Shortly before his death, Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) made provisions to bequeath to the French nation his entire stock, archives and personal collection. To these, he added two buildings as a museum and shrine to his art and life. The Hôtel Biron in Paris and the Villa des Brillants in the suburb of Meudon form the Musée Rodin, opened to the public in 1919. 2012 marks a significant turn for this institution: an ambitious programme of renovation and redisplay is under way, under the leadership of the Museum’s new director, Catherine Chevillot. Art amateurs and academics alike will be pleased to know that this will not curtail the visitor’s experience: while the west wing of the mus­eum at rue de Varenne is closed for renovation there is plenty to be seen across both sites. This article concentrates on the current exhibition, before considering the temporary redisplay of the collection, and how the next few years will breathe new life into Rodin’s legacy.

A marmoreal sea of pensive faces, grieving nymphs and embracing couples has engulfed the chapel of the Hôtel Biron.1 With sixty pieces spanning the whole of the sculptor’s career, Rodin: the flesh, the marble (to 3rd March 2013) examines the place of marble in his work.2 If we are nowadays perhaps more familiar with Rodin’s bronzes, for his contemporaries, marble’s status as a noble medium harked back to sacrosanct antiquity and Michelangelo, the two poles around which Rodin’s œuvre revolved.3 Marble was remarkably popular among his patrons, and from the 1870s to his death a small army of assistants produced some four hundred marbles from the several workshops Rodin ran with entrepreneurial acumen. This studio practice was by no means unusual, but throughout the twentieth cent­ury the reputation of Rodin’s marbles experienced ebbs and flows, being especially affected by the famous trial of the ‘fake Rodins’ in 1919, the pre-eminence of direct carving and the rise of modernism.4 At the retrospective of the sculptor’s work in London in 2006, marbles shone by their relative absence (only a dozen, of which the Tate’s Kiss was most notable, in an otherwise superlative gathering of objects).5 The current exhibition is timely, for it re-stresses marble’s importance in the eye of the master and his contemporaries. As its title indicates, it engages with the med­ium in an acutely physical manner, considering the interlacing of two seemingly opposed matters – inert rock and live flesh. It follows a chronological thread from the polished 1870s to the designedly ‘unfinished’ pieces of Rodin’s late career.

For Rodin, marble’s relationship to light and shadow was essential: he demanded that his pieces be flooded in natural light. In the first section of the exhibition, covering two decades, small busts and statues are lined along a corridor, immersed in the brightness from the chapel’s windows. The marble comes alive, the figures’ skins pulsate while the rougher surfaces – hair, block, decorative details – coruscate in the sunlight. (Regrettably, the largely artificial lighting in the adjacent main room of the exhibition and, worse still, in a little side room, is less felicitous.) From the Alsatian orphan of 1871 (cat. no.1), whose maudlin features appealed to post Franco-Prussian war nationalist sentiment, to Rodin’s practically ‘liquid’ Danaid (no.11), works from these years are marked by an illusionist treatment of the body. The show’s curators secured some important loans, among which a faunesse (no.14), whose otherworldly back, stretched in a splendid curve, is in notable contrast to her coarse, simian features. Rodin searched for beauty even in ugliness, but as we approach this piece from behind, one cannot help thinking the opposite: even in beauty, there can be found a disturbing bestiality.

The faunesse’s unbridled lust is the subject of a remarkable group (no.29; Fig.56) in the second section devoted to the last decade of the nineteenth century. Spasms of sizzling desire exude from the cold marble as she ravishes a man. The back and hips of the victim (who seems to be at once consenting and resisting) are marked with vivid grooves, like so many scars left by the eager claws of his assailant.6 Sometimes serving the meaning of the pieces, at other times more unreservedly flaunted, the traces of the carver’s tools are omnipresent in this exhibition. The kiss (no.25) is a case in point, her skin strewn by the punctures of the mise aux points, his head scored with the chisel’s teeth, as if he had just been hewn out of the marble. In a witty arrangement of figures, Rodin’s most famous couple is met by the disapproving glare of his lifelong companion, Rose Beuret (no.23), while the head of his lover Camille Claudel (no.19), lost in thought and ensconced in a block three times her size, turns her eyes away from this sight.

