Rodin at the Gates of Hell

Review by: Jacques de Caso

The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 106, No. 731 (Feb., 1964), pp. 59+79-82
Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
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SHORTER NOTICES
about
1685,
when the
ascendency
of the
classicizing viewpoint
among
Rome's
major patrons
and the
continuing
success of
Carlo Maratti were
just beginning
to
modify
Baciccio's
high
baroque style.
Both
paintings
are
essentially
secular in
mood,
created to
decorate a room in some Roman
palace
where
they
would be
prized
for colour and movement more than for the theme. In the
Golden
Calf,
the real
subject
is the
jubilation
of the idolators. The
small
figure
of Moses in the distance seems almost an after-
thought.
But the
composition, despite
its
emphatic symmetry,
was
apparently
too crowded for the
classicizing
tastes of the
age.
For this
reason,
and for the sake of
greater iconographic unity,
when Baciccio
painted
his
Thanksgiving of
Noah for the third time
he chose
(or
had
chosen)
as its
pendant
a
Sacrifice of Isaac.3
3
Both
paintings
come from the Kress Collection and are in Atlanta. For ill. see
w.
SUIDA: Italian
Paintings
in Atlanta Art Association
Galleries,
Atlanta
[1958],
pp.62
and
65. They
are somewhat smaller than their Roman
counterparts
(163 by 132 cm.)
and must be later because of their
drier,
duller colours.
L etters
The Holbein
Barber-Surgeons Group
SIR,
Dr
Roy
C.
Strong
in his
enthralling Preliminary Report
on
the
rediscovery
of
Holbein's
Cartoon for the
Barber-Surgeons
Group
in
your January 1963
issue
provides
the final answer to the
mass of
conflicting
evidence which had collected around each
version of this
group composition.
That the
painting
in the
posses-
sion of the
Barber-Surgeons Company
had suffered
severely
in the
Great Fire is referred to not
only by Pepys,
but in the Minute
books of the
Company
where mention is made of the
touching up
of the
picture
as a result of this
calamity.
The reason this
large
picture
survived at all is doubtless due to the fact that the Hall of
the
Company being contiguous
with
Cripplegate churchyard
would enable this
painting
to be transferred there for its
safety
or
the
proximity
of the Hall to
Cripplegate
itself would
alternatively
enable the
picture
to be carried into Moorfields.
I had
always
believed that the cartouche with its
lengthy
inscription
was a
post-Fire touching up
to make
good
a
large
area
of
damaged
surface but Dr
Strong proves
this
theory
untenable as
the outline of the cartouche is
clearly
shown in the Cartoon.
Dr
George Graham,
Master of the
Worshipful Company
of
Barber-Surgeons
has
kindly
drawn
my
attention to the evidence
from the
X-rays
taken
by
the Courtauld Institute which reveal
that the
figures
of Dr Butts and the
apothecary
must have been
completely destroyed
because the
gesso
has
gone.
Butts must have
been
repainted
which
explains
the difference in his mouth from
that of the Holbein in Boston.
At the end of his
report
Dr
Strong
deals with the
inscription
on
the cartouche and states 'the word domum can
only
refer in this
context to some sort of
building
...
although
. .. it carries within
it an
implied
allusion to all those
people
and
things
connected
with it'. In this I would
agree
that the word domum is used in a
corporate sense, just
as Christ Church Oxford and the House are
one and the same and allude to a
particular corporate group,
but
always
a
corporate group
who have a
building.
The
difficulty
in
the case of the use of
domnum
in the
eulogy
of the
Barber-Surgeons
Group
is that there is no known instance of this use in the cor-
porate
sense for a
city company.
Dr
Strong
adds that 'there is
nothing
to
disprove
the
hypo-
thesis that the Hall was rebuilt
during
the thirties and finished
finally
in
1541
when
Vicary
held the
mastership
of the
Company'.
I am now
able,
as a result of recent
research,
to
suggest
a modi-
fication of this statement. The
Company
Hall was not in existence
before
I440
but was
certainly
erected
by 1475.
This
together with
the difficult financial straits of the
Company
would make it
highly
improbable
that
they
could have embarked on a
rebuilding
scheme in the thirties. The financial straits arose
through the fact
that after the Hall had been built
they
discovered that the land
was not held in fee
simple
but fee farm and
they
were
required to
pay
a sum of
money
to a descendant of the owner for him to
pur-
chase a Yorkshire manor. This makes the motives which led to
the
commissioning
of the
picture
all the more
impenetrable.
