Is it possible to convey the idea of movement in a sculpture, the quintessence of stillness? 

 

This is the question Auguste Rodin tried to answer when he realized the Dance Movements, a dozen little figures in baked clay that glorify the strength, the agility and the physical grace of the human body at the same time. 

 

These stretching, twisting sculptures are considered his last major project and were discovered only after his death in the Hôtel Biron, his Parisian studio, in 1917. Today, a century later, the same building hosts the Musée Rodin. Situated in the heart of the Quartier des Invalides, it is the only museum entirely dedicated to the father of modern sculpture.

 

The project was born out of Rodin’s desire to keep all his artworks in the same place. In 1916, during the First World War, he donated his entire collection to the French state. A few months later, after a lively debate in the Senate, the donation was accepted, together with the foundation of the museum at the Hôtel Biron. 

 

In 1904 the government decided to rent out the abandoned building, once a school for aristocratic girls, and a number of bohemian artists started to move in, using the rooms as studios or lodgings. Fascinated by the romantic atmosphere and the rococo architecture of the hôtel, Rodin decided to rent first one, then several rooms on the ground floor.

 

A century later, although some galleries around the world exhibit some of his works in their permanent collections, his major works are still all in Paris and are occasionally lent to art galleries around the world for temporary exhibitions to allow the celebration of his genius worldwide. 

 

The artist’s legacy is the focus of the exhibition “Versus Rodin: Bodies across space and time” at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The highlight of the show is the significant collection of bronze sculptures with pieces such as Kneeling Man and Flying Figure in which Rodin’s representation of the tension of muscles reaches its highest point.

 

In this very well thought-out exhibition his key pieces are juxtaposed with a wide variety of modern and contemporary art works. The unconscious and sexual lust, for example, are explored through the works of Louise Bourgeois, while the relationship between space and the human body is at the centre of the work of Antony Gormley, making this exhibition one not to miss.

 

“Rodin Centenary,” hosted by the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, will feature around fifty pieces from their permanent collection, the most famous of which is The Thinker. 

 

Positioned at the centre of the internal courtyard, it represents Dante, author of the Divine Comedy, gazing wistfully at the hellish scene below. The monumental nature of its form contrasts beautifully with the fragility and loneliness of the subject’s expression, recalling Michelangelo’s delicate touch.

 

And then there are the Dance Movements, with which the wider public is not very familiar. Brought together for the first time last November in “Rodin: the essence of movement” at the Courtauld Gallery in London, these sculptures and their preparatory drawings are now back at the Rodin Museum in Paris.

 

At the beginning of the 20th century Rodin was well established in the art scene and could afford to work for the pleasure of it, employing models, especially dancers and acrobats, as often as he pleased. Nudes were by now his favorite subject and he would spend hours shut away in a room overlooking the garden, drawing his models in a very erotic style.

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 La tentation de saint Antoine, Auguste Rodin, 1889

 

But Rodin’s muses are miles away from the calming, polished dancers of his contemporaries, Degas being the most famous. In Cambodian Dancer the sense of movement is expressed with just a few pencil lines. He drew the sketch quickly, without lifting his eyes from the model, and later added watercolor and gouache layers, reinforcing some areas with stronger pencil lines.

 

The sensuality and grace of the human body expressed in the drawings is even more evident in Rodin’s Dance Movements sculptures. Among them is Movement A, also known as Aviation. Here, the acrobat lifts one leg, holding it behind her with her hand, her spine excessively bent, while effortlessly balancing on the other leg. “It is by exaggerating movement that I obtain a flexibility that approaches the truth,” Rodin used to say.

 

While looking at these surprisingly powerful little sculptures, the legacy bequeathed by the ancient Greeks is clearly visible. Myron wanted to push the boundaries of the human body when he realized the Discobolus back in 460 BC. And Rodin’s acrobats bend their spine in a way that recalls Skopas’ Menade Pushkin, captured in the act of wildly dancing during a celebration of Dionysus’ cult.

 

It is not surprising that Rodin was famous for his large collection of antiquities; thousands of fragments of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures that he bought throughout his life from antiques dealers. Very well preserved, they are the subject of one of the rooms in the Rodin Museum called ’Rodin and Antiquity’.

 

At the beginning of the 20th century, when Picasso was painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, portraying for the first time women as prostitutes in aggressive sexual postures, and Schiele was shocking the world with his highly revealing and eroticized nude portraits, Rodin was still drawing and sculpting the human body, proudly exalting its grace, sensuality and strength. 

 

“In reality there is not a muscle of the body which does not express the inner variations of feeling,” he used to say. “All speak of joy or of sorrow, of enthusiasm or of despair, of serenity or of madness.”

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Where to catch Rodin this year:

Gallery of South Australia, 4 March – 2 July

The Legion of Honor, 28 January – 9 April, San Francisco
Musée Rodin, Paris