his hair in disorder, his feet in slippers,\nsitting before a good wood fire, for it was November.\n\n\u201cIt is the time of the year,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen I allow myself to be ill.\nAll the rest of the time I have so much work, so many occupations, so\nmany cares, that I have not a single instant to breathe. But fatigue\naccumulates, and though I fight stubbornly to conquer it, yet towards\nthe end of the year I am obliged to stop work for a few days.\u201d\n\nEven as I listened to his words my eyes rested upon a great cross on the\nwall, on which hung the Christ, a figure three-quarters life-size. It\nwas a very fine painted carving of most painful realism. The body\nhanging from the tree looked so dead that it could never come to\nlife\u2014the most complete consummation of the mysterious sacrifice.\n\n\u201cYou admire my crucifix!\u201d Rodin said, following my glance. \u201cIt is\namazing, is it not? Its realism recalls that one in the Chapel del\nSantisimo Christo in Burgos\u2014that image so moving, so terrifying, yes\u2014so\nhorrible\u2014that it looks like a real human corpse. This figure of the\nChrist is much less brutal. See how pure and harmonious are the lines of\nthe body and arms!\u201d\n\nSeeing my host lost in contemplation, I ventured to ask him if he was\nreligious.\n\n\u201cIt is according to the meaning that you give to the word,\u201d he answered.\n\u201cIf you mean by religious the man who follows certain practices, who\nbows before certain dogmas, I am evidently not religious.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE HAND OF GOD\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\n\u201cBut, to me, religion is more than the mumbling of a creed. It is the\nmeaning of all that is unexplained and doubtless inexplicable in the\nworld. It is the adoration of the unknown force which maintains the\nuniversal laws and which preserves the types of all beings; it is the\nsurmise of all that in nature which does not fall within the domain of\nsense, of all that immense realm of things which neither the eyes of our\nbody, nor even those of our spirit can see; it is the impulse of our\nconscience towards the infinite, towards eternity, towards unlimited\nknowledge and love\u2014promises perhaps illusory, but which in this life\ngive wings to our thoughts. In this sense I am religious.\u201d Rodin\nfollowed the rapid flickering flames of the fire for a moment, and then\ncontinued: \u201cIf religion did not exist, I should have had to invent it.\nIn short, true artists are the most religious of men.\n\n\u201cIt is a general belief that we live only through our senses, and that\nthe world of appearances suffices us. We are taken for children who,\nintoxicated with changing colors, amuse themselves with the shapes of\nthings as with dolls. We are misunderstood. Lines and colors are only to\nus the symbols of hidden realities. Our eyes plunge beneath the surface\nto the meaning of things, and when afterwards we reproduce the form, we\nendow it with the spiritual meaning which it covers.\n\n\u201cAn artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature,\nnot only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth.\n\n\u201cWhen a good sculptor models a torso, he not only represents the\nmuscles, but the life which animates them\u2014more than the life, the force\nthat fashioned them and communicated to them, it may be, grace or\nstrength, or amorous charm, or indomitable will.\n\n\u201cIn the works of Michael Angelo, the creative force seems to rumble; in\nthose of Luca della Robbia it smiles divinely. So each sculptor,\nfollowing his temperament, lends to nature a soul either terrible or\ngentle.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE STATUE OF BALZAC\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cThe landscape painter, perhaps, goes even further. It is not only in\nliving beings that he sees the reflection of the universal soul; it is\nin the trees, the bushes, the valleys, the hills. What to other men is\nonly wood and earth appears to the great landscapist like the face of a\ngreat being. Corot saw kindness abroad in the trunks of the trees, in\nthe grass of the fields, in the mirroring water of the lakes. But there\nMillet read suffering and resignation.\n\n\u201cEverywhere the great artist hears spirit answer to his spirit. Where,\nthen, can you find a more religious man?\n\n\u201cDoes not the sculptor perform his act of adoration when he perceives\nthe majestic character of the forms that he studies?\u2014when, from the\nmidst of fleeting lines, he knows how to extricate the eternal type of\neach being?\u2014when he seems to discern in the very breast of the divinity\nthe immutable models on which all living creatures are moulded? Study,\nfor example, the masterpieces of the Egyptian sculptors, either human or\nanimal figures, and tell me if the accentuation of the essential lines\ndoes not produce the effect of a sacred hymn. Every artist who has the\ngift of generalizing forms, that is to say, of accenting their logic\nwithout depriving them of their living reality, provokes the same\nreligious emotion; for he communicates to us the thrill he himself felt\nbefore the immortal verities.\u201d\n\n\u201cSomething,\u201d I said, \u201clike the trembling of Faust when he visited that\nstrange Kingdom of the Mothers, where he talked with the imperishable\nheroines of the great poets and beheld all the generative ideas of\nterrestrial realities.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat a magnificent scene!\u201d Rodin cried, \u201cand what a breadth of vision\nGoethe had!\u201d He continued: \u201cMystery is, moreover, like a kind of\natmosphere which bathes the greatest works of the masters.\n\n\u201cThey express, indeed, all that genius feels in the presence of Nature;\nthey represent Nature with all the clearness, with all the magnificence\nwhich a human being can discover in her; but they also fling themselves\nagainst that immense Unknown which everywhere envelops our little world\nof the known. For, after all, we only feel and conceive those things\nwhich are patent to us and which impress our minds and our senses. But\nall the rest is plunged in infinite obscurity. Even a thousand things\nwhich should be clear to us are hidden because we are not organized to\nseize them.\u201d\n\nRodin stopped, and I recalled the following lines of Victor Hugo, which\nI repeated:\n\n          \u201cNous ne voyons jamais qu\u2019un seul c\u00f4t\u00e9 des choses;\n          L\u2019autre plonge en la nuit d\u2019un myst\u00e8re effrayant;\n          L\u2019homme subit l\u2019eff\u00eat sans conna\u00eetre les causes;\n          Tout ce qu\u2019il voit est court, inutile et fuyant.\u201d[5]\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n  See page 251.\n\n\u201cThe poet has put it better than I,\u201d Rodin said, smiling, and he\ncontinued: \u201cGreat works of art, which are the highest proof of human\nintelligence and sincerity, say all that can be said on man and on the\nworld, and, besides, they teach that there is something more that cannot\nbe known.\n\n\u201cEvery great work has this quality of mystery. You always find a little\n\u2018fine frenzy.\u2019 Recall the note of interrogation which hovers over all of\nLeonardo da Vinci\u2019s pictures. But I am wrong to choose that great mystic\nas an example, for he proves my thesis too easily. Let us rather take\nthe _Concert Champ\u00eatre_ by Giorgione. Here is all the sweet joy of life,\nbut added to that there is a kind of melancholy intoxication. What is\nhuman joy? Whence comes it? Where does it go? The puzzle of existence!\n\n\u201cAgain, let us take, if you will, _The Gleaners_, by Millet. One of\nthese women who toil so hard beneath the blazing sun rises and looks\naway to the horizon. And we feel that in that head a question has\nflashed from the submerged mind: What is the meaning of it all?\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE GLEANERS\n\n  By Millet\n]\n\n\u201cThat is the mystery that floats over all great work. What is the\nmeaning of the law which chains these creatures to existence only to\nmake them suffer? What is the meaning of this eternal enticement which\nmakes them love life, however sad it is? Oh, agonizing problem!\n\n\u201cYet it is not only the masterpieces of Christian civilization which\nproduced this impression of mystery. It is felt before the masterpieces\nof antique art, before the _Three Fates_ of the Parthenon, for example.\nI call them the Fates because it is the accepted name, though in the\nopinion of many students they are other goddesses; it makes little\ndifference either way! They are only three women seated, but their pose\nis so serene, so august, that they seem to be taking part in something\nof enormous import that we do not see. Over them reigns the great\nmystery, the immaterial, eternal Reason whom all nature obeys, and of\nwhom they are themselves the celestial servants.\n\n\u201cSo, all the masters advance to the barrier which parts us from the\nUnknowable. Certain among them have cruelly wounded their brows against\nit; others, whose imagination is more cheerful, imagine that they hear\nthrough that wall the melodious songs of the birds which people the\nsecret orchard.