As further evidence that the first Hall survived until the Great
Fire we have constant references from
1551 (when
the Minutes
begin)
for
periodic repairs
to the structure. It is therefore
possible
to
say
with
certainty
that no
major building programme took
place
at the time the Barber's
picture
was
painted.
R. THEODORE BECK
The L iterature of Art
Rodin at the Gates
of
Hell
BY
JACQUES
DE CASO
AL BERT
EL SEN's book,
Rodin's Gates
of Hell,*
a
chapter
of which
had
previously
been
published,
is
noteworthy
in two
respects.
It
is the first
study concentrating
on a
single
and
capital
work of an
artist with whose
production
we feel a
growing affinity;
Rodin
historians have not
prepared
us for such a detailed
study.
More-
over, the author
presents
his thesis in a
way
unknown to Rodin
studies. He is not content
merely
with the results obtainable
by
pure
historical
investigations.
Elsen realizes that a work of art
remains as fruitful as it was
originally
intended to
be, only
when
the facts are enriched
by
meditation and criticism.
Such a
programme
is ambitious: if
fulfilled,
little remains to
be said. In his
Preface,
Elsen defines the limits he has set himself.
Acknowledging
the
provisional
character of his
work,
he
points
out the difficulties which Rodin historians must face. One cannot
judge
his book without
being
aware of them.
The available information on Rodin consists of an immense
body
of
literature, practically
all
published during
the lifetime of
the
sculptor. Everything
is to be found there: innumerable criti-
cisms, interviews,
and
biographies,
recollections of
ephemeral
secretaries and students of two
continents, apologia by
admirers
of both sexes. Few are
worthy
of attention. Inaccuracies and
contradictions make for
uncertainty
about facts and dates. The
artist's death
engendered
a
partial eclipse
in the taste for his art.
Paradoxically,
this was
accompanied by
the
periodical
re-
publication
of
many
works from the
early
literature and
by
the
fashion for
picture-books
which continues unabated to our
day.
The illustrations are
repeated
from one book to another and have
at last emasculated the total work. L ike all other historians of
Rodin,
Elsen has
only
this material to work with.
The
study
of source material was closed to him and he
explains
why. Rodin,
before his
death, bequeathed
to France the whole of
his
production
and
possessions.
This
legacy,
assembled in his town
house at the H6tel de Biron and at his villa-studio in
Meudon,
comprises
the
complete body
of his
projects, models, sketches,
variants, drawings, sketchbooks,
and art collections. To this have
to be added his
library, private papers,
and
correspondence.
The
cataloguing
is still in
progress
and little of it has been
published.1
*
Rodin's 'Gates
of
Hell'.
By
Albert E. Elsen.
xi+ i6o pp. (1o3
pl.).
Minneapolis
(University of Minnesota Press), L ondon (Oxford University Press),
3
3.
1 Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. France. Fascicule
16,
Musee National Rodin, Paris
['9451].
79
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THE L ITERATURE OF ART
The
only listing
of the
sculptures (very incomplete)
is the
Grappe
catalogue,
which was
prudently
described
by
its author as an
'essai de classement
chronologique'.
This
catalogue
itself is based on
the earlier literature and has been but
slightly brought up
to date
since
1927.
Therefore
any
research into a
specific
work is threaten-
ed
by
its inaccuracies and
lapses. Moreover,
Rodin's
papers
and
correspondence
must remain
unpublished
until
1967, by
which
time French law will no
longer 'protect' persons
therein men-
tioned.
Finally
it is difficult to
gain
access to
many works, par-
ticularly
the
uncatalogued models, projects,
and
drawings.
Infrequently
some selections of these works are
arranged
for
temporary
exhibition.2
In
short,
researchers are
entirely depend-
ent on the
courtesy
of the
administration
of the Musee Rodin.
While
working
conditions at the Mastbaum Foundation in
Philadelphia
are of another order
entirely,
the number of works
there is limited and it is
largely
without source material.
An
inventory
of Rodin's works in
private
collections also
remains to be written. The
foregoing
reasons somewhat
explain
the lack of enthusiasm felt
by potential
Rodin historians and
they
attest to the
courage
of Elsen's
undertaking.
