I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need. - Auguste Rodin
After an interesting afternoon at the Musée d'Orsay, I headed to Musée Rodin, a museum which is home to some of the finest works of the French sculptor, François Auguste René Rodin.
From Rue de la Légion d'Honneur, I took the Paris metro to Rue de Varenne and then walked down to the Musée Rodin.
The magnificent dome of L'Hôtel National des Invalides...
That's where the great general, Napoleon Bonaparte lies buried, right under the golden dome. Hope to visit Les Invalides alongwith Neeti next week...
The dome of the Les Invalides follows me as I enter the Musée Rodin...
Musée Rodin first opened to the public on August 4, 1919, in a mansion, formerly called the Hôtel Peyrenc de Moras. This premises is now known as the Hôtel Biron. Built on Rue de Varenne, between 1727 and 1732, Hôtel Biron is home to nearly 300 works from Auguste Rodin’s collection.
In 1908, Rodin rented four rooms in Hôtel Biron - south-facing, ground-floor rooms opening onto the terrace, to use as his studios. The surrounding garden that had run wild and that made a strong impression on Rodin, encouraging him to place some of his works and part of his collection of antiques amidst its greenery. From 1911 onwards, he occupied the entire building.
The property was officially sold to the French government in 1911, and the government intended to house the Department of Civil Buildings. Rodin negotiated with the French government to donate his works, set up a museum for a right to stay here for the rest of his life. In 1916, the government accepted Rodin's offer and the museum was opened in 1919.
Unfortunately, the interiors of Hôtel Biron was closed for renovation and reopening is expected in November or December this year. I could only explore the outdoor exhibits and some exhibits on the ground floor...
Les Bourgeois de Calais, completed in 1889, commemorates an occurrence in 1347 during the Hundred Years' War, when the port town Calais was under siege by the English for over a year. Wikipedia tells me:
"According to medieval writer Jean Froissart, Edward III (of England) offered to spare the people of the city if any six of its top leaders would surrender themselves to him, presumably to be executed. Edward demanded that they walk out wearing nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first, and five other burghers joined with him. Saint Pierre led this envoy of volunteers to the city gates. It was this moment, and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice, and willingness to face imminent death that Rodin captured in his sculpture, scaled somewhat larger than life.Although the burghers expected to be executed, their lives were spared by the intervention of England's queen, Philippa of Hainault, who persuaded her husband to exercise mercy by claiming that their deaths would be a bad omen for her unborn child. (Her son, Thomas of Windsor, only lived for one year.)"
The city of Calais engaged Rodin to create the commemorative sculpture in 1884...
Under French law no more than twelve casts of works of Rodin can be made. The first cast of Les Bourgeois de Calais is in Calais. The one here is a duplicate cast...
Kids posing in front of Les Trois Ombres or "The Shades" - inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, the sculpture represents the souls of the damned, standing at the entrance to hell, pointing to an inscription, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”...
La Porte de l'Enfer, or the Gates of Hell, depicts a scene from "The Inferno", the first section of Dante's Divine Comedy...
Pierre de Wissant, Naked Figure...
The gardens...
A sculpture titled Je Suis Belle or I am Beautiful...
This an erotic statue, a combination of Crouching Woman and Falling Man, whose back seems to arch under the strain of holding her in his outstretched arms...
Probably because of the ongoing renovation, a lot of exhibits weren't described here...
A view of Hôtel Biron...
I am tempted to take a seat...
Rodin's Monument to Victor Hugo...
The beautiful balcony of Hôtel Biron...
Roses in bloom...
The famous work of Rodin - Le Penseur or The Thinker...
Le Penseur is a nude male figure, sitting on a rock with his chin resting on one hand as though deep in thought...
The sculpture is often used as an image to represent philosophy...
On the lighter side, I had seen drawings similar to Le Penseur showing a man sitting on toilet. No wonder, that's where crappy ideas come from...
Indeed this is a beautiful sculpture...
The laboratory of creation...
Rodin's Le Baiser (The Kiss), which was his homage to women and their bodies, as equal partners. Wikipedia says more about Le Baiser:
"The sculpture, The Kiss, was originally titled Francesca da Rimini, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalised in Dante's Inferno (Circle 2, Canto 5) who falls in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta's younger brother Paolo. Having fallen in love while reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, the couple are discovered and killed by Francesca's husband. In the sculpture, the book can be seen in Paolo's hand. The lovers' lips do not actually touch in the sculpture, suggesting that they were interrupted and met their demise without their lips ever having touched."
A sculpture of Adam...
The Thinker on a pedestal...
A sculpture of Victor Hugo in the nude...
Pierre de Wissant's sculpture without the head...
As I head out of the museum towards the Pantheon, my first stop on the Da Vinci Code trail, I could not disagree with Rodin's statement: "Sculpture is the art of the hole and the lump."
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