New Britain herald., 1917-11-17
FAMOUS SCULPTOR
 IS DEAD IN PARIS
Taken III One Week Ago of Pneu-
 monia, He Fails to Rally
SOME OF HIS BEST WORKS

After Struggling With Poverty for
 Over Fifty Years, M. Rodin Dies
 Known Throughout the World As a
 Bib Celebrity-Hls Career.
 Paris, Nov 17.-Auguste Rodin. the l famous sculptor. is dead.
 Auguste Rodin, struggled fifty years against poverty and abuse and ridicule for his unconventional ideas before he achieved undisputed celebrity as one of tho most famous sculptors of the world. Continuing his work until past his seventy-fifth year, he had ] however, notwithstanding those early handicaps, still time to enrich the l world with innumerabie examples of his impressioniStic inspirational | works, which are prized both in Eu- rope and America.
 | When finally recognized, M. Rodin was hailed by his admirers the Michael Angelo of the modern world.'' 1 He was worker in mass. producing his subjects in detail only so far as
 
 ception. His work thus had far 1 less finished form than the conven- 1 tional school of his day. Being thus ] ahead of his time, it was only by de- grees that he forced recognition. His 1 own feeling was: II had rather be understood by a few than known to the world" and storms of criticism were never strong enough to turn him from his course.
 Born in Paris in 184O, of wretched- ly poor parents, he was first heard of in 1864, when, after a short time spent in studying under Barye, he sent his mask ''The Man With the Broken Nose,' to the Salon. Although this interesting head contained the germ of all that was great in his later work, 1t was refused, and his poverty obliged him to spend the next six years in the drudgery of an artists as- s1stant, doing all the tedious, mechani- cal, prof1tless labor of an artisan Later he collaborated with a Belgian sculptor in carving figures for the Brussels Bourse, and then tried his hand on potters clay at Sevres fac tory.
 His second attempt to gain recoR- milton at the Paris Salon was huniliat- ing. He submitted. in 1877, "The Age of BrOnzc,' only to have it rejected and to have himself accused of custinG it from life instead of creating an original work. Too dismayed to rec ognze what was in reality an extra ordinary testimony to his powers, M. Rodin indignantly protested, while the Partisan critics heaped further abuse upon him.
 It was not until 1880, after the ex- hibition of his St. John the Baptist that the tide began to turn in his favor. Struck with the genius dis played in this work, the sculptor Boucher commissioned M. Rodin to execute group of children for him. tained his results, watched him at 1 work. To his astonishment, Rodin composed the group in a few hours and as soon as 1t was completed Boucher rushed off to spread the news ! among his friends, declaring that the man who could do what he had seen Rodin do could certainly also have | created "The Age of BronZe.' It was l Rodin's vindication, and in recognition of it, the work was purchased by the state, and is now in the museum of 1 the Luxembourg.
 From then on he created a number 1 of notable works, among them his "Victor Hugo," "The Burgesses of l Calais" and his statue of "Balzac' | The latter was an extraordinary and unconventional conception of the great novelist, which Rodin executed upon commission from the Society of Men of Letters. When it was unveiled in l 1898 1t was received with almost uni versal jest and jibe. The Partisan public became so worked up over the merits of the monument that the con- troversy for the time eclipsed interest even in the sensational Dreyfus trial
 Ralzac was represented in a VOL luminous dressing gown, the features and figures roughly sketched. Critics exclaimed that it was "an enormous porpoise standing upright, draped in a thick bath wrapper" They called it grotesque, huge and fiippant: while on the other side. there were those ! who saw in it "the incarnation of the great writer's soul" The society which | had ordered it, however, held the ma jOritV view that the work was incom- prehensible, if not ridiculous. and they gave the commission to the sculptor Falguiere who executed q more conventional work in the follow ing year.
 In the meantime, and for years af- ter the Balzac controversy, Rodin de- i voted himself to a great decorative i composition some twenty feet high "Thc Portal of Hell," for the Museum of Decorative Arts. This work was inspired mainly by Dante's Inferno, the poet himself being seated at the top, while at bis feet is the writhing 1 crowd of the damned. torn by the frenzy of passion and anguish Of de Spair The Iigur" of "1'hc Thinker which iS one of Rodin'S best known works in America. i;lS been exhibited