New-York tribune., 1900-09-02

rfe- 1un Of vague suggestion. fun Of mystery.
You would call his ''St- John the Baptist" simply
tie Image OF staIwart peasant strfding nude
scross the plain, there were not something
ndednahiy hierophantic about the figure some
thing that would detach it. as essentially i'm
posing ana eloquent from any company Of mod
en- statues he can be lucid In the bust of
~Sehona" the very spirit Of war Is incarnate
Whenever, il fact, he is dealing with primitive
emotions Rooin IS superb He thinks long over
his idea- and by the time It is embodied In
marble al Irrelevant trappings have been
striped from ii; he expresses only the essence
Each design energes as from dim world in
which the sculptor has been torrnented by
thousand thoughts He conQUers them all and
bT-ogs from behind the vea the very soul Of
VA, oT love or misery, Or Joy the case may
b Ezha-ing rom II are the inpalpable qualities
which belonged TO il II the shadowy reaches Of
nature % which Rodln has penetrated He has
felt these. and so can make the specta tor feel
CaeD- toe II would De hard 10 exaggerate as
4 IS impossible 70 describe, this air as of the
reaisn OF e supernatural WOrld, with which he
clothes his statues II gives one sensation of
intense emotional and Intellectual delight If
Rodiu worked always along certain lines the
delight would never cease But the subtIety OF
Is thought is often matched by antiquities lying
on he surface II some Of his works he reminds
rs that his imagination is not only powerful
but unb-idIed- In his portraits, in a relief like
tie exquisite Young Mother" in the Head of
John the Baptist on q Charger and in the
amazing -Apollo"-this last representation of
ths SUI god that fairly quivers with life and
uodon-here Is nothing II the execution that
repels; It follows the idea searchingly and
snzveIy; the marble pleases through sheer sub
dety and beauty OF surface; one fingers over
contour and : declare that
most skIlfuI craftsman of the Academy could
produce work more exquisitely sensuous- Rodin
Is not content. however, to abide by the stand
s-d erected in his noHFest works
When he chooses he can be merely grotesQue-
HIS 'Trois Fauuesses,' q group IN which three
uude figures stand IN 4 circle, with arms inter
laced, may represent something perceived by
c1e sculptor II Z vision: but as the figures are
not only ugly, but pUerile II their departure
from the facts o. nature, the whole work is
reluctantly classified with the objects that de-
serve 70 be broken into fragments the moment
after they are executed There IS q good deal
O. this sort Of thing IN the exhibition. so much
Ct Il. indeed, that at first the visitor seems 10
have fallen upon nothing but tumult Of form,
3 chaos II which humanity, robbed Of all its
familiar chara cLerisLiCs has been transformed
into mere tangIe Of contorted limbs Il is
only after a patient examination Of the works
and z careful separation Of the good from the
bad that one realizes how great gulf divides
The violence o< master like Rodin from the
violence Of the minor men who care simply 10
make sensation RodIn is stormy and eccea-
t-ic, because his genius demands It Of him,
AID the obnoxious works with which his exhi-
bt-.on Is dotted stand for nothing but the IN
iocky moments n which he has been unable to
give his conception adequate form The danger