\u201d\n\nI listened attentively to my host, who was giving me his most precious\nthoughts on his art. It seemed that the fatigue which had condemned his\nbody to rest before that hearth where the flames were leaping had left\nhis spirit, on the contrary, more free, and had tempted it to fling\nitself passionately into dreams. I led the talk to his own works.\n\n\u201cMaster,\u201d I said, \u201cyou speak of other artists, but you are silent about\nyourself. Yet you are one of those who have put into their art most\nmystery. The torment of the invisible and of the inexplicable is seen in\neven the least of your sculptures.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE THREE FATES\n\n  From the Parthenon\n]\n\n\u201cAh! my dear Gsell,\u201d he said, throwing me a glance of irony, \u201cif I have\nexpressed certain feelings in my works, it is utterly useless for me to\ntry to put them into words, for I am not a poet, but a sculptor, and\nthey ought to be easily read in my statues; if not, I might as well not\nhave experienced the feelings.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are right; it is for the public to discover them. So I am going to\ntell you all the mystery that I have found in your inspiration. You will\ntell me if I have seen rightly. It seems to me that what has especially\ninterested you in humanity is that strange uneasiness of the soul bound\nto the body.\n\n\u201cIn all your statues there is the same impulse of the spirit towards the\nideal, in spite of the weight and the cowardice of the flesh.\n\n\u201cIn your _Saint John the Baptist_, a heavy, almost gross body is\nstrained, uplifted by a divine mission which outruns all earthly limits.\nIn your _Bourgeois de Calais_, the soul enamoured of immortality drags\nthe hesitant body to its martyrdom, while it seems to cry the words,\n\u2018Thou tremblest, vile flesh!\u2019\n\n\u201cIn your _Penseur_, meditation, in its terrible effort to embrace the\nabsolute, contracts the athletic body, bends it, crushes it. In your\n_Baiser_, the bodies tremble as though they felt, in advance, the\nimpossibility of realizing that indissoluble union desired by their\nsouls. In your _Balzac_, genius, haunted by gigantic visions, shakes the\nsick body, dooms it to insomnia, and condemns it to the labor of a\ngalley-slave. Am I right, master?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not contradict you,\u201d Rodin answered, stroking his long beard\nthoughtfully.\n\n\u201cAnd in your busts, even more perhaps, you have shown this impatience of\nthe spirit against the chains of matter. Almost all recall the lines of\nthe poet:\n\n          \u201c\u2018Ainsi qu\u2019en s\u2019envolant l\u2019oiseau courbe la branche,\n              Son \u00e2me avait bris\u00e9 son corps!\u2019[6]\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n  See page 251.\n\n\u201cYou have represented all the writers with the head bent, as if beneath\nthe weight of their thoughts. As for your artists, they gaze straight at\nnature, but they are haggard because their reverie draws them far beyond\nwhat they see, far beyond all they can express.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE KISS\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cThat bust of a woman at the Mus\u00e9e du Luxembourg, perhaps the most\nbeautiful that you have carved, bows and vacillates as if the soul were\nseized with giddiness upon plunging into the abyss of dreams.\n\n\u201cTo sum it up, your busts often recall Rembrandt\u2019s portraits, for the\nDutch master has also made plain this call of the infinite, by lighting\nthe brow of his personages by a light which falls from above.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo compare me with Rembrandt, what sacrilege!\u201d Rodin cried quickly. \u201cTo\nRembrandt, the Colossus of art! Think of it, my friend! Let us bow\nbefore Rembrandt, and never set any one beside him!\n\n\u201cBut you have concluded justly in observing in my works the stirrings of\nthe soul towards that kingdom, perhaps chimerical, of unlimited truth\nand liberty. There, indeed, is the mystery that moves me.\u201d A moment\nlater he asked: \u201cAre you convinced now that art is a kind of religion?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I answered.\n\nThen he added, with some malice: \u201cIt is very necessary to remember,\nhowever, that the first commandment of this religion, for those who wish\nto practise it, is to know how to model a torso, an arm, or a leg!\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  BUST OF MADAME MORLA VICUNA\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER X\n                       PHIDIAS AND MICHAEL ANGELO\n\n\nOne Saturday evening Rodin said to me, \u201cCome and see me to-morrow\nmorning at Meudon. We will talk of Phidias and of Michael Angelo, and I\nwill model statuettes for you on the principles of both. In that way you\nwill quickly grasp the essential differences of the two inspirations,\nor, to express it better, the opposed characteristics which divide\nthem.\u201d\n\nPhidias and Michael Angelo judged and commented upon by Rodin! It is\neasy to imagine that I was exact to the hour of our meeting.\n\nThe Master sat down before a marble table and clay was brought to him.\nIt was winter, and as the great atelier was unheated, I was afraid that\nhe might take cold. But the attendant to whom I suggested this smiled as\nhe answered, \u201cNever, when he works.\u201d\n\nAnd my disquietude vanished when I saw the fever which seized the Master\nwhen he began to knead the clay. He had asked me to sit down beside him.\nRolling balls of clay on the table, he began rapidly to model a figure,\ntalking at the same time.\n\n\u201cThis first figure,\u201d he said, \u201cwill be founded on the conception of\nPhidias. When I pronounce that name I am really thinking of all Greek\nsculpture, which found its highest expression in the genius of Phidias.\u201d\n\nThe clay figure was taking shape. Rodin\u2019s hands came and went, adding\nbits of clay; gathering it in his large palms, with swift, accurate\nmovements; then the thumb and the fingers took part, turning a leg with\na single pressure, rounding a hip, sloping a shoulder, turning the head,\nand all with incredible swiftness, almost as if he were performing a\nconjuring trick. Occasionally the Master stopped a moment to study his\nwork, reflected, decided, and then rapidly executed his idea.\n\nI have never seen any one work so fast: evidently sureness of mind and\neye ends by giving an ease to the hand of a great artist which can only\nbe compared to the adroitness of a juggler, or, to make a comparison\nwith a more honored profession, to the skill of a great surgeon. And\nthis facility, far from excluding precision and vigor, involves them,\nand has, consequently, nothing whatever to do with a superficial\nvirtuosity.\n\nWhile I drew these conclusions, Rodin\u2019s statuette grew into life. It was\nfull of rhythm, one hand on the hip, the other arm falling gracefully at\nher side and the head bent.\n\n\u201cI am not fatuous enough to believe that this quick sketch is as\nbeautiful as an antique,\u201d the Master said, laughing, \u201cbut don\u2019t you find\nthat it gives you a dim idea of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cI could swear that it was the copy of a Greek marble,\u201d I answered.\n\n\u201cWell, then, let us examine it and see from what this resemblance\narises. My statuette offers, from head to feet, four planes which are\nalternatively opposed.\n\n\u201cThe plane of the shoulders and chest leads towards the left\nshoulder\u2014the plane of the lower half of the body leads towards the right\nside\u2014the plane of the knees leads again towards the left knee, for the\nknee of the right leg, which is bent, comes ahead of the other\u2014and\nfinally, the foot of this same right leg is back of the left foot. So, I\nrepeat, you can note four directions in my figure which produce a very\ngentle undulation through the whole body.\n\n\u201cThis impression of tranquil charm is equally given by the balance of\nthe figure. A plumb-line through the middle of the neck would fall on\nthe inner ankle bone of the left foot, which bears all the weight of the\nbody. The other leg, on the contrary, is free\u2014only its toes touch the\nground and so only furnish a supplementary support; it could be lifted\nwithout disturbing the equilibrium. The pose is full of _abandon_ and of\ngrace.\n\n\u201cThere is another thing to notice. The upper part of the torso leans to\nthe side of the leg which supports the body. The left shoulder is, thus,\nat a lower level than the other. But, as opposed to it, the left hip,\nwhich supports the whole pose, is raised and salient. So, on this side\nof the body the shoulder is nearer the hip, while on the other side the\nright shoulder, which is raised, is separated from the right hip, which\nis lowered. This recalls the movement of an accordion, which closes on\none side and opens on the other.\n\n\u201cThis double balance of the shoulders and of the hips contributes still\nmore to the calm elegance of the whole.