#vmfarodin

[chrispiercejr]

From the Rodin exhibit at The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. #rodin #vmfa #thevmfa #vmfarodin #thevmfarodin #rva #richmond #richmondva #virginia #804 (at VMFA Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

[littlereview]

#vmfarodin #rodin #thinker (at VMFA Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

[sktorrence]

[charlesmerritt]

Thoughts. #vmfarodin #sculpture #rva (at VMFA Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

[vmfaeducation]

Friday Fun!

How did Jerome Flynn ((b. 1963) as Bron in Game of Thrones) manage to pose for Rodin’s Man with the Broken Nose (created circa 1863) when he hadn’t even been born when Rodin sculpted this bust? We think the likeness is pretty spot on, but guess whose essence Rodin was really trying to caputure...

Imagine my surprise when I read the description of the Rodin work on the Musée Rodin website. It seems that Rodin intended the portrait to resemble Michelangelo’s face! (See text below.)

"Michelango Portrait by Volterra" by Daniele da Volterra - [1]. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michelango_Portrait_by_Volterra.jpg#/media/File:Michelango_Portrait_by_Volterra.jpg

  AUGUSTE RODIN (1840 -1917)

MAN WITH THE BROKEN NOSE

1874-1875 Marble H. 56.8 cm ; W. 41.5 cm ; D. 23.9 cm S.974 Marble carved by Léon Fourquet in 1874-1875.

This work, executed circa 1863, has a long history. The original plaster bust froze and the back of the head fell off. Rodin submitted the remaining mask to the Salon of 1865, but without success. The marble, carved by Léon Fourquet, dating from the winter of 1874-75, however, was accepted at the Salon of 1875. The sitter for the bust, which began as a simple portrait, was an elderly workman from the Saint-Marcel district of Paris, who went by the name of “Bibi”. By emphasizing certain features – the broken nose, the deep lines, the style of the beard – Rodin established a parallel between this face and Michelangelo’s, and thus the individual portrait dissolved into an archetype. The way in which the bust is cut, its “philosophical” nudity and the classical-style fillet in the hair heighten the impression of a work that is no longer entirely an individual portrait, but one that, by accentuating certain distinctive features, amalgamates general characteristics attributed to the philosopher and the artist. In many respects, this early portrait by Rodin epitomizes the sculptor’s working method and, above all, his concept of portraiture. See more at: http://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/collections/sculptures/man-broken-nose#sthash.NPviiC9M.dpuf

[vmfaeducation]

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.

Sculptor Rodin, from Art: conversations with Paul Gsell

[vmfaeducation]

I read [Art: conversations with Paul Gsell by Rodin] with great interest. I remember in it somewhere Rodin saying that when he got stuck with modeling a clay sculpture, he would sometimes drop it on the floor and have another look. Now this was for me, as a young sculptor, a tremendous revelation of how you can take advantage of accidents, and how you should always try and look at a thing over again, with a fresh eye. –Henry Moore

Comments by sculptor Henry Moore during an interview with former Tate director, Alan Bowness (1970)

[vmfaeducation]

I worked as completely as I could, thought of nothing else; the sketches, figures, finished bits papered the walls; the whole studio was cluttered with works in progress; but, since I didn't have enough money to have them cast, each day I lost precious time in covering my clay with wet cloths; despite that, at every turn I had accidents from the effects of cold or heat; entire sections detached themselves--heads, arms, knees, chunks of torsos fell off; I found them in pieces on the tiles which covered the ground. Sometimes I was able to salvage fragments. You could not believe what I lost in that way.

 Rodin describing modeling with clay, which remains malleable as long as it is damp.