The first
chapter
of Elsen's book sketches in the
general
development
of French
sculpture
from
1850
onwards and shows
in which directions the
slow-starting
Rodin broke free of this
trend. Elsen
rightly
underlines one of the dominant
patterns
of
these
years:
the
progressive freezing-up
of
neo-antique
aesthetic
as defined
early
in the
century,
codified
by
the
Academie, taught
for better or worse in the
lcole,
maintained in the
public's
taste
by
the
Salons,
and at
length
contaminated
by
a
growing
'modern-
ity'.
Rodin was to
ignore
these manifestations which
display
a
degraded imagery
and a
paucity
of formal
invention;
from an
early age
he turned
away
from this conformist
sculpture,
in the
direction of a different milieu to which he owed his first formation.
Elsen does not
sufficiently
demonstrate
that,
from
1850 on,
a new
movement
sharply diverged
from the centres of
rigid
academism
and dominated the scene. This new attitude set the tone for
Rodin's first
years.
It was
directly
tied to the tradition of
'realism',
or one
may say,
of the
'baroque',
which was
kept
alive
by
the
independents
and those who were refused
by
the Salons in
mid-century: Barye, Clesinger, Etex,
Preault.
Among
the
young
artists one
figure particularly
dominated -
Carpeaux,
from whom Rodin was to receive his
training
around
1855.3
Thus,
in
considering
the
I870's,
Elsen
groups together
under
the label 'academicians' the
figures
whom he sees as the
'leading
sculptors'
of the
day:
'Guillaume, Dubois,
Mercia,
Chapu, Dalou,
Delaplanche,
Barrias, Falguiere, Carpeaux,
Crauck and Schone-
werk'. In such small details Elsen commits minor inaccuracies
which reflect a
widespread misconception
of the
period's
tenden-
cies.4 For to
group Carpeaux
with the academicians is as little
true
today
as it was in 1860. If
Carpeaux's
work itself were not
proof enough
of this, then its critical reception
would attest to it.
His whole career developed
on the margin of, or better still
despite,
this milieu, and foreshadowed that of Rodin. In contra-
distinction to Rodin, Carpeaux
did receive the Prix de Rome,
although
neither was called upon
to teach at the
lcole
or was
elected to the Acad6mie. Carpeaux's
success under the Second
Empire
was
due,
like that of Rodin under the
Republic,
to the
receipt
of
impressive
commissions. And these
depended,
in both
cases,
on individual
patronage
which was
fundamentally opposed
to the
system
of selection
by competition
demanded
by
the
Academie.
The commission for the Gates demonstrates this well. Whatever
the
political complexion
of the Comit6 des Beaux-Arts
may
have
been,
whether liberal or
conservative,
the commission itself was
granted owing
to the intervention of a
powerful political figure.
Edmond
Turquet, right-hand
man of
Jules Ferry,
was at the
source from which flowed the most anti-clerical decisions of the
Third
Republic.
Rodin
accepted
the commission for the Gates
a few
days
after the Government had decided to
expel
the
Jesuits
from France.
Elsen is more at ease when he leaves the
study
of the
period
to
focus on Rodin. What he
says
of
importance
about the
years
1875-80
when Rodin was
painfully discovering Michelangelo
and
-
without so much
heart-searching
-
Gothic
art,
has
already
been
said;
but he
says
it better. As has been
repeatedly observed,
The
Age of
Bronze is at once a break with the
sculptor's past
and with
the art of his
day.
Its
history
still remains to be
written, although
Elsen treats it with a
sensitivity
to formal
analysis
which is his
book's
major
virtue. The
Age of
Bronze is the manifesto of an
'existential'
conception
of
sculpture.
In it Rodin burned
away
the
last traces of what Elsen
rightly
calls an
'initially
clever but
mediocre talent'. Henceforth Rodin conceives
sculptural
form as
'the
expressiveness
of
structure, movement, modelling'
as
worthy
'devices to
convey important meanings'.
In addition to the art of the
past
which
strengthened
his
style,
Rodin meditated
long
on
poetry
which led him to transform his
art into visual
poetry.