\n\n\u201cNow look at my statuette in profile.\n\n\u201cIt is bent backwards; the back is hollowed and the chest slightly\nexpanded. In a word, the figure is convex and has the form of the letter\nC.\n\n\u201cThis form helps it to catch the light, which is distributed softly over\nthe torso and limbs and so adds to the general charm. Now the different\npeculiarities which we see in this statuette may be noted in nearly all\nantiques. Without doubt, there are numerous variations, doubtless there\nare some derogations from these fundamental principles; but in the Greek\nworks you will always find most of the characteristics which I have\nindicated.\n\n\u201cNow translate this technical system into spiritual terms; you will then\nrecognize that antique art signifies contentment, calm, grace, balance,\nreason.\u201d Rodin cast a glance at his figure. \u201cI could carry it further,\u201d\nhe said, \u201cbut it would be only to amuse us, because, as it stands, it\nhas sufficed me for my demonstration. The details, moreover, would add\nvery little to it. And now, by the way, an important truth. When the\nplanes of a figure are well placed, with decision and intelligence, all\nis done, so to speak; the whole effect is obtained; the refinements\nwhich come after might please the spectator, but they are almost\nsuperfluous. This science of planes is common to all great epochs; it is\nalmost ignored to-day.\u201d\n\nPushing aside the clay figure, he went on: \u201cNow I will do you another\nafter Michael Angelo.\u201d\n\nHe did not proceed at all in the same way as for the first. He turned\nthe two legs of the figure to the same side and the torso to the\nopposite side. He bent the body forward; he folded one arm close against\nthe body and placed the other behind the head. The attitude thus evoked\noffered a strange appearance of effort and of torture. Rodin had\nfashioned this sketch as quickly as the preceding one, only crushing his\nballs of clay with more vigor and putting almost frenzy into the strokes\nof his thumb.\n\n\u201cThere!\u201d he cried. \u201cWhat do you think of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cI should take it for a copy of a Michael Angelo\u2014or rather for a replica\nof one of his works. What vigor, what tension of the muscles!\u201d\n\n\u201cNow! Follow my explanation. Here, instead of four planes, you have only\ntwo; one for the upper half of the statuette and the other, opposed, for\nthe lower half. This gives at once a sense of violence and of\nconstraint\u2014and the result is a striking contrast to the calm of the\nantiques.\n\n\u201cBoth legs are bent, and consequently the weight of the body is divided\nbetween the two instead of being borne exclusively by one. So there is\nno repose here, but work for both the lower limbs.\n\n\u201cBesides, the hip corresponding to the leg which bears the lesser weight\nis the one which is the more raised, which indicates that the body is\npushing this way.\n\n\u201cNor is the torso less animated. Instead of resting quietly, as in the\nantique, on the most prominent hip, it, on the contrary, raises the\nshoulder on the same side so as to continue the movement of the hip.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  A CAPTIVE\n\n  By Michael Angelo\n]\n\n\u201cNow note that the concentration of the effort places the two limbs one\nagainst the other, and the two arms, one against the body and the other\nagainst the head. In this way there is no space left between the limbs\nand the body. You see none of those openings which, resulting from the\nfreedom with which the arms and legs were placed, gave lightness to\nGreek sculpture. The art of Michael Angelo created statues all of a\nsize, in a block. He said himself that only those statues were good\nwhich could be rolled from the top of a mountain without breaking; and\nin his opinion all that was broken off in such a fall was superfluous.\n\n\u201cHis figures surely seem carved to meet this test; but it is certain\nthat not a single antique could have stood it; the greatest works of\nPhidias, of Praxiteles, of Polycletus, of Scopas and of Lysippus would\nhave reached the foot of the hill in pieces.\n\n\u201cAnd that proves how a formula which may be profoundly true for one\nartistic school may be false for another.\n\n\u201cA last important characteristic of my statuette is that it is in the\nform of a console; the knees constitute the lower protuberance; the\nretreating chest represents the concavity, the bent head the upper\njutment of the console. The torso is thus arched forward instead of\nbackward as in antique art. It is that which produces here such deep\nshadows in the hollow of the chest and beneath the legs.\n\n\u201cTo sum it up, the greatest genius of modern times has celebrated the\nepic of shadow, while the ancients celebrated that of light. And if we\nnow seek the spiritual significance of the technique of Michael Angelo,\nas we did that of the Greeks, we shall find that his sculpture expressed\nrestless energy, the will to act without the hope of success\u2014in fine,\nthe martyrdom of the creature tormented by unrealizable aspirations.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE THREE GRACES\n\n  By Raphael\n]\n\n\u201cYou know that Raphael, during one period of his life, tried to imitate\nMichael Angelo. He did not succeed. He could not discover the secret of\nthe condensed passion of his rival. It was because he was formed by the\nGreek school, as is proved by that divine trio of the Graces at\nChantilly, in which he copied an adorable antique group at Siena.\nWithout knowing it, he constantly returned to the principles of the\nmasters he preferred. Those of his figures in which he wished to put\nmost strength always kept the rhythm and gracious balance of the\nHellenic masterpieces.\n\n\u201cWhen I went to Italy myself, with my head full of the Greek models\nwhich I had so passionately studied at the Louvre, I found myself\ncompletely disconcerted before the Michael Angelos. They constantly\ncontradicted all those truths which I believed that I had definitely\nacquired. \u2018Look here,\u2019 I said to myself, \u2018why this incurvation of the\nbody, this raised hip, this lowered shoulder?\u2019 I was very much upset.\n\n\u201cAnd yet Michael Angelo could not have been mistaken! I had to\nunderstand. I kept at it and I succeeded.\n\n\u201cTo tell the truth, Michael Angelo does not, as is often contended, hold\na unique place in art. He is the culmination of all Gothic thought. It\nis generally said that the Renaissance was the resurrection of pagan\nrationalism and its victory over the mysticism of the Middle Ages. This\nis only half true. The Christian spirit continued to inspire a number of\nthe artists of the Renaissance, among others, Donatello, the painter\nGhirlandajo, who was the master of Michael Angelo, and Buonarotti\nhimself.\n\n\u201cHe is manifestly the descendant of the image-makers of the thirteenth\nand fourteenth centuries. You constantly find in the sculpture of the\nMiddle Ages this form of the console to which I called your attention.\nThere you find this same restriction of the chest, these limbs glued to\nthe body, and this attitude of effort. There you find above all a\nmelancholy which regards life as a transitory thing to which we must not\ncling.\u201d\n\nAs I thanked my host for his precious instruction, he said: \u201cWe must\ncomplete it one of these days by a visit to the Louvre. Don\u2019t forget to\nremind me.\u201d At this moment a servant announced Anatole France, whom\nRodin was expecting. The master sculptor had invited the great writer to\ncome and admire his collection of antiques.\n\nThey formed a great contrast to each other. Anatole France is tall and\nthin. His face is long and fine; his black eyes are set deep in their\nsockets; his hands are delicate and slender; his gestures are vivacious\nand emphasize all the play of his irony. Rodin is thick-set, he has\nstrong shoulders, his face is broad; his dreamy eyes, often half-closed,\nopen wide at times and disclose pupils of clear blue. His beard gives\nhim the look of one of Michael Angelo\u2019s prophets. His movements are slow\nand dignified. His large hands, with short fingers, are strongly supple.\n\nThe one is the personification of deep and witty analysis, the other of\npassion and strength.\n\nThe sculptor led us to his antiques, and the conversation naturally\nreturned to the subject which we had just been discussing.\n\nA Greek stele roused the admiration of Anatole France. It represented a\nyoung woman seated. A man is gazing at her lovingly, and behind her,\nbending over her shoulders, stands a serving-maid.\n\n\u201cHow the Greeks loved life!\u201d cried the author of _Tha\u00efs_. \u201cSee! Nothing\non this funeral stone recalls death. The dead woman is here amid the\nliving, and seems still to take part in their existence. Only she has\nbecome very weak, and as she can no longer stand she must remain seated.\nIt is one of the characteristics which designate the dead on these\nantique monuments: their limbs being without strength, they must lean\nupon a staff, or against a wall, or else sit down.