New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-11-19
Rodin
hands.

The death OF Roam, IKE IHe uooIi VI
Degas, brings with it sense of the ending
Of an historical chapter. Both men were
venerable, the heroes of battles fought
long ago in the development of French
art. Both were types of revolt against the
conventions of their time. DegaS opposed
a brilliant impressionistic realism to the
cut-and-dried pictorial habit Of the Salon.
Rodin PLAYED a similar role. The sculpture
acceptable to prize-giving officialdom when
he came upon the scene seemed to him too
far removed from the actualities OF life.
He used to keep his nude models moving
about in the studio, as suited themselves,
until a pose attracted him, when he fixed
it and went to work. To friend who
asked him if this did not place him at the
orders of his models, he replied: mo;
am not at their orders, but at those OF
nature" His greatest service to modern
art was his rehabilitation of the truth as
the first and most important ingredient IN
a work of sculpture. At the outset, as all
the familiar anecdotes relate, he very
nearly overdid his unfinching naturalism.
His famous cage of Brass" was suspected
of being a cast from the model. He had,
however, the tenacity of the true pioneer,
and on his sterling fidelity to life he based
an extraordinarily successful career.
Like Degas, again, in the years when
the French school was undergoing disin-
tegration and reformation, Rodin. was
sorely needed. Sculpture had been gradu-
ally crystallized into formulas, and steril-
lied in the process. A capable, well-pol-
ished echnique-inaienab property Of
the race-survived and flourished, but 1t
steadily smothered originality and ideas.
For one man of genius like Dubois-the
sculptor of the glorious Joan of Arc at
Rheims-who could rise above its chilling
influence, hundreds were benumbed by it
into the practice of trite Journalism. 1t
took a long time for Rodin to disturb this
situation. Down TO the day of his death
he had his bitter critics, and, we may say
in passing, he was not by any means above
criticism. He had the defects of his quail
ties-a tendency TO bombast, an excess Of
sensuous emotion, rather Haunting vir-
tuosity-and these defects, especially in
his later years, led many of his disciples
astray. But even while his countrymen
were contemning him, and he was deserv-
ing some of their animadversions, he was
doing them good, calling them away from
false gods and directing them into fresher,
more wholesome paths.
There is an immense amount Of the
sheer bone and sinew Of humanity at the
bottom Of even his most rhetorical -four
ishes. He mistook himself for an inter-
prefer of Dante and the Greek mythology.
In that capacity he made lucky guesses
now and then, instead of the absolutely
convincing revelations of the born seer.
Yet whether as a poet or prosateur he
was, unfailingly, the master of form and
of technique, who, if he did not transport
you TO an authentic Olympus, at all events
consoled you by making you feel the solid
earth under your feet. His nudes, consid-
cred simply as nudes, and without refer
ence 10 the titles affixed to them, are SUI
perb. They are transcripts from nature
raised TO higher power by consummate
modelling. And sometimes they triumph
antly affirm themselves, title and all. lie
Penseur" is a case in point. This sombre
bronze, seated brooding on the steps of the
Pantheon, is one Of those sculptures which
are no more moving TO the initiated artist
than TO the layman utterly ignorant of the
lesson lying in nuance Of workmanship.
II has aesthetic beauty and a spirit which
touches the imagination.
For Rodin, the man and the artist, bat
tle-scarred but unquelled, delightful per-
sonality and talker, the friend of youth
and progress. fate could hardly have de-
yiscd anything better than the spacious
evening Of life which he enjoyed, full Of