Action Heroes
Donatello, Michelangelo, Cellini,
Bernini, Canova….what next?
David
Donatello
1430
bronze
David
Michelangelo
1501-1504
marble
David
Bernini
1623-1624
marble
Benvenuto Cellini
Perseus
1545-54
Antonio Canova
Perseus with the Head of Medusa
1804-1806
Auguste Rodin
The Age of Bronze
1875
Auguste Rodin
You already know him….
Auguste Rodin
The Thinker
1880
Rodin has made the work of the mind palpable.
Donatello
St. John the Baptist
1457
Lorenzo Ghiberti
St. John the Baptist
1412-1417
Bernini
John the Baptist
1612-1615
In 1875, Rodin went to
Rome to study the classical
models and the work of
Michelangelo.
Michelangelo
Dying Slave
1513
Auguste Rodin
St. John the Baptist
1878
The Kiss
1885-1896
The Burghers of Calais
1895
“In 1347 King Edward III had
besieged the French town of
Calais for nearly a year, and by
early August its starved population
could not hold out any longer.
Edward III then told the people of
Calais that they would all be killed,
unless six of its citizens presented
themselves to the King, dressed
only in their shirts, with a rope
around their necks, and with the
keys to the city in their hands.
Rodin centered The Burghers of
Calais around a modern version of
heroism that can be termed ‘civic
heroism', which draws on the
collective and civic courage of the
average person, rather than on the
physical courage of the single and
outstanding individual. Or, to put it
differently, Rodin turned the statue
into a democratic exemplum” (
Richard Swedberg in Theory,
Culture and Society, 2005).
The Burghers of Calais
1895
Honoré de Balzac
20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850
Due to his keen observation of detail
and unfiltered representation of
society, Balzac is regarded as one of
the founders of realism in European
literature. He is renowned for his
multifaceted characters, who are
complex, morally ambiguous and
fully human. His writing influenced
many subsequent novelists.
Auguste Rodin
Monument to Balzac
1891–1898
“As form followed form, Rodin’s vision
slowly grew. And at last he saw
Balzac: a substantial figure, striding
powerfully forwards, its heaviness
counteracted by the fall of the coat.
The hair weighed down the powerful
neck, and from the mass of hair there
gazed a face intoxicated with its own
vision, a face that boiled with creative
energy: the fact of an elemental force.
This was Balzac in in all the fullness
of his productive powers, the founder
of generations, the waster of
fates…This was how Rodin saw
Balzac in the moment of intense
concentration and tragic
exaggeration, and this is how he
created him. The image did not fade:
it came into being.”
--Rainer Maria Rilke
Auguste Rodin
Monument to Balzac
1891–1898
Edward Steichen
Midnight - Rodin's Balzac
1908
Camille Claudel
“My very dearest down on both
knees before your beautiful body
which I embrace.” Letter from
Rodin to Camille Claudel (end of
1884 - beginning of 1885).
Camille Claudel
The Implorer
1892
Camille Claudel
La Valse (The Waltz)
1892
Camille Claudel
La Vague