\n\n\u201cThere is also another detail which frequently distinguishes them. While\nthe living who are figured around them all regard them with tenderness,\ntheir own eyes wander far and rest on no one. They no longer see those\nwho see them. Yet they continue to live like beloved invalids among\nthose who cherish them. And this half-presence, this half-absence, is\nthe most touching expression of the regret which, according to the\nancients, the light of day inspired in the dead.\u201d\n\nRodin\u2019s collection of antiques is large and well chosen. He is\nespecially proud of a Hercules, whose vigorous slimness filled us with\nenthusiasm. It is a statue which does not in the least resemble the huge\nFarnese _Hercules_. It is marvellously graceful. The demi-god, in all\nhis proud youth, has a body and limbs of extreme slenderness.\n\n\u201cThis is indeed,\u201d said our host, \u201cthe hero who outran the Arcadian stag\nwith the brazen hooves. The heavy athlete of Lysippus would not have\nbeen capable of such a feat of prowess. Strength is often allied to\ngrace, and true grace is strong; a double truth of which this Hercules\nis a proof. As you see, the son of Alcmene seems even more robust\nbecause his body is harmoniously proportioned.\u201d\n\nAnatole France stopped before a charming little torso of a goddess.\n\u201cThis,\u201d he said, \u201cis one of the numberless chaste Aphrodites which were\nmore or less free reproductions of Praxiteles\u2019 masterpiece, the _Cnidian\nVenus_. The _Venus of the Capitol_ and the _Venus di Medici_ are, among\nothers, only variations of this much-copied model.\n\n\u201cAmong the Greeks, many excellent sculptors spent their skill in\nimitating the work of some master who had preceded them. They modified\nthe general idea but slightly, and only showed their own personality in\nthe science of the execution. It would seem, besides, that devotional\nzeal, becoming fond of a sculptural image, forbade artists afterwards to\nchange it. Religion fixes once and for all the divine types that it\nadopts. We are astonished to find so many chaste Venuses, so many\ncrouching Venuses. We forget that these statues were sacred. In a\nthousand or two thousand years they will exhume in the same way numbers\nof statues of the _Virgin of Lourdes_, all much alike, with a white\nrobe, a rosary, and a blue girdle.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat a kindly religion this of the Greeks must have been,\u201d I cried,\n\u201cwhich offered such charming forms to the adoration of its worshippers!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was beautiful,\u201d Anatole France replied, \u201csince it has left us these\nVenuses; but do not believe that it was kindly. It was intolerant and\ntyrannical, like all forms of pious fervor. In the name of these\nAphrodites of quivering flesh many noble souls were tortured. In the\nname of Olympus the Athenians offered the cup of hemlock to Socrates.\nAnd do you recall that verse of Lucretius:\u2014\n\n                \u2018Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum!\u2019\n\n\u201cYou see, if the gods of antiquity are sympathetic to us to-day it is\nbecause, fallen, they can no longer harm us.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER XI\n                             AT THE LOUVRE\n\n\nSeveral days later, Rodin, putting his promise into execution, asked me\nto accompany him to the Mus\u00e9e du Louvre.\n\nWe were no sooner before the antiques than he showed by his happy air\nthat he was among old friends.\n\n\u201cHow many times,\u201d he said, \u201chave I come here when I was not more than\nfifteen years old! I had a violent longing at first to be a painter.\nColor attracted me. I often went upstairs to admire the Titians and\nRembrandts. But, alas! I hadn\u2019t enough money to buy canvases and tubes\nof color. To copy the antiques, on the contrary, I needed only paper and\npencils. So I was forced to work in the lower rooms, and there such a\npassion for sculpture seized me that I could think of nothing else.\u201d\n\nAs I listened to Rodin while he told of his long study of the antique, I\nthought of the injustice done him by those false classicists who have\naccused him of being an insurgent against tradition. Tradition! It is\nthis pretended revolutionary who, in our own day, has known it best and\nrespected it most!\n\nHe led me to the room full of casts and, pointing out the _Diadumenes_\nby Polycletus, the original of which is in the British Museum, he said:\n\u201cYou can observe here the four directions that I indicated the other day\nin my clay statuette. Just examine the left side of this statue: the\nshoulder is slightly forward, the hip is back; again the knee is\nforward, the foot is back; and thence a gentle undulation of the whole\nresults.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  DIADUMENES\n\n  By Polyclitus\n]\n\n\u201cNow notice the balance of the levels\u2014the level of the shoulders lower\ntowards the right, the level of the hips lower towards the left. Note\nthat the plumb-line passing through the neck falls on the inner ankle\nbone of the right foot; note the free poise of the left leg. Finally,\nview in profile the convexity of the back of the statue, in form like a\n=C=.\u201d\n\nRodin repeated this demonstration with a number of other antiques.\nLeaving the casts, he led me to the wonderful torso of Peribo\u00ebtos by\nPraxiteles.\n\n\u201cHere the direction of the shoulders is towards the left, direction of\nthe hips towards the right\u2014level of the right shoulder higher, level of\nthe left hip higher.\u201d Then, passing to less theoretic impressions: \u201cHow\ncharming!\u201d he cried. \u201cThis young torso, without a head, seems to smile\nat the light and at the spring, better than eyes and lips could do.\u201d\nThen we reached the Venus of Milo.\n\n\u201cBehold the marvel of marvels! Here you find an exquisite rhythm very\nlike that in the statue which we have been admiring; but something of\nthought as well; for here we no longer find the form of the =C=; on the\ncontrary, the body of this goddess bends slightly forward as in\nChristian sculpture. Yet there is nothing restless or tormented here.\nThis work is the expression of the greatest antique inspiration; it is\nvoluptuousness regulated by restraint; it is the joy of life cadenced,\nmoderated by reason.\n\n\u201cSuch masterpieces affect me strangely. They bring vividly before my\nmind the atmosphere and the country where they had birth. I see the\nyoung Greeks, their brown hair crowned with violets and the maidens with\nfloating tunics as they pass to offer sacrifice to the gods in those\ntemples whose lines were pure and majestic, whose marble had the warm\ntransparency of flesh. I imagine the philosophers walking in the\noutskirts of the town, conversing upon beauty, close to some old altar\nwhich recalls to them the earthly adventure of some god. The birds sing\namidst the ivy, in the great plane-trees, in the bushes of laurel and of\nmyrtle, and the brooks shine beneath the serene blue sky, which domes\nthis sensuous and peaceful land.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  VENUS OF MILO\n]\n\nAn instant later we were before the _Victory of Samothrace_.\n\n\u201cPlace it, in your mind, upon a golden shore, whence, beneath the olive\nbranches, you may see the blue and shining sea cradling its white\nislands! Antique marbles need the full light of day. In our museums they\nare deadened by too heavy shadows. The reflection of the sun-bathed\nearth and of the Mediterranean aureoled them with dazzling splendor.\nTheir _Victory_\u2014it was their _Liberty_\u2014how it differs from ours! She did\nnot gather back her robe to leap barriers; she was clothed in fine\nlinen, not in coarse cloth; her marvellous body in its beauty was not\nformed for daily tasks; her movements, though vigorous, were always\nharmoniously balanced.\n\n\u201cIn truth she was the Liberty not of the whole world, but only of the\nintellectually elect. The philosophers contemplated her with delight.\nBut the conquered, the slaves who were beaten in her name, had no love\nfor her.\n\n\u201cThat was the fault of the Hellenic ideal. The Beauty conceived by the\nGreeks was the order dreamed of by intelligence, but she only appealed\nto the cultivated mind; she disdained the humble; she had no tenderness\nfor the broken; she did not know that in every heart there is a ray of\nheaven.\n\n\u201cShe was tyrannous to all who were not capable of high thought; she\ninspired Aristotle to an apology for slavery; she admitted only the\nperfection of form and she did not know that the expression of the most\nabject creature may be sublime. She destroyed the malformed children.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE\n]\n\n\u201cBut this very order which the philosophers extolled was too limited.\nThey had imagined it according to their desires and not as it exists in\nthe vast universe. They had arranged it according to their human\ngeometry. They figured the world as limited by a great crystal sphere;\nthey feared the unlimited. They also feared progress. According to them\ncreation had never been as beautiful as, at its birth, when nothing had\nyet troubled its primitive balance. Since then all had continually grown\nworse; each day a little more confusion had made its way into the\nuniversal order. The age of gold which we glimpse on the horizon of the\nfuture they placed behind them in the remoteness of time.