This and the last section reveal the growing place of the non finito in Rodin’s ‘finished’ marbles, a deliberateness that baffled many of his contemporaries and still shows the modernity of his approach. This does not preclude several nods to Michelangelo: Orpheus and the Maenads (no.40) conjures up his forebear’s Slaves while Day and night (no.50) pays heed to the Medici Chapel in Florence. In a formal solution that recalls the above-mentioned portrait of Claudel, the powerful head of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (no.60; Fig.57) rises to the surface of the rock. While she seems imprisoned in matter, the portrait of Rodin’s late friend evokes the sfumato of Eugène Carrière (whose work Rodin admired and collected): Puvis’s ethereal features emerge from the marble like a vaporous ghost.7 Nearby, a naked Victor Hugo reclines like a large feline, languidly sprawled in its den (no.58).

The design and curatorial approach of the exhibition is characterised by ‘immersion’, which translates in two ways. In an evocation of the atmosphere of Rodin’s studio, the sculptures are displayed in dense rows, propped on wooden plinths. Different heights and ramps allow a variety of viewpoints, and the ‘wandering’ effect attempted is not unsuccessful. Secondly, the show is light on interpretation: tombstone labels and a wall text for each section. The visitor is invited to engage with the objects on an aesthetic and sensory level, for this is about the haptic pleasures of seeing: it requires all the self-control of a well-behaved visitor not to caress the marble.

The catalogue illuminates more clearly Rodin’s relationship to marble, notably exploring his rapport with his assistants or how carefully he selected the marbles from his suppliers. The exhibition labels and catalogue entries, by doubly attributing the works to Rodin and their technical executants (when known), remind us that Rodin’s creation was mediated through the hands of his assistants. As attractive and useful as the exercise might be, this runs the risk of suggesting a double authorship, which would have been anachronistic then and remains irrelevant today. Creation (conception) and production (making) were different matters, handled respectively by artist and technician. This question is tackled from the outset in the catalogue, as Aline Magnien’s essay usefully contextualises the fluctuations in the critical under­standing of Rodin’s ‘hand’ from his lifetime to the present.

Interestingly, while Rodin left his assistants to translate his models into marble (or bronze), he did not hesitate to stage himself at work on the stone, playing out the myth of the solitary artist à la Michelangelo. In 1914 Sacha Guitry filmed Rodin mallet in hand, hacking at a block of marble, the matter yielding to his chisel as chips of stone lodge themselves into his leonine mane. Although Rodin criticised photography for its inability, he felt, to represent truth in movement,8 he used the medium extensively for his own purposes, directing the photo­graphers as assertively as he did his assistants, sometimes signing the photographs as if they were his own works.9 An anonymous photograph (Fig.58) shows Rodin the demiurge, sitting in front of the marble of the Hand of God (no.32). This is a sculpture that must be seen in the round, for no photograph may capture it satisfactorily. Its twirling composition reveals the fleeting, transitory effects of creation. The purpose of the photograph is different, its mise-en-scène pregnant with meaning. The sculpture equates the hand of God to that of the artist: both turned mud (clay) into man, but, as this image suggests, the artist brought to life a block of stone, Rodin’s authoritative pose and direct gaze reveal the permanence of art.