L ike
Rilke, Cladel,
and
others,
Elsen stresses the
importance
of
Dante and Baudelaire for Rodin who studied their decisive texts
prior
to the commission of the
Gates, although
the reason for the
selection of the Divine
Comedy
remains
unexplained.
As far as is
possible,
Elsen tries to avoid the discredited method
by
which the
style
of works in the
plastic
arts is
explained by analogies
and
'correspondences'
that the critic sets
up
between work and text.
Elsen is forced to
rely
on limited source material
-
fifteen or so
drawings
based on Dante taken from the
Goupil
album and some
drawings
from the one
copy
of L es Fleurs du Mal made for Galli-
mard
-
with the
help
of which he describes the circumstances of
these
relationships
and the
way
in which the texts are
suggestive
of
images
and
help
define a
specific plastic
vision.
The choice of the
Inferno
is not
surprising
in
nineteenth-century
French art which was more conscious of Dante than Elsen will
allow.5 This
awareness,
as
clearly
marked in other artists as in
Rodin,
does not reflect a
deep understanding
of the
religious pro-
blems of the
period,
nor of the chequered
fortunes of the Catholic
church. It
simply provided
the
pessimism
of the romantics with a
perfect decoy,
a dramatic and
imaginative epic
of human destiny.
One is aware of the effect it had on Rodin. In
1889,
nine
years
after the commission, the Goncourts, contemptuous
of auto-
didacts, noted that 'le Dante, dans son cerveau d'ouvrier illitre, devient
une religion dtroite
et bite'.6
Few precise literary
references can be traced in the drawings
made
prior
to and contemporary
with the Gates. What references
there are, were to be abandoned during
the course of work. The
picturesque,
the anecdotal, the settings
and ensembles sought
out
by
the romantics were eschewed
in
favour of a strong image,
reduced to human proportions, particularly
when the texts des-
cribe the
greatest physical
trials
coupled
with the
greatest
moral
2
Recently,
'Rodin Inconnu,
Musee du L ouvre', Paris,
December
1962-
January 1963.
3
L . CL AMENT-CARPEAUX: L a virite sur
l'weuvre
et la vie de
J.
B.
Carpeaux,
2 vols.,
Paris
[1934-5], 1, ch.I.
4
Dalou,
in L ondon from
1871
to
188o,
cannot be attached to the developments
in the French milieux
during
these
years.
The
'personification'
of Science by
Carpeaux
is in
reality
one of the two
figures
intended for the extrados of the
pediment
destined for the decoration of the Pavillon de Flore of the Palais du
L ouvre,
L a France
Impiriale portant
la
lumidre
dans le monde et
protegeant l'agriculture
et les sciences. One
accepts
this with
difficulty
as an
example 'typical
of the
declamatory sculpture
in the Salons'. The model for the
pediment
was exhibited
at the Salon of 1866 and not of
1879.
5 A. COUNSON: Dante en
France,
Paris
[1906];
1. DE VASCONCEL L ES: L 'inspiration
dantesque
dans
l'art
romantiquefranfais,
Paris
[I1925].
6
E. AND
J.
DE GONCOURT:
Journal,
Mimoires de la vie
littiraire,
22
vols.,
Monaco
[1956-8], xvI, p.62 (Thursday,
I8th
April 1889.)
80
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THE L ITERATURE OF ART
torment. Rodin translates them into isolated
figures
or
groups
in
which the nude
body
alone
expresses, through
its
gesture,
move-
ment, changes
in its
anatomy,
and in its
substance,
the
tragic
nature of human
experience.
Certainly
the
reading
of Baudelaire intensified Rodin's
dantisme as far as
passion
and eroticism are concerned. But who
else? What do we
know,
for
example,
of
'la
lecture tris libre avec de
tenaces
prefirences
. . .
pour
Flaubert et
pour quelques
vivants'
?7
Elsen's
lengthy analysis
of the illustrations of the Fleurs du Mal are
perhaps
more relevant to the
history
of Rodin's
spiritual progress
than
they
are to an
understanding
of the themes and forms of the
Gates.
These illustrations are
late;
Rodin was at work on them in
1887.8 One
should neither relate them to the
drawings
for Dante
nor see in
any
of them a
'prophetic prelude
to the actual under-
taking
of the door'.
Rather,
one should see them as
inspired by
the Gates.
