Exhibition: Rodin, genius at work

Last week I went to Groningen to see an exhibition with the work of 19th century sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917).

He is one of the most well-known sculptors and his work can easily be identified. Although he first struggled, he soon became succesful and received official commissions.

He was not a lonely artist in a small attick, he had a huge workshop with dozens of people working for him who all did different aspects of the sculpting process.

The exhibition was very large, with over 120 sculptings, but also drawings and photographs. Rodin used photographs to improve his work. He would draw on the photographs and adjust his sculptings accordingly.
I liked the photographs, they were artworks in themselves and I would hang those on my wall without a problem!

There were sculptings in marble, plaster, clay, ceramics and bronze. There were many not well known sculptings, which made it very interesting.
In plaster he made several limbs and he later used them in his sculptings, taking whichever one he needed for that particular work.

I loved the huge bronze statues from The citizens of Calais, I do not know how you can get such a facial expression in bronze, but these were beautiful.



The exhibition is in the Groninger museum and it can be visited until April 30th 2017.
More information can be found here

Comments

  1. I've been to his house/museum in Paris! :D I love his sculpture of The Kiss. At the time we were there they were doing an exhibition of Camille Claudel's sculptures which are amazing! I think I like her work even better than his.

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    1. The Rodin museum in Paris is on my list for the next time I'll visit Paris.
      I am reading the book about Camille Claudel and it is beautiful, and yesterday I saw the film with Isabelle Adjani, heartbreaking! In March a biography about her will come out by a Dutch art-historian and I already told my mum that this is the book I want for my birthday! And I agree, she has made such beautiful sculptings, how lucky you were to be there at the time of that exhibition! That must have been very special.

      Kind regards,

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