\n\n\u201cSo this passion for order betrayed them. Order reigns without doubt in\nthe immensity of nature, but it is much more complex than man in the\nfirst efforts of his reason can represent it\u2014and besides, it is\neternally changing.\n\n\u201cYet sculpture was never more radiant than when it was inspired by this\nnarrow order. It was because that calm beauty could find entire\nexpression in the serenity of transparent marbles; it was because there\nwas perfect accord between the thought and the matter that it animated.\nThe modern spirit, on the contrary, upsets and breaks all forms in which\nit takes body.\n\n\u201cNo; no artist will ever surpass Phidias\u2014for progress exists in the\nworld, but not in art. The greatest of sculptors who appeared at a time\nwhen the whole human dream could blossom in the pediment of a temple\nwill remain for ever without an equal.\u201d\n\nWe passed on to the room which holds the work of Michael Angelo. To\nreach it we crossed that of Jean Goujon and of Germain Pilon.\n\n\u201cYour elder brothers,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cI should like to think so,\u201d Rodin answered with a sigh. We were now\nbefore the _Captives_, by Michael Angelo. We first looked at the one on\nthe right, which is seen in profile. \u201cLook! only two great planes. The\nlegs to one side, the body to the opposite side. This gives great\nstrength to the attitude. No balance of levels. The right hip is the\nhigher, and the right shoulder is also higher. So the movement acquires\namplitude. Observe the line of plumb\u2014it falls not on one foot, but\nbetween the two; so both legs bear the body and seem to make an effort.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  A CAPTIVE\n\n  By Michael Angelo\n]\n\n\u201cLet us consider, finally, the general aspect. It is that of a console;\nthe bent legs project, the retreating chest forms a hollow. It is the\nconfirmation of what I demonstrated in my studio with the clay model.\u201d\n\nThen, turning towards the other captive: \u201cHere again the form of the\nconsole is designed, not by the retreating chest, but by the raised\nelbow, which hangs forward. As I have already told you, this particular\nsilhouette is that of all the statuary of the Middle Ages.\n\n\u201cYou find this form of the console in the Virgin seated leaning over her\nchild; in the Christ nailed on the cross, the legs bent, the body bowed\ntowards the men whom His suffering would redeem; in the Mater Dolorosa\nwho bends above the body of her Son.\n\n\u201cMichael Angelo, I repeat, is only the last and greatest of the Gothics.\n\n\u201cThe soul thrown back upon itself, suffering, disgust of life,\ncontention against the bonds of matter\u2014such are the elements of his\ninspiration.\n\n\u201cThe captives are held by bonds so weak that it seems easy to break\nthem. But the sculptor wished to show that their bondage is, above all,\na moral one. For, although he has represented in these figures the\nprovinces conquered by Pope Julius II., he has given them a symbolic\nvalue. Each one of his prisoners is the human soul which would burst the\nbounds of its corporeal envelope in order to possess unlimited liberty.\nLook at the captive on the right. He has the face of Beethoven. Michael\nAngelo has divined the features of that most unhappy of great musicians.\n\n\u201cHis whole existence proved that he was himself frightfully tortured by\nmelancholy. \u2018Why do we hope for more of life and of pleasure?\u2019 he said\nin one of his most beautiful sonnets. \u2018Earthly joy harms us even more\nthan it delights.\u2019 And in another verse, \u2018He who dies soon after birth\nenjoys the happiest fate!\u2019\n\n\u201cAll his statues are so constrained by agony that they seem to wish to\nbreak themselves. They all seem ready to succumb to the pressure of\ndespair which fills them. When Michael Angelo was old he actually broke\nthem. Art did not content him. He wanted infinity. \u2018Neither painting nor\nsculpture,\u2019 he writes, \u2018can charm the soul turned towards that divine\nlove which, upon the cross, opens its arms to receive us.\u2019 These are\nalso the exact words of the great mystic who wrote the _Imitation of\nJesus Christ_: \u2018The highest wisdom is to reach the kingdom of heaven\nthrough contempt of the world. It is vanity to cling to what is but\npassing and not to hasten towards that joy which is without end.\u2019\u201d\n\nThere was silence for a time, then Rodin spoke his thought: \u201cI remember\nbeing in the Duomo at Florence and regarding with profound emotion that\n_Piet\u00e0_ by Michael Angelo. The masterpiece, which is ordinarily in\nshadow, was lighted at the moment by a candle in a silver candlestick.\nAnd a beautiful child, a chorister, approached the candlestick, which\nwas as tall as himself, drew it towards him, and blew out the light. I\ncould no longer see the marvellous sculpture. And this child appeared to\nfigure to me the genius of Death, which puts an end to life. I have kept\nthat precious picture in my heart.\u201d\n\nHe paused, then went on: \u201cIf I may speak of myself a little, I will tell\nyou that I have oscillated all my life between the two great tendencies\nof sculpture, between the conception of Phidias and that of Michael\nAngelo.\n\n\u201cI began by following the antique, but when I went to Italy I was\ncarried away by the great Florentine master, and my work has certainly\nfelt the effects of this passion.\n\n\u201cSince then, especially more of late years, I have returned to the\nantique.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  LA PIET\u00c0\n\n  By Michael Angelo\n]\n\n\u201cThe favorite themes of Michael Angelo, the depths of the human soul,\nthe sanctity of effort and of suffering, have an austere grandeur. But I\ndo not feel his contempt of life. Earthly activity, imperfect as it may\nbe, is still beautiful and good. Let us love life for the very effort\nwhich it exacts.\n\n\u201cAs for me, I ceaselessly endeavor to render my outlook on nature ever\nmore calm, more just. We should strive to attain serenity. Enough of\nChristian anxiety, in the face of the great mystery, will always remain\nin us all.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photogravure reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of\n    Art\n]\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XII\n                    ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST\n\n\n                                   I\n\nThe day before the _vernissage_ (varnishing day), I met Auguste Rodin at\nthe Salon de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Nationale in Paris. He was accompanied by two of\nhis pupils, themselves past-masters: the sculptor Bourdelle, who was\nthis year exhibiting a fierce Hercules piercing the Stymphalian birds\nwith his arrows, and Despiau, who models exquisitely clever busts.\n\nAll three had stopped before a figure of the god Pan, which Bourdelle\nhad whimsically carved in the likeness of Rodin, and the creator of the\nwork was excusing himself for the two small horns which he had set upon\nthe master\u2019s forehead.\n\n\u201cYou had to do it,\u201d Rodin replied, laughing, \u201cbecause you are\nrepresenting Pan. Michael Angelo gave just such horns to his _Moses_.\nThey are the emblem of omnipotence and omniscience, and I assure you\nthat I am flattered to have been so favored by your attentions.\u201d\n\nAs it was now noon, Rodin invited us all three to lunch with him\nsomewhere in the neighborhood.\n\nWe passed out into the Avenue des Champs \u00c9lys\u00e9es, where beneath the\ncrude young green of the chestnut-trees the motors and carriages slipped\nby in shining files, all the brilliance of Parisian life flashing here\nfrom its brightest and most fascinating setting.\n\n\u201cWhere are we going to lunch?\u201d Bourdelle asked, pausing with comical\nanxiety. \u201cIn the big restaurants about here we shall be waited upon by\nsolemn men-servants in dress-coats, which I cannot bear. They frighten\nme. I advise some quiet little restaurant where the cabbies go.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  LA FRANCE\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Presented to the people of the United States of America by the French\n    nation for the base of the Champlain Monument at Crown Point\n]\n\n\u201cThe food is really better there than in these gorgeous places,\u201d Despiau\ndeclared. \u201cHere the food is too sophisticated.\u201d\n\nHe had expressed Bourdelle\u2019s secret thought; for Bourdelle, in spite of\nhis pretended modesty, is a gourmand.\n\nRodin agreeing, allowed them to lead him to a little eating-house hidden\nin a side-street off the Champs \u00c9lys\u00e9es, where we chose a quiet corner\nand installed ourselves comfortably.\n\nDespiau, who has a lively disposition, began teasing Bourdelle. \u201cHelp\nyourself, Bourdelle,\u201d he said, passing him a dish, \u201cthough you know you\ndon\u2019t deserve to be fed, because you are an artist\u2014that is to say, of no\nuse to any one.