Two
chapters (III
and
V)
are concerned with an archaeo-
logical study
of the Gates. A few documents drawn from the
Archives
Nationales,
which Elsen should have
quoted
in their
original text,
shed little
light.
One cannot
easily
relate them
to a
step-by-step development
of the Gates. The sources which
Elsen uses to reconstruct a
chronological development
for the
work remain a half-dozen undated
drawings
and
clay-models
long
familiar to Rodin historians. None the less he
brings
two
previously unpublished drawings
to
light.
One of them
(his Fig.9)
confirms for Elsen the often
alleged
suggestion
of the
inspiration
drawn from Ghiberti's doors for
the
Baptistry
of Florence. This
drawing
shows
clearly
that Rodin's
first efforts were directed towards
making
an architectonic com-
position
which he
developed
in a series of
drawings.
These draw-
ings
restrict the
sculptural
element to historiated
panels
within a
flat, legible,
and
symmetrical composition;
but one cannot
identify
the scenes
depicted. Cladel,
who saw and heard a
great
deal
concerning Rodin,
hints at an earlier scheme based on 'un
portail gothique
du XVime
sidcle',9
but to which no known work can
be related. The
beginnings
of the Gates remain unclear and links
are
missing.
A letter of Rodin dated I88
i,
the translation of which
is
given very imperfectly compared
with the
original
text that
Elsen cited in his article
of
1952,
alludes to a
plan
that Rodin had
of
flanking
the Gates with monumental
figures.
Is this a
memory
of Milton ?10 An
unpublished drawing (his pl.42)
indicates
them,
but the
iconography
of these isolated
figures
remains
problematic.
Ought
one to follow Elsen in his identification of an Eve which
would be used at the same time as a
crowning
and a mullion
(his pl.33)
?
Elsen notes the eclecticism of such an architectural
setting,
pointing
to sources in Gothic and Renaissance art. The
parallel
he draws with the L ast
Judgement
on the
facade
of the Cathedral
of Orvieto is
convincing.
The same is true for
relationships
between some
preparatory drawings
and
Italianizing
tombs of the
sixteenth
century. L et us note that when in Paris Rodin could
somehow recall the Ghiberti
Baptistry
doors while
looking
at the
bronze doors which
Triqueti
made for the church of the Madel-
eine. Here, as
distinguished
from Ghiberti but in accord with the
drawings
of
Rodin, there are
eight
historical reliefs of biblical
subjects surmounted
by
a
rectangular tympanum,
which Ghi-
berti's lacks, and stabilized
by
a
centrally placed figure.
From the
very beginning
this
strongly
marked
architectonic
arrangement avoided what Elsen
clearly
sees as the 'clash of his
developing sculptural conceptions
with the
constraining
form of
architecture'. This
struggle was to result in the abandonment of
compartmented
reliefs for the free
play
of
sculpture
across the
whole surface of the door.
The
difficulty
of
applying
a method which aims at the evo-
lutionary study
of themes and
styles
to a work whose
chronology
defies
precise
examination leads Elsen into a certain
repetitiveness.
Two
long chapters (IV
and
VI) develop
the central issues.
One of them
goes beyond
a
study
of the
procedure employed
to
give
a brilliant account of Rodin at work. The
way
in which
Rodin controls the chaos of an inferno whose nature is the human
form is treated with remarkable
insight;
Rodin's invention and
execution
play
havoc with
accepted
notions. In his
composition,
equal
value is
given
to the details and to the
ensemble; the
incidental takes on a new
authority;
the visual
impact
is en-
hanced
by
the
disconcerting play
of elements of different scale.
An
anatomy
which draws its laws from
corporeal
and
spiritual
suffering
leads to a deliberate alteration in conventional distor-
tion. This
anatomy
thrives on the
interplay
of detail with en-
semble,
the free
re-manipulation
of elements. Its
expressive power
is increased
by
the invention of new visual and
psychological
categories:
the
fragmented,
the
unformed,
the
unfinished, the
yearned-for.
In his denial of traditional verisimilitude to volumes
and
surfaces,
the artist establishes an
ambiguous
vision. The
spec-
tator is conscious of a disordered relief of turbulent
humanity
imposed
on the work
by
the
capriciousness
of
light
or
by
his own
empathic experience.
Elsen wishes to
imply many things
when he
speaks
of the
'meaning'
of the Gates.