For a show that gives remarkable pre-eminence to authorship and the physicality of art, more could have been made of the making process. To the untrained eye, Rodin’s working methods may be opaque. Although the presence of plaster maquettes is welcome, notably in their evocation of the mise aux points, they are only one step between clay and marble. More still, some interpretative grids would have been beneficial, not least when plaster and marble show substantial differences. These expose the fluidity of Rodin’s creative process, as his frequent verbal or physical interventions affected the translation from one medium to the other. Unfortunately not shown here, the model for Puvis de Chavannes could have usefully illustrated this translation. Predating the marble by twenty years, it is strikingly different from the exhibited piece. Rodin had indeed created a more conventionally figurative portrait of his friend, then alive and well. To Rodin’s disappointment, Puvis did not like this bust, and in the later homage, the sculptor addressed his sitter’s misgivings.10 It would have been useful to present versions after the same model to examine how they evolved through time or between media.

Dazzled by the whiteness of Rodin’s plasters and marbles, his secretary Rainer Maria Rilke famously complained that his eyes were sore.11 If it does not come to that here, the marbles deserve to be seen in relation to Rodin’s other choice medium, bronze, if only to compare and contrast the effects they achieve. This the visitor can fortunately do, by stepping from the chapel and into the Hôtel Biron. Masterpieces on the Move shows 150 pieces from the permanent collection to articulate Rodin’s career in ten rooms. The title plays with both the idea of the physical movement of the works, as the renovation project transforms the space and the relationship between objects, and a concern that occupied Rodin throughout his career. This latter is immediately striking in the first room where the Age of Bronze and the St John the Baptist, two seminal bronzes, illustrate Rodin’s careful deconstruction of movement.

The room devoted to the Gates of Hell shows the offspring of this prodigious undertaking. Winter (Fig.60) can be fruitfully compared with its marble sibling shown in the chapel’s exhibition (no.13). One of his longest-serving assistants, Victor Peter, convinced Rodin that the figure ought to be given life in stone, and it is not difficult to see why. In the shiny depths of the dark bronze, the figure takes on a ghoulish, lugubrious presence as she warns the viewer of the inescapable ravages of time. Conversely, the velvet sheen of the marble on the withered limbs, desiccated breasts and sunken cheeks lends the old courtesan the soft melancholy of one resigned to her fate. In the Salle des Monuments (Fig.61), with its beautifully preserved original decor of boiseries and stucco, one can see sketches and models for the Burghers of Calais, Balzac and Hugo, next to reduced bronze versions of the monumental figures. A sequence of rooms on the first floor deals with the later years of Rodin’s career. One room is devoted to the cohort of young artists – Claudel chief among them – who trained in his studio; another to the one-man show Rodin staged concurrently with the Exposition Universelle of 1900. The exhibition was a coup for it revealed his status: the catalogue reads like a Who’s Who of the art world at this time, with forewords by Carrière, Jean-Paul Laurens, Claude Monet and Albert Besnard.12 In turn some of their works, part of Rodin’s private collection, can be seen throughout the Hôtel. More rooms show Rodin experimenting with techniques, composition and scale, playing with assemblages of fragments or enlarging earlier pieces.

This sequence of milestones foreshadows the future arrangement of the Museum. The display will aim to provide more clues to working practices, with a greater emphasis on inter­pretation, including an introduction to the remarkable history of the Hôtel Biron, a jewel of eighteenth-century architecture and Rodin’s Paris residence from 1908. The project of renovation aims to adapt the building to current security and access requirements, and, crucially, reinstate some of its original splendour, a feat in itself, given how dilapidated some rooms have grown over the years. The wood flooring of the west wing has been removed (Fig.62) for complete conservation; the rocaille decoration will receive similar attention, the wood- and plasterwork refreshed to their former glory. (A vast programme of conservation of the objects is simultaneously under way.) Work on the building and the redisplay of the collection should be complete by the end of 2014, after which the next step will be the garden (2015–17). The idyllic setting for Rodin’s large bronzes conceals a bleak truth: the great majority of the trees, diseased, must be felled and replaced in successive phases; the paths, bassins, flowerbeds, set above underground quarries, need consolidation. As lengthy and expensive as this undertaking will be, it has become necessary to restore one of Paris’s best-loved gardens to its former grandeur.

