At the time of his death, Auguste Rodin (France, 1840-1917) was counted among the most renowned artists in the world. A century later, after numerous reassessments by generations of art historians, Rodin continues to be recognized for making figurative sculpture modern by redefining the expressive capacity of the human form. This installation spans three galleries and features nearly 100 Rodin sculptures essential to telling his story and representing his groundbreaking engagement with the body. Drawn from the extensive holdings of the Cantor Arts Center, the largest collection of sculptures by Rodin in an American museum, it also presents comparative works by his rivals, mentors, admirers, and imitators.
Check out the Cantor for publications about August Rodin and his works, available for purchase in the Cantor’s Atrium.
It’s interesting that Rodin attracts so much attention from medical experts, especially here at Stanford, who have used his hands for diagnostic purposes. It’s true that Rodin was intensely interested in exploring pathologies of the body, especially now-discredited understandings of female hysteria. But there is also the irony that Rodin became furious after a critic accused him of making his first life-size figure through life casting, rather than modeling it himself. It should go without saying, but Rodin’s hands are not hands – not real ones, anyway – and their expressive forms don’t align neatly with the anatomical reality of hands in flesh and blood or even their more naturalistic counterparts. But the very fact that they elicit such responses demonstrates the power of art to provoke challenging questions that drive innovative paths of research that cut across disciplines, particularly in a university setting.
Boomers Daily 