Fundamentally, separated
from the
'letter' of the Divine
Comedy,
the work becomes
through
the
years
a
pretext
for an endless creative adventure which allows the
artist to build his vision of a modern inferno wherein the
tragic
isolation of mankind
prevails.
This inferno of
anonymous figures
ends
by crystallizing
into a
more vivid
image
than ever of two
episodes
of Dante. The draw-
ings
and the most elaborate model we have for the Gates demon-
strate to what
degree they
fascinated Rodin. Their success in
French
nineteenth-century
art is
greater
than Frances Yates
suggests.11
The
story
of Francesca became the
symbol
of
passion
-
tragic,
innocent,
and
punished;
that of
Ugolino,
in whom De Sanctis
saw 'the most
eloquent
and modern character of the Divine
Comedy',12
became the
symbol
of the witness of the
punishment
of innocence and the
picture
of a monstrous
paternity.
Elsen has
justly
noticed the attraction that this last theme held for Rodin as
both
foreground
and
background
of the
genesis
of the Gates. More
than
just
an element of Rodin's
dantisme,
can we not see here the
link which binds
together
the Gates to what he was
reading
before
I880, perhaps
even the reason for the artist's interest in Dante?
Elsen does note that 'before
188o,
Rodin did a small
sculpture
of
Ugolino and his
dying
sons'. Rodin's two most
trustworthy
biographers, Cladel and L awton, agree
on the date of
I875
for
this work, and L awton adds that it was done in Rome, from
where Rodin could have
brought
back a 'small size model of
Ugolino which
may
be considered as the virtual commencement
of the Porte de
l'Enfer'.13
The richness of dress in which Rodin
was to
wrap
this theme - in the form of
drawings,
in
groups,
in
the Gates themselves - can
hardly
be understood without reference
to the
Ugolino by Carpeaux which was the
sculpture
of the
I860's.
Elsen takes account of the differences in
style,
but he tends to
underestimate the
possible influence on Rodin of a famous ante-
cedent
by the
only
artist of his time that he admired 'avec en-
thousiasme'.14 The hesitation that Rodin shows in the selection for
7 G. GEFFROY: L a Vie Artistique, Deuxieme Sdrie, Paris
[I893],
p. 113.
8
GONCOURT, Op. cit., xv, pp.6o-I (Thursday, 29th
December
1887).
9J.
CL ADEL :
Rodin,
sa vie
glorieuse,
sa vie
inconnue,
6dition
d6finitive,
Paris
[I950],
p.140.
10
Paradise
L ost, I, 648-9.
11
F. A. YATES:
'Transformations of Dante's
Ugolino', Journal of
the
Warburg
and
Courtauld
Institutes, 14 [11951], pp.92-117.
12
'L 'Ugolino
di
Dante',
Nuovi
Saggi Critici, 5th edn., Naples [1892],
p.55.
13
F. L AWTON: The
life
and work
of Auguste Rodin,
New York
[1907], p.
x12.
14
Rodin to
Bourdelle, quoted by
E.
CAMPAGNAC: 'Rodin et Bourdelle
d'aprbs
des
lettres
inedites',
L a Grande
Revue, 131 [1929], p. I
1.
81
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THE L ITERATURE OF ART
Ugolino's pose,
seen
simultaneously
as seated
(Goupil drawings,
last model for the
Gates)
and on
all-fours,
has an antecedent in the
work of
Carpeaux.15 Moreover,
Rodin could
scarcely
have been
unaware of the fascination that Dante held for
Carpeaux,
nor of
the
long genesis
of
Carpeaux's
work in Rome:
Mantz,
in
1875,
and
Chesneau,
the
year
of the
commission,
in the first
important
monograph
devoted to
Carpeaux,
both dwell on its
lengthy
development.16
This
image
of sustained
suffering
was to take
tenacious hold on Rodin:
during
the
great
exhibition of
1900
the
artist was to show an
'esquisse pour
un
Ugolin.
Robuste itude d'une
figure
d'homme assis,
un
peu
penchde
en
avant; pour
un
Ugolin qui
n'a
pas
itd exdcutd.'17
The
degree
to which the
representation
of
Ugolino
-
seen as a seated
figure
-
overlaps
that of the Penseur is evident
soon after
I88o,
to
judge
from the most elaborate model
(Elsen,
pl.43).
