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THE MAKING OF RODIN A N E W E X H I B I T I O N AT TAT E M O D E R N I S T H E F I R S T TO F O C U S O N A U G U S T E R O D I N ’ S U S E O F P L A S T E R A N D F E AT U R E S W O R K S T H AT H AV E N E V E R B E E N D I S P L AY E D O U T S I D E O F F R A N C E . Y E T, W H I L E S O M E P I E C E S A R E E V E N M O R E F O R M I D A B L E W H E N R E N D E R E D I N W H I T E P L A S T E R , D O E S T H E S H O W R E A L LY T E L L U S ANYTHING ABOUT THE MAN BEHIND THE MOULDS?
Words: Chris Cotonou
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ntil 21 November, Tate Modern is hosting a collection of cast sculptures and designs by Auguste Rodin, one of the most important and celebrated figures in 20th -century art. Arranged to resemble the artist’s studio – how Rodin himself liked to exhibit his work – it is the first show that focuses on the sculptor’s use of plaster casts. That the exhibition is being displayed at Tate Modern, and not Tate Britain, has itself provoked debate. The English painter and illustrator Edward BurneJones (1833-1898) didn’t quite make it into the Modern, after all, and the two lived at a similar time and shared a similar retrospective view on their respective crafts. Whether that’s a comparison you accept or not, Rodin being here is not an
accident. And it’s up to you to decide if he is – as the curators hint at – a sort of modernist, with all the subversive mischief that brings. Or just another in a line of classical-interpreting sculptors. Rodin was born in 1840 to a workingclass family in the Mouffetard district of Paris. Rejected on three occasions by the city’s nepotistic art school École des Beaux-Arts, he instead worked as an assistant into his mid-30s. He didn’t find fame until after his The Age of Bronze nude statue. This is the first piece you encounter in the exhibition. It is so lifelike that you expect one of the eyes to blink. But the space is small and dark, and becomes crowded. Before long you’re hurried off. It’s as conventional and classic as Rodin gets, but deserves to be presented in an appropriate space. The plaster models in the comparatively large, bright central salon LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK
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