\u201d\n\n\u201cI pardon you this impertinence,\u201d Bourdelle answered, \u201cbecause you take\nhalf for yourself.\u201d He began gayly, but ended in a momentary crisis of\npessimism, as he added: \u201cBut I won\u2019t contradict you. It is true that we\nare good for nothing. When I think of my father, who was a stonecutter,\nI say to myself, \u2018His work was necessary to society. He prepared the\nbuilding materials for men\u2019s houses.\u2019 I can see him now, good old man,\nconscientiously sawing his blocks of freestone, winter and summer, in\nthe open workshop. His was a rugged type such as we do not see nowadays.\nBut I\u2014but we\u2014what service do we render to our kind? We are jugglers,\nmountebanks, dreamers, who amuse the people in the market-place. They\nscarcely deign to take an interest in our efforts. Few people are\ncapable of understanding them. And I do not know whether we really\ndeserve their good-will, for the world could very well get on without\nus.\u201d\n\n\n                                   II\n\nIt was Rodin who answered. \u201cI do not believe that our friend Bourdelle\nmeans a word of what he says. As for me, my opinion is entirely opposed\nto his. I believe that artists are the most useful of men.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE BROKEN LILY\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\nBourdelle laughed. \u201cYou are blinded by love of your profession.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot at all, for my opinion rests on very sound reasons, which I will\ntell you. But first have some of this wine which the _patron_\nrecommends. It will put you in a better frame of mind to listen to me.\u201d\nWhen he had poured it out for us, he resumed: \u201cTo begin with\u2014have you\nreflected that in modern society artists, I mean true artists, are about\nthe only men who take any pleasure in their work?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is certain that work is all our joy, all our life,\u201d Bourdelle cried,\n\u201cbut that does not mean that\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWait! It seems to me that what is most lacking in our contemporaries is\nlove of their profession. They only accomplish their tasks grudgingly.\nThey would willingly _strike_. It is so from the top to the bottom of\nthe social ladder. The politician sees in his office only the material\nadvantages which he can gain from it, and he does not seem to know the\npride which the old statesmen felt in the skilful direction of the\naffairs of their country.\n\n\u201cThe manufacturer, instead of upholding the honor of his brand, strives\nonly to make as much money as he can by adulterating his products. The\nworkman, feeling a more or less legitimate hostility for his employer,\nslights his work. Almost all the men of our day seem to regard work as a\nfrightful necessity, as a cursed drudgery, while it ought to be\nconsidered as our happiness and our excuse for living.\n\n\u201cYou must not think that it has always been so. Most of the objects\nwhich remain to us from the old days, furniture, utensils, stuffs, show\na great conscientiousness in those who made them.\n\n\u201cMan likes to work well, quite as much as to work badly. I even believe\nthat it is more agreeable to him, more natural to him, that he _prefers_\nto work well. But he listens sometimes to good, sometimes to bad advice,\nand gives preference to the bad.\n\n\u201cAnd yet, how much happier humanity would be if work, instead of a means\nto existence, were its end! But, in order that this marvellous change\nmay come about, all mankind must follow the example of the artist, or,\nbetter yet, become artists themselves; for the word _artist_, in its\nwidest acceptation, means to me the _man who takes pleasure in what he\ndoes_. So it would be desirable were there artists in all trades\u2014artist\ncarpenters, happy in skilfully raising beam and mortice\u2014artist masons,\nspreading the plaster with pleasure\u2014artist carters, proud of caring for\ntheir horses and of not running over those in the street. Is it not true\nthat that would constitute an admirable society?\n\n\u201cYou see, then, that artists set an example to the rest of the world\nwhich might be marvellously fruitful.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell argued,\u201d cried Despiau; \u201cI take back what I said, Bourdelle. I\nacknowledge that you deserve your food. Do take a little more\nasparagus.\u201d\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\u201cAh, Master!\u201d I said, \u201cyou doubtless have the gift of persuasion. But,\nafter all, what is the good of proving the usefulness of artists?\nCertainly, as you have shown us, their passion for work might set a good\nexample. But is not the work which they do at the bottom useless, and is\nit not that precisely which gives it value in our eyes?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d\n\n\u201cI mean, that happily works of art do not count among useful things,\nthat is to say, amongst those that serve to feed us, to clothe us, to\nshelter us\u2014in a word, to satisfy our bodily needs. On the contrary, they\ntear us from the slavery of practical life and open before us an\nenchanted land of contemplation and of dreams.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe point is, my dear friend, that we are usually mistaken in what is\nuseful and what is not,\u201d Rodin answered. \u201cI admit that we must call\nuseful all that ministers to the necessities of our material life. But\nto-day, besides that, riches are also considered useful, though their\ndisplay only arouses vanity and excites envy; these riches are not only\nuseless, but cumbersome.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  CERES\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts\n]\n\n\u201cAs for me, I call _useful all that gives us happiness_. Well, there is\nnothing in the world that makes us happier than contemplation and\ndreams. We forget this too much in our day. The man who, with just a\nsufficiency, wisely enjoys the numberless wonders which meet his eyes\nand mind at every turn\u2014who rejoices in the beauty and vigor of the youth\nabout him; who sees in the animals, those wonderful living machines, all\ntheir supple and nervous movements and the play of their muscles; who\nfinds delight in the valleys and upon the hillsides where the spring\nspends itself in green and flowery festival, in waves of incense, in the\nmurmur of bees, in rustling wings and songs of love; who feels an\necstasy as he watches the silver ripples, which seem to smile as they\nchase each other upon the surface of the water; who can, with renewed\nenthusiasm, each day watch Apollo, the golden god, disperse the clouds\nwhich Earth wraps closely around her; the man who can find joy in all\nthis walks the earth a god.\n\n\u201cWhat mortal is more fortunate than he? And since it is art which\nteaches us, which aids us to appreciate these pleasures, who will deny\nthat it is infinitely useful to us? It is not only a question of\nintellectual pleasures, however, but of much more. Art shows man his\n_raison d\u2019\u00eatre_. It reveals to him the meaning of life, it enlightens\nhim upon his destiny, and consequently points him on his way. When\nTitian painted that marvellously aristocratic society, where each person\ncarries written in his face, imprinted in his gestures and noted in his\ncostume, the pride of intellect, of authority and of wealth, he set\nbefore the patricians of Venice the ideal which they wished to realize.\nWhen Poussin composed his clear, majestic, orderly landscapes, where\nReason seems to reign; when Puget swelled the muscles of his heroes;\nwhen Watteau sheltered his charming yet melancholy lovers beneath\nmysterious shades; when Houdon caused Voltaire to smile, and Diana, the\nhuntress, to run so lightly; when Rude, in carving the _Marseillaise_,\ncalled old men and children to his country\u2019s aid\u2014these great French\nmasters polished in turn some of the facets of our national soul; this\none, order; this one, energy; this one, elegance; this one, wit; this\none, heroism; and all, the joy of life and of free action, and they kept\nalive in their compatriots the distinctive qualities of our race.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE TORN GLOVE\n\n  By Titian\n]\n\n\u201cTake the greatest artist of our time, Puvis de Chavannes\u2014did he not\nstrive to shed upon us the serenity to which we all aspire? Are there\nnot wonderful lessons for us in his sublime landscapes, where holy\nNature seems to cradle upon her bosom a loving, wise, august, simple\nhumanity? Help for the weak, love of work, self-denial, respect for high\nthought, this incomparable genius has expressed it all! It is a\nmarvellous light upon our epoch. It is enough to look upon one of his\nmasterpieces, his _Sainte Genevi\u00e8ve_ in the Pantheon, his _Holy Wood_\n(_Bois Sacr\u00e9_) in the Sorbonne, or his magnificent _Homage to Victor\nHugo_ (_Hommage \u00e0 Victor Hugo_) on the stairway of the H\u00f4tel de Ville in\nParis, to feel oneself capable of noble deeds.