The
figure
of the Penseur is of course the embodiment of the
meditative world of the Gates. Elsen stresses its value as a
strong,
hieratic,
universal
image
and the
plastic importance
it takes in
the
composition:
while
echoing
the monumental
figures
of
tympana
and
pediments
it
greets
the
spectator
at the threshold
of the edifice. Elsen
rightly
relates the meditative
pose
to tradi-
tional
representations
of Melancholia whose 'models' date back to
before
Michelangelo.18
He holds to the
autobiographical meaning
contained in an
image
which
separates
the
spiritual
existence of
the artist from his active and
passionate
life.
However,
it is sur-
prising
to see
Elsen, usually
so
perceptive
in his formal
analysis,
accepting
a little-known wax model
(his pl.6o
and 61
i)
as a sketch
for the Penseur. The sitter could have been the same in both cases
but
nothing
in it
proclaims
the
closely
knit
composition
of the
Penseur,
which was conceived from the
very
first in its
position
in
situ. Without a doubt one must
separate
this work from the
genesis
of the Gates.
Confronted with the final
work,
Rodin's Inferno summarizes
the descent of the artist into
himself,
a descent outside of
time,
a
descent whose modern and
personal meaning
is illuminated and
better revealed to us when its
path
is considered in the
light
of
Baudelaire.
Elsen, although employing freely
a
great
number of
analogies
which
seemingly
furnish
argument enough
for a re-
constitution of Rodin's
spiritual adventure,
none the less tends to
restrict the
origin
of Rodin's
sources;
Baudelaire is surrounded
by
a
fundamentally pessimistic
climate which
impregnated
the
'podsie
philosophique'
of the
century.
This
attitude,
nourished
by
Christian or
para-Christian
thought,
is at home in the
vocabulary
of vision and of the
epic:
it
sets forth the
great
theme
upon
which Baudelaire and
Rodin,
doubtless more than
others,
reflected - the situation of man in his
original
and irresolvable conflicts between
good
and
evil, pure
and
impure,
finite and infinite.19
Finally
does not an over-solicitousness for literary
sources risk
becoming
too exclusive a method ? For
example,
the
figure
of the
Vieille Femme, taken from the Gates, which Rodin described under
a multitude of titles, certainly
evokes Villon, Ronsard, and
Baudelaire; but does it not also evoke Donatello? Could not
Rodin have known the Renaissance bronze statuette, so marked
was the
vogue
for such work in Rodin's time, which also
helped
popularize
the
image
of the
aged woman, seated and
decrepit ?20
Elsen has not overlooked a
capital point:
the absorption
into
the final Gates of the
original
formula wherein a flat system pre-
vailed to which a third dimension was
effectively
added. A visual
conflict is maintained in the Gates between a
respect
for the
architectonic framework and the central undefined
space
wherein
the forms seem to dissolve. The framework itself is
constantly
re-
constructed or altered
according
to variations in the
mouldings
which Rodin conceived of
anthropomorphically
and within
which there is no 'solution de continuiti'21 as he has observed in
Gothic art.
In the last
analysis
the Gates remains an illusionistic monu-
ment; striving
like an architectural edifice to
conjure up
a real
depth; altering according
to the
pace
with which the
spectator
moves about it. Here resides Rodin's fundamental
equation
of
sculpture
with architecture which he later
developed
in his writ-
ings
on Gothic art. Elsen
might
have
explored
these ideas more
profitably
had he treated more
thoroughly
Rodin's re-affirmation
of this attitude in the Tour du Travail: a work whose
history
Elsen
inaccurately reports22
and which he relates
solely
to Rodin's
socialist
preoccupations. Certainly
he is
right
in
seeing
it as an
epilogue
to the Gates and as a
project
for a 'modern version of the
building
of a
gothic
cathedral'. The Tour was intended to be a
immense
plastic poem glorifying
not
only
those who labour with
their hands but those who labour with their
minds,
as well as the
symbol
of the ascension of man from brute matter to
pure spirit.