The Museum’s new director hopes to give a fresh lease of life to Meudon, the neglected twin of the Musée Rodin, now primarily used as a storage space for the reserve collection. His main abode from 1893 to his death, Meudon was for Rodin a site of pilgrimage and a museum that would give an insight into his creative process. This is first and foremost a site of life and memory. In the Villa, one gets a glimpse of Rodin the man, as the decor conveys his domestic persona. In the grounds, Rodin had reassembled the 1900 Pavillon de l’Alma to exhibit his œuvre. Replacing it today is the Musée, where the large plasters are now gathered (Fig.59), near the Baroque remains of the façade of the château d’Issy and the Thinker, erected above his tomb. Meudon was Rodin’s ‘crucible’, encompassing workshops and studios, but also where he gathered his collection of antiquities. It was a meeting place of the European social elite and artists, where knowledge was transmitted. With this in mind, the next five years will be devoted to forming closer links with the local community, but also transforming Meudon into Rodin’s ‘Giverny’, infused with the presence of the artist, an enchanting environment conducive to meditation. To achieve this, a first step in 2012 was to extend the opening period, previously limited to April–October, to all year. The visitor facilities will be improved in 2013, and Rodin’s studio restored. An ambitious programme of displays is currently under discussion. Thorough research into Rodin’s life at Meudon will first renovate existing displays. Beyond that, a reinvention of the site may include an evocation of the garden’s original design, a redisplay of the collection of the antique sculptures, didactic rooms, and, fittingly, facilities to enable contemporary creation.

Juggling the needs of the public, the institution and the objects under its care is a difficult exercise, especially in times of change. The Musée Rodin is making laudable efforts to sustain a dynamic programme and keep as many pieces on view as possible, while dealing with the inner challenges of combining respect for historical interiors with the conception of displays reflecting new museological trends. Whether Rodin is shown to sublimate the flesh or transfigure movement, the Musée is certainly ensuring that his legacy remains truly alive.

My thanks to Benedict Carpenter for conversations on the artist’s ‘hand’. All images are copyright of the Musée Rodin, Paris.
1    The chapel devoted to exhibitions in the Paris branch was renovated and
modernised in 2005.
2    Catalogue: Rodin: La chair, le marbre. Edited and with contributions by Aline
Magnien and Catherine Chevillot. 232 pp. incl. 250 col. + b. & w. ills. (Musée Rodin and Hazan, Paris, 2012), €35. ISBN 978–2–7541–0634–4.
3    A. Rodin: L’Art. Entretiens réunis par Paul Gsell, Paris 1911, p.286.
4    A. Magnien: ‘“Verissima manus’”, in Magnien and Chevillot, op. cit. (note 2), pp.12–27.
5    C. Lampert and A. Le Normand-Romain: exh. cat. Rodin, London (Royal
Academy of Arts) 2006.
6    This confirms the description of the tactility of Rodin’s works as marks of his
sexual prowess in D.J. Getsy: Rodin. Sex and the Making of Modern Sculpture, New Haven and London 2011; reviewed by Catherine Lampert in this Magazine, 153 (2011), pp.750–51.
7    For the relationship between Rodin and Carrière, see M. Oya et al.: exh. cat. Auguste Rodin/Carrière, Paris (Musée d’Orsay) 2006.
8    Rodin, op. cit. (note 3), p.86.
9    On the subject, see most recently H. Pinet, ed.: exh. cat. Rodin et la photographie, Paris (Musée Rodin) 2007, and her essay ‘Rodin est ses marbres: une passion
Photographique’, in Magnien and Chevillot, op. cit. (note 2), pp.70–95.
10    Rodin, op. cit. (note 3), p.187.
11    W. Leppman: Rilke, sa vie, son œuvre, Paris 1984, p.166.
12    A. Alexandre: L’œuvre de Rodin, Paris 1900. Carrière designed the poster. See also A. Le Normand-Romain, ed.: exh. cat. Rodin en 1900, L’exposition de l’Alma, Paris (Musée du Luxembourg) 2001.