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Auguste Rodin

73 quotes

“This full, pouting mouth, rich in sensuous expressions. these lips like a lake of pleasure, fringed by the noble, palpitating nostrils.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writing about the Mahesamurti (Trimurti) of the Elephanta Caves. quoted in Dehejia, Vidya, Indian Art. Phaidon Press London 1998p.12 Quoted and attributed in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom…
“There are things that other people do not see: unknown depths, the wellsprings of life... There is grace in elegance; above grace, there is modelling; everything is exaggerated; we call it soft but it is most powerfully soft! Words fail me then.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: About the Chola sculptures, in 1913. quoted in Sunderland, Rev. Jabez T.India in Bondage: Her Right to Freedom Lewis Copeland Company New York 1929p. 350. Quoted and attributed in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduis…
“Barye... did not teach us much ; he was always worried and tired when he came, and always told us that it was very good.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Slowness is a beauty”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believed before that (journey to Italy in 1875)... that movement was the whole secret of this art, and I put my models into positions like those of Michael Angelo. But as I went on observing the free attitudes of my models I perceived that they possessed thèse naturally^ and that Michael Angelo had not preconceived them, but merely transcribed them according to the Personal inspiration of human beings moved by the need of action. I went to Rome to look for what may be found everywhere : the latent heroic in every natural movement.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To produce good sculpture it is not necessary to copy the works of antiquity; it is necessary first of all to regard the works of nature, and to see in those of the classics only the method by which they have interpreted nature.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attributed to Auguste Rodin by Isadora Duncan, As quoted in Modern Dancing and Dancers (1912) by John Ernest Crawford Flitch, p. 105.
“Nobody does good to men with .”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attributed to Auguste Rodin in: The Nation, Vol. 109 (1919), p. 6: Rodin means without reward.
“Gsell: What astonishes me, is that your way is so different from that of other sculptors. They prose the model. Instead of that, you wait till a model has instinctively or accidentally taken an Interesting pose, and thon you reproduce It. Instead of your giving orders to the model, the model gives orders to you.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In art a thing is beautiful whenever it has character. Character — this is the intense truth of any natural spectacle, whether beautiful or ugly. You may even call it a double truth. For it is the inner essence expressed by the outer appearance. It is the soul, the sentiment, the idea that shines out through the features of a fare, the pose and action of a human body, the tones of a skym the line of a horizon.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now to the great artist, everything in nature has character.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I obey nature, I never presume to command her. The first principal in art is to copy what one sees.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I admit, that the commonplace man can never, by copying, produce a masterpiece; he notes every detail but he does not really see - the artist penetrates below the surface into the very heart of nature; for him everything is beautiful because beauty in art consists of character.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Drawing is but a means to an end. One imagines that drawing can be beautiful-it is not the lines which are beautiful, but what they signify, the sentiments which they translate. In reality, there is no such thing as beauty in drawing, or color beauty lies alone in revelation of truth.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The artist who parades his drawing, the writer who calls attention to his style, is like the farmer who devotes his energies to polishing farm implements and never uses them.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is too evident that if the drawing is bad, the color false, the deepest emotion must fail to express itself.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No sudden inspiration can replace the long years of arduous labor necessary to train the eye to observe, the hand to reproduce.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If in looking at a picture you have been profoundly moved by it, but have not noticed the color or drawing, you may be sure that they are technically perfect.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An artist must possess consummate technique in order to make us forget it.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great difficulty and crowning glory of art is to paint, to draw, to write, naturally and simply.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Painting, literature, music, are more closely allied than the public usually admit. They are merely different means of expression.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A critic recently denounced my Victor Hugo, declaring the treatment belonged not to sculpture but to music. He said it reminded him of a symphony by Beethoven. Heaven grant that he spoke the truth!”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For to me, this word Art, in its largest sense, signifies those who take pleasure in their work... Artist-carpenters who adjust with joy dovetails and mortises; artist-masons who handle lovingly their trowels; artist-cab drivers, proud of treating their horses humanely-what an ideal state of society that would be.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To-day, artists and those who love artists seem like fossils. Imagine a megatherium or a diplodocus stalking the streets of Paris! There you have the impression that we must make upon our contemporaries. Ours is an epoch of engineers and of manufacturers, not one of artists.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The search in modem life is for utility; the endeavor is to improve existence materially. Every day, science invents new processes for the feeding, clothing, or transportation of man; she manufactures cheaply inferior products in order to give adulterated luxuries to the greatest number — though it is true that she has also made real improvements in all that ministers to our daily wants. But it is no longer a question of spirit, of thought, of dreams. Art is dead.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit by which Nature herself is animated. It is the joy of the intellect which sees clearly into the Universe and which recreates it, with conscientious vision. Art is the most sublime mission of man, since it is the expression of thought seeking to understand the world and to make it understood.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But to-day, mankind believes itself able to do without Art. It does not wish to meditate, to contemplate, to dream; it wishes to enjoy physically. The heights and the depths of truth are indifferent to it; it is content to satisfy its bodily appetites. Mankind to-day is brutish — it is not the stuff of which artists are made.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not at their orders, but at those of Nature! My confreres doubtless have their reasons for working as you have said. But in thus doing violence to nature and treating human beings like puppets, they run the risk of producing lifeless and artificial work...”