\n\n\u201cArtists and thinkers are like lyres, infinitely delicate and sonorous,\nwhose vibrations, awakened by the circumstances of each epoch, are\nprolonged to the ears of all other mortals.\n\n\u201cWithout doubt, very fine works of art are appreciated only by a limited\nnumber; and even in galleries and public squares they are looked at only\nby a few. But, nevertheless, the thoughts they embody end by filtering\nthrough to the crowd. Below the men of genius there are other artists of\nless scope, who borrow and popularize the conceptions of the masters:\nwriters are influenced by painters, painters by writers; there is a\ncontinual exchange of thought between all the brains of a generation\u2014the\njournalists, the popular novelists, the illustrators, the makers of\npictures bring within the reach of the multitude the truths discovered\nby the powerful intellects of the day. It is like a spiritual stream,\nlike a spring pouring forth in many cascades, which finally meet to form\nthe great moving river which represents the mentality of an era.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  VICTOR HUGO OFFERING HIS LYRE TO THE CITY OF PARIS\n\n  By Puvis de Chavannes\n]\n\n\u201cAnd it should not be said, as it is sometimes, that artists only\nreflect the feeling of their surroundings. Even this would be much; for\nit is well to hold up a mirror in which other men may see themselves,\nand so to aid them to self-knowledge. But artists do more. Certainly\nthey draw largely from the common fund amassed by tradition, but they\nalso increase this treasure. They are truly inventors and guides.\n\n\u201cIn order to convince oneself of this, it is enough to observe that most\nof the masters preceded, and sometimes by a long period, the time when\ntheir works won recognition. Poussin painted a number of masterpieces\nunder Louis XIII. whose regular nobility foretold the character of the\nfollowing reign; Watteau, whose nonchalant grace would seem to have\npresided over all the reign of Louis XV., did not live under that King,\nbut under Louis XIV., and died under the Regent; Chardin and Greuze,\nwho, in celebrating the bourgeois home, would seem to have announced a\ndemocratic society, lived under a monarchy; Prudhon, mystical, sweet and\nweary, claimed, in the midst of strident imperial fanfares, the right to\nlove, to meditate, to dream, and he affirmed it as the forerunner of the\nromantics. Nearer to us, Courbet and Millet, under the Second Empire,\npictured the sorrows and the dignity of the people, who since then,\nunder the Third Republic, have won so preponderant a place in society.\n\n\u201cI do not say that these artists determined these great currents, I only\nsay that they unconsciously contributed to form them; I say that they\nmade part of the intellectual \u00e9lite who created these tendencies. And it\ngoes without saying that this \u00e9lite is not composed of artists only, but\nalso of writers, philosophers, novelists and publicists.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  MOTHER AND BABE\n\n  By Rodin\n]\n\n\u201cWhat still further proves that the masters bring new ideas and\ntendencies to their generations is that they have often great trouble in\nwinning acknowledgment for them. They sometimes pass nearly all their\nlives in striving against routine. And the more genius they have, the\nmore chance they run of being long misunderstood. Corot, Courbet,\nMillet, Puvis de Chavannes, to cite no more, were not unanimously\nacclaimed until the end of their careers.\n\n\u201cIt is impossible to do good to mankind with impunity. But, at least,\nthe masters of art, by their determination to enrich the human soul,\nhave deserved that their names should be held sacred after their deaths.\n\n\u201cThere, my friends, is what I wished to say to you upon the usefulness\nof artists.\u201d\n\n\n                                   IV\n\nI declared that I was convinced.\n\n\u201cI only want to be,\u201d said Bourdelle, \u201cfor I adore my work, and my\ngrumbling was doubtless the effect of a passing mood; or, perhaps,\nanxious to hear an apology for my profession, I behaved like a coquette\nwho complains of being ugly in order to provoke a compliment.\u201d\n\nThere was silence for several instants, for we were thinking of what had\nbeen said.\n\nThen, realizing that Rodin had modestly omitted himself in indicating\nthe influence of the masters, I said: \u201cMaster, you have yourself\nexercised an influence on your epoch, which will certainly be prolonged\nto succeeding generations.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  SISTER AND BROTHER\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts\n]\n\n\u201cIn emphasizing so strongly the inner truth, you will have aided in the\nevolution of our modern life. You have shown the immense value which\neach one of us to-day attaches to his thoughts, to his affections, to\nhis dreams, and often to his wandering passions. You have recorded the\nintoxication of love, maiden reveries, the madness of desire, the\necstasy of meditation, the transports of hope, the crises of dejection.\nYou have ceaselessly explored the mysterious domain of the individual\nconscience, and you have found it ever more vast. You have observed that\nin this era upon which we have entered, nothing has more importance for\nus than our own feelings, our own intimate personality. You have seen\nthat each one of us, the man of thought, the man of action, the mother,\nthe young girl, the lover, places the centre of the universe in his own\nsoul. And this disposition, of which we were ourselves almost\nunconscious, you have revealed to us.\n\n\u201cFollowing upon Victor Hugo, who, celebrating in his poetry the joys and\nthe sorrows of private existence, sang the mother rocking the cradle,\nthe father at the grave of his child, the lover absorbed in happy\nmemories, you have expressed in sculpture the deepest, most secret\nemotions of the soul.\n\n\u201cAnd there is no doubt but that this powerful wave of individualism\nwhich is passing over the old society will modify it little by little.\nThere is no doubt but that, thanks to the efforts of the great artists\nand the great thinkers, who ask each one of us to consider himself as an\nend sufficient unto himself, and to live according to the dictates of\nhis own heart, humanity will end by sweeping aside all the tyrannies\nwhich still oppress the individual and will suppress the social\ninequalities which subject one to another, the poor to the rich, the\nwoman to the man, the weak to the strong.\n\n\u201cYou, yourself, by the sincerity of your art, will have worked towards\nthe coming of this new order.\u201d\n\nBut Rodin answered with a smile:\n\n\u201cYour great friendship accords me too large a place among the champions\nof modern thought. It is true, at least, that I have striven to be of\nuse by formulating as clearly as I could my vision of people and of\nthings.\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  BUST OF MR. THOMAS FORTUNE RYAN\n\n  By Rodin\n\n  Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n]\n\nIn a moment he went on:\n\n\u201cIf I have insisted on our usefulness, and if I still insist upon it, it\nis because this consideration alone can recall to us the sympathy which\nis our due in the world in which we are living. To-day, every one is\nengrossed by self-interest; but I would like to see this practical\nsociety convinced that it is at least as much to its advantage to honor\nthe artist as to honor the manufacturer and the engineer.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              TRANSLATIONS\n\n\n                                Page 37\n\nAh! proud and traitorous old age!\n\nWhy have you so soon brought me low? Why do you hold me so that I cannot\nstrike and with the stroke end my sorrow?\n\n\n                            Pages 38 and 39\n\nWhen I think wearily on what I was, of what I am, when I see how changed\nI am\u2014poor, dried-up, thin\u2014I am enraged! Where is my white forehead\u2014my\ngolden hair\u2014my beautiful shoulders, all in me made for love? This is the\nend of human beauty! These short arms, these thin hands, these humped\nshoulders. These breasts\u2014these hips\u2014these limbs\u2014dried and speckled as\nsausages!\n\n\n                            Pages 44 and 45\n\nYet one day you will be like this\u2014like this horrible contamination\u2014thou\nstar of my eyes, thou sun of my nature, oh my angel and my passion! Yes,\nsuch will you be, oh Queen of the Graces, after the last sacraments\u2014when\nyou are laid under the grass and the flowers, there to crumble among the\nbones. Then oh, my beautiful one! tell the worms, when they devour you\nwith kisses, that in spite of them, in spite of all, I have kept the\nform and the divine essence of my love who has perished.\n\n\n                                Page 118\n\nFlesh of the woman, ideal clay; oh sublime penetration of the spirit in\nthe slime; matter, where the soul shines through its shroud; clay, where\none sees the fingers of the divine sculptor; august dust, which draws\nkisses, and the heart of man; so holy that one does not know\u2014so entirely\nis love the conqueror, so entirely is the soul drawn\u2014whether this\npassion is not a divine thought; so holy that one cannot, in the hour\nwhen the senses are on fire, hold beauty without embracing God!