In
passing
it
may
be added that Rodin
may
have considered
using
the Gates as an
entrance-way
to the Tour du
Travail.23
The
architectural formula of the Tour
develops
that of an
empathic
interior
space
which had been
already suggested
in the Gates and
which
curiously anticipated Wright's Guggenheim
Museum. Its
principle
is that of a tower-museum in which the
spectator
takes
a
long journey
in
space
and time. The monument carries him
along
a
one-way spiral staircase, open
on the
outside,
and accom-
panies
him on the interior core with an
uninterrupted
frieze
relief. In the case of both the Gates and the Tour the aim of the
work of art is to
engulf
and consume the
spectator.
Throughout
his work Elsen is to be
praised
for
liberating
the
Gates from facile
interpretations
which
simply
restrict themselves
to
explaining
its forms and
meanings by comparisons
with
moments in the
history
of
styles
or of ideas. He elects to
stay
with
the work and to recover it with a
patient
and creative
analysis
based on the
precision
of his
description.
The material Elsen
uses,
his
chronology
and
sources,
do not
push
the evidence much further than was
attempted
in the
earlier
literature,
on which the author has been forced to
rely.
The book tends in the direction of an
essay which,
not
forgetting
the admirable text
by Rilke,
throws
light
on a work of rich and
nebulous
genesis,
and
beyond this,
on Rodin himself. Elsen's book
will be ranked
among
the
very
small number of fundamental
Rodin studies. The illustrations are excellent.
Unfortunately
the
text suffers from
typographical
errors which affect names and
dates. The
bibliography,
while extensive, is
diffuse,
and
neglects
older studies concerned with Rodin which are still instructive, and
recent research, disappointing though
it is, on the Gates.24 Despite
an
apparently simple plan,
the book makes slow reading,
with its
accumulation of a wealth of incisive observations in the text and
footnotes which are
always
sensitive if not always convincing.
A
second reading
smooths over the burrs of historical method and
excessive interpretation.
15 J. GUIFFREY and P. MARCEL : Inventaire Gneiral
des dessins du Musle du L ouvre et
du Muse'e de
Versailles,
Alcole
Frangaise, 3,
Paris
[1909], No.2033.
16
p. MANTZ: 'Carpeaux',
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
[Ist May 1876],
pp.593-63x;
E. CHESNEAU: L e statuaire
J.
B.
Carpeaux,
sa vie et son
oauvre,
Paris
[1 88o], pp.69-83.
17
'Exposition
de
1900oo.
L '(Euvre de Rodin
...', Paris,
Socidtd d'ddition
artistique, 1900,
No. I oo.
18
A. CHASTEL : 'Melancholia in the sonnets of L orenzo de'
Medici', Journal of
the
Warburg
and Courtauld
Institutes, vIII [19451, pp.61-7.
19
j. HUNT:
The
Epic
in
Nineteenth-century France,
Oxford
[I94x],
ch.VII-X.
20
L . PL ANISCIG: Andrea
Riccio,
Vienna
[1927],
Illus.
79, 8o,
and 81.
21
j. CL ADEL :
Auguste Rodin,
I'homme et
l'euvre,
Bruxelles
[1908],
p.I43.
22
The idea for a Monument au Travail does not
belong
to
Jules
Desbois but
to Dalou who was
secretly
at work at this theme after
1889,
Carnets de Dalou
quoted by
M. DREYFOUS: Dalou,
sa vie et son
auvre,
Paris
[19031, PP.248-9.
Armand
Dayot tried,
but
only
after
190o,
to
instigate
an international
subscription
for
the monument which failed.
23
R. CANUDO: 'L a Torre del lavoro e della volonth di
Augusto Rodin',
Vita
d'Arte, I, [1908], pp.155-71.
24
w.
BOEK: 'Rodins
H6llenpforte
und ihre
kunstgeschichtliche Bedeutung',
Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch, xvI [19541, PP. 161-96.
82
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io. Study
for
Spring, by
Antoine Watteau. Three
crayons, 32 by 27 cm. (Cabinet
des
Dessins,
Musee du
L ouvre.)
8.
Zephyr
and
Flora, by L a Fosse.
Three
crayons, 261I by
21-6 cm.
(Cabinet
des
Dessins,
Musee du
L ouvre.)
9.
Zephyr
and Flora, by L a Fosse. Three crayons, 26 by 2 16 cm. (Cabinet
des
Dessins,
Musee du
L ouvre.)
II.
L andscape. Engraving by
Pietro Parboni
(181 o)
after the Grimaldi fresco
(see 15
on the
plan, Fig.A).
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