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As for me, seeker after truth and student of life as I am, I shall take care not to follow their example. I take from life the movements I observe, but it is not I who impose them. Even when a subject which I am working on compels me to ask a model for a certain fixed pose, I indicate it to him, but I carefully avoid touching him to place him in the position, for I will reproduce only what reality spontaneously offers me. I obey Nature in everything, and I never pretend to command her. My only ambition is to be servilely faithful to her.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I grant you that the artist does not see Nature as she appears to the vulgar, because his emotion reveals to him the hidden truths beneath appearances. But, after all, the only principle in Art is to copy what you see. Dealers in esthetics to the contrary, every other method is fatal. There is no recipe for improving nature.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now, to the great artist, everything in nature has character; for the unswerving directness of his observation searches out the hidden meaning of all things. And that which is considered ugly in nature often presents more character than that which is termed beautiful, because in the contractions of a sickly countenance, in the lines of a vicious face, in all deformity, in all decay, the inner truth shines forth more clearly than in features that are regular and healthy.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth. He has only to look into a human face in order to read there the soul within — not a feature deceives him; hypocrisy is as transparent as sincerity — the line of a forehead, the least lifting of a brow, the flash of an eye, reveal to him all the secrets of a heart.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now color — it is to this remark that I wished to lead — is the flower of fine modelling. These two qualities always accompany each other, and it is these qualities which give to every masterpiece of the sculptor the radiant appearance of living flesh.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a false idea that drawing in itself can be beautiful. It is only beautiful through the truths and the feelings that it translates. The crowd admires artists, who, strong in subject, elegantly pen contours destitute of significance, and who plant their figures in pretentious poses. It goes into ecstasies over poses which are never seen in nature, and which are considered artistic because they recall the posturings of the Italian models who offer themselves at the studio door. That is what is generally called beautiful drawing. It is really only sleight-of-hand, fit to astonish boobies.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course, there is drawing in art as there is style in literature. Style that is mannered, that strains after effect, is bad. No style is good except that which effaces itself in order to concentrate all the attention of the reader upon the subject treated, upon the emotion rendered.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The artist who parades his drawing, the writer who wishes to attract praise to his style, resemble the soldier who plumes himself on his unif onn but refuses to go into battle, or the farmer who polishes the ploughshare instead of driving it into the earth.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the artist only reproduces superficial features as photography does, if he copies the lineaments of a face exactly, without reference to character, he deserves no admiration. The resemblance which he ought to obtain is that of the soul; that alone matters; it is that which the sculptor or painter should seek beneath the mask of features.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ch. VIII Mystery in Art, p. 179-180”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I was quite young, as far back as I remember, I drew, but the gift is nothing without the will to make it worth while. The artist must have the patience of water that eats away the rock drop by drop.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Michelangelo, revealed me to myself, revealed to me the truth of forms. I went to Florence to find what I possessed in Paris and elsewhere, but it is he who taught me this.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My principles are the laws of experience.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not a rhetorician, but a man of action.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The streets of Paris, with their shops of old furniture, etchings, and works of art, are a veritable museum, far less tiring than official museums, and from which one imbibes just as much as one can.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Admiration, is a joy daily kindled afresh... I talk out of the -fullness of life; it belongs to me in a sense larger than that of ownership.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Were this thoroughly understood, industrial art would be entirely revolutionized — industrial art, that barbarous term, an art which concerns itself with commerce and profit.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The young artists of to-day understand nothing; they copy to satiety the classic ornaments and designs, and reproduce them in so cold a manner that they lose all meaning. The ancients obtained their designs from nature. They found their models in the garden, even in the vegetable garden. They drew their inspiration from its source. The cabbage-leaf, the oak-leaf, the clover, the thistle, and the brier are the motives of the Gothic capital. It is not photographic truth, but living truth, that we must seek in art.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am pervaded by the marvel of this art; but I cannot as yet explain it to myself. The Gothic is the world foreshortened. Where am I to begin? For more than thirty years I have been accumulating and comparing my observations. Perhaps eventually I shall succeed in deducing the rule, the law of divine intelligence; but perhaps I shall not have sufficient time. Then it will be the task of another, younger than myself, who will start his researches earlier, and who, besides, will have been informed by me.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes, they are beautiful... The shirt, the blouse are garments the folds of which yield simple planes and effects that, rightly rendered, are those of true sculpture. But there is something better still, and that is sackcloth. If I had clothed my 'Burghers of Calais' in sackcloth, they would certainly be more beautiful. I did not dare to. Some one else will do this and will succeed. It is sufficient to express an idea and leave it to its destiny.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One can never do anything so beautiful as nature.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I sacrificed to the mania of the age, which is to overload things. My modeling is there, the eloquence of the gesture also. The rest would only spoil the essential things. It is a stroke of genius. I am going to write to the under-secretary of state that my monument is ready.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The biblical times have come back again, the great invasions of the Medes and the Persians. Has the world, then, reached the point where it deserves to be punished for the egotistical epicureanism in which it has slumbered?”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source