\n\n\n                                Page 181\n\nWe never see but one side of things\u2014the other is plunged in night and\nmystery. Man suffers the effect without knowing the cause. All that he\nsees is short, useless, and fleeting.\n\n\n                                Page 186\n\nAs when, in taking flight, the bird bends the branch, so his soul had\nbruised his body.\n\n\n\n\n                                 INDEX\n\n\n _Age d\u2019Airain_, Rodin\u2019s, 65, 67, 71, 73\n\n Andrea del Sarto, 105, 106\n\n Arc de Triomphe, 83\n\n Aristotle, 216\n\n Art, realism in, 25\u201334;\n   character in, 37\u201350;\n   movement in, 65\u201389;\n   drawing and color in, 93\u2013107;\n   thought in, 151\u2013171;\n   mystery in, 175\u2013188\n\n Art, modern, Rodin\u2019s views on, 6\n\n Artist, usefulness of, 227\u2013245\n\n\n _Baiser_, Rodin\u2019s, 186\n\n _Balzac_, Rodin\u2019s, 66, 146, 186\n\n Baptistery, Florence, 40\n\n Barye, 67\n\n Bazire, 135, 138\n\n Beaudelaire, 44\n\n Beauty of women, 113\u2013118\n\n _Belle Heaulmi\u00e8re_, Rodin\u2019s, 37\u201342\n\n Berthelot, Rodin\u2019s bust of, 146\n\n Biron, l\u2019H\u00f4tel de, 111\n\n _Bois Sacr\u00e9_, Chavannes\u2019, 238\n\n Bourdelle, 227\u2013242\n\n _Bourgeois de Calais_, Rodin\u2019s, 66, 85, 144, 185\n\n British Museum, 212\n\n Brongniart children, Houdon\u2019s bust of, 122\n\n _Burghers of Calais._ See _Bourgeois de Calais_\n\n Busts, Rodin\u2019s, 134\u2013148, 186\n\n Busts, Rodin\u2019s views on, 121\u2013148\n\n Byron, Lord, 158\n\n\n Calais, 88\n\n Caliari, 79\n\n Cambodian dancers, 116\n\n _Captives_, Michael Angelo\u2019s, 218\n\n Carpeaux, 67, 159\n\n _Centauress_, Rodin\u2019s, 163\n\n Chantilly, 201\n\n Character in nature, 45\n\n Chardin, 240\n\n _Charles V_, Titian\u2019s, 131\n\n Chavannes, Puvis de, 237, 238, 241;\n   Rodin\u2019s bust of, 143\n\n _Children of Edward_, Delavigne\u2019s. See _Enfants d\u2019Edouard_\n\n Claude Lorraine, 106\n\n _Cnidian Venus_, 206\n\n Color, Rodin\u2019s views on, 96\u2013107\n\n Color in sculpture, 60\n\n _Commander_, the, 73\n\n _Concert Champ\u00eatre_, Giorgione\u2019s, 182\n\n _Confessions_, Rousseau\u2019s, 126\n\n Constant, 58\n\n Corneille, 85\n\n Corot, 166, 179, 241\n\n Correggio, 105, 106\n\n Courbet, 240, 241\n\n _Course d\u2019Epsom_, Gericault\u2019s, 76\n\n Cuyp, 166\n\n\n Dalou, 140\u2013142;\n   Rodin\u2019s bust of, 140\n\n _Dance_, Carpeaux\u2019s, 67\n\n Dante, 69\n\n _Daughter of Icarus_, Rodin\u2019s. See _Fille d\u2019Icare_\n\n David, 104\n\n Delacroix, 103, 158\n\n Delaroche, 157\n\n Delavigne, Casimir, 157, 158\n\n Della Robbia. See _Luca della Robbia_\n\n D\u00e9p\u00f4t des Marbres, 25, 111\n\n Despiau, 227, 229, 233\n\n _Diadumenes_, 212\n\n _Diana_, Houdon\u2019s, 115, 237\n\n _Divine Comedy_, 160\n\n _Don Juan\u2019s Shipwreck_, Delacroix\u2019s. See _Naufrage de Don Juan_\n\n Donatello, 40, 202\n\n Drawing, Rodin\u2019s views on, 93\u2013107\n\n Ducal Palace, Venice, 79\n\n Duomo, the, 221\n\n D\u00fcrer, Albrecht, 104, 106\n\n\n Egyptian sculpture, 180\n\n _Embarkation for the Island of Cythera_, Watteau\u2019s. See _Embarquement_,\n    etc.\n\n _Embarquement pour Cyth\u00e8re_, Watteau\u2019s, 80, 84\n\n _Enfants d\u2019Edouard_, Delavigne\u2019s, 157\n\n _Epsom Races._ See _Course d\u2019Epsom_\n\n Europa, 79\n\n\n Falgui\u00e8re, Rodin\u2019s bust of, 145\u2013146\n\n _Fille d\u2019Icare_, Rodin\u2019s, 162\n\n Flesh, the, 56, 57\n\n France, Anatole, 203\u2013207\n\n _Francis I_, Titian\u2019s, 131\n\n Franklin, Houdon\u2019s bust of, 122, 128\n\n\n Gericault, 76, 77\n\n Ghirlandajo, 202\n\n Giorgione, 182\n\n _Gleaners_, Millet\u2019s, 182\n\n Goethe, 180\n\n Gothic cathedrals, 166\n\n Goujon, Jean, 115, 218\n\n _Graces_, Raphael\u2019s, 201\n\n Greek sculpture, 11, 27, 56, 57, 114, 192\u2013196, 212\u2013218\n\n Greuze, 240\n\n\n Hanako, 116\n\n Henner, 123\n\n _Hercules_, Bourdelle\u2019s, 227\n\n Hercules, statue of, 205\n\n Holbein, 104, 106\n\n _Holy Wood._ See _Bois Sacr\u00e9_\n\n _Hommage \u00e0 Victor Hugo_, Chavannes\u2019, 238\n\n _Homme qui marche_, Rodin\u2019s, 66\n\n Houdon, his busts, 115, 121, 122, 125\u2013129, 147, 148, 237\n\n Houdon, Mme., Houdon\u2019s bust of, 122\n\n Hugo, Victor, 118, 135\u2013138, 181, 243\n\n Hugo, Rodin\u2019s bust of, 135, 136, 137, 138, 156\n\n\n _Illusion_, Rodin\u2019s, 162\n\n Ingres, 104\n\n _l\u2019Intransigeant_, 135\n\n _Iron Age._ See _Age d\u2019Airain_\n\n Issy, 13\n\n Italians, the modern, 114\n\n\n _Judgment of Paris_, Watteau\u2019s, 115\n\n\n Laurens, Jean-Paul, Rodin\u2019s bust of, 144\n\n Literature, its relation to art, 153\u2013161\n\n Louvre, the, 76, 79, 101, 201, 211\u2013223\n\n Luca della Robbia, 178\n\n Lucretius, 207\n\n Luxembourg, Mus\u00e9e du, 41, 65, 140, 144, 161, 187\n\n Lysippus, 199, 205\n\n\n _Man with the Hoe_, Millet\u2019s, 44\n\n _Mar\u00e9chal Ney_, Rude\u2019s, 67, 69\n\n Marivaux, 84\n\n _Marseillaise, La_ (newspaper), 135\n\n _Marseillaise_, Rude\u2019s, 67, 83, 84, 85, 237\n\n _Meditation._ See _Penseur_\n\n Meudon, 5, 37, 111, 134, 175\n\n Michael Angelo, 97, 178;\n   his work expounded by Rodin, 196\u2013202, 218\u2013223\n\n Millet, Fran\u00e7ois, 43, 179, 182, 240, 241\n\n Mirabeau, Houdon\u2019s bust of, 122, 127\n\n Modelling, 53\u201361, 66\n\n Models, 26\n\n _Moses_, Michael Angelo\u2019s, 228\n\n Movement in art, 65\u201389\n\n Mystery in art, 175\u2013188\n\n\n Nature, as seen by Rodin, 30\u201334, 37\u201350\n\n _Naufrage de Don Juan_, Delacroix\u2019s, 158\n\n Nude, the, 27\n\n\n Ovid, 68\n\n\n Palais Royal, 156\n\n _Pan_, Bourdelle\u2019s, 227\n\n Pantheon, the, 144, 238\n\n Paris, 15, 111, 238\n\n _Parnassus_, 101\n\n Parthenon, the, 183\n\n _Paul III_, Titian\u2019s, 131\n\n _Pens\u00e9e_, Rodin\u2019s, 161\n\n _Penseur_, Rodin\u2019s, 151\u2013152, 185\n\n Peribo\u00ebtos, torso of, 213\n\n Phidias, 114, 165, 218, 222;\n   his work expounded by Rodin, 192\u2013196\n\n _Philip IV_, Velasquez\u2019s, 131\n\n Photographs, instantaneous, 73, 74, 75, 76\n\n _Piet\u00e0_, Michael Angelo\u2019s, 222\n\n Pilon, Germain, 218\n\n Pisanello, 131\n\n Polycletus, 199, 212\n\n Pont de l\u2019Alma, 5\n\n Portraits, 123\u2013125, 129\u2013134\n\n Pottery, 99\n\n Poussin, 236, 239\n\n Praxiteles, 199, 206, 213\n\n Prudhon, 240\n\n Puget, 236\n\n _Pygmalion_, Rodin\u2019s, 163, 164\n\n\n Racine, 45\n\n Raphael, 97, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 200\n\n Realism in art, 25\u201334\n\n Rembrandt, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 167, 168, 187\n\n Robbia, della. See _Luca della Robbia_\n\n Rochefort, Henri, 138, 139\n\n Rochefort, Rodin\u2019s bust of, 138, 139\n\n Rodin, Auguste, his home at Val-Fleury, 5;\n   at the D\u00e9p\u00f4t des Marbres, 25;\n   his method of work, 26-34;\n   at \u201cl\u2019H\u00f4tel de Biron,\u201d 111;\n   his religion, 175-177;\n   his views on modern art, 6;\n   on nature, 30-34, 37-50;\n   on modelling, 53-61;\n   on drawing and color, 93-107;\n   on beauty of women, 111-118;\n   on busts and portraits, 121-148;\n   on thought in art, 151-171;\n   on mystery in art, 175-188;\n   on Phidias and Michael Angelo, 191-207, 218-223;\n   on usefulness of artists, 227-245\n\n Rousseau, Houdon\u2019s bust of, 125\n\n Rousseau, Theodore, 166\n\n Rubens, 98, 105, 106\n\n Rude, 67, 69, 83, 85, 237\n\n Ruysdael, 166\n\n\n _Sainte Genevi\u00e8ve_, Chavannes\u2019, 238\n\n _Saint George_, 101\n\n _Saint-Jean-Baptiste_, Rodin\u2019s, 65, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74, 185\n\n _Saint John_, Rodin\u2019s. See _Saint-Jean-Baptiste_\n\n _Sainte Magdalene_, Donatello\u2019s, 40\n\n Saint-Pierre, Eustache de, 86, 88\n\n Santisimo Christo, Chapel del, Burgos, 175\n\n Sanzio, 101\n\n Scopas, 199\n\n Sculpture, Egyptian, 180\n\n Sculpture, Greek, 11, 27, 56, 57, 114, 192-196, 212-218\n\n _Sebastian_, Velasquez\u2019s, 43\n\n Shakespeare, 45\n\n Siena, 201\n\n Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Gens de Lettres, 146\n\n Sorbonne, the, 238\n\n South Kensington, 101\n\n Stained-glass, 98\n\n\n Thiers, 127\n\n _Three Fates_, 183\n\n Titian, 98, 131, 167, 168\n\n Truth in art, 31, 45\n\n Turner, 106\n\n\n Ugliness in nature, 42\n\n _Ugolin_, Rodin\u2019s, 159\n\n\n Val-Fleury, Rodin\u2019s home at, 5\n\n Vatican, the, 101\n\n Velasquez, 43, 105, 106, 131\n\n _Venus, the Cnidian_, 206\n\n _Venus of the Capitol_, 206\n\n _Venus di Medici_, 54, 206\n\n _Venus of Milo_, 213\n\n Veronese, 79, 98\n\n _Victory of Samothrace_, 215\n\n Villain, 136\n\n Villon, 37\n\n Vinci, Leonardo da, 182\n\n Voltaire, Houdon\u2019s bust of, 121, 122, 126, 237\n\n\n Washington, Houdon\u2019s bust of, 122\n\n Watteau, 80, 81, 85, 115, 237, 240\n\n Women, beauty of, 113-118\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.\n 2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as\n      printed.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.\n 4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.","title":"Art","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":35541}