François Auguste René Rodin was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, and deeply pocketed surface in clay. He is known for such sculptures as The Thinker, Monument to Balzac, The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais, and The Gates of Hell.
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.
The Thinker is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin, situated atop a stone pedestal. The work depicts a nude male figure of heroic size sitting on a rock. He is seen leaning over, his right elbow placed on his left thigh, holding the weight of his chin on the back of his right hand. The pose is one of deep thought and contemplation, and the statue is often used as an image to represent philosophy.
The Burghers of Calais is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in twelve original castings and numerous copies. It commemorates an event during the Hundred Years' War, when Calais, a French port on the English Channel, surrendered to the English after an eleven-month siege. The city commissioned Rodin to create the sculpture in 1884 and the work was completed in 1889.
The Musée Rodin of Paris, France, is an art museum that was opened in 1919, primarily dedicated to the works of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. It has two sites: the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds in central Paris, as well as just outside Paris at Rodin's old home, the Villa des Brillants at Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine. The collection includes 6,600 sculptures, 8,000 drawings, 8,000 old photographs and 7,000 objets d'art. The museum receives 700,000 visitors annually.
The Kiss is an 1882 marble sculpture by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
The Gates of Hell is a monumental bronze sculptural group work by French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from the Inferno, the first section of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. It stands at 6 metres high, 4 metres wide and 1 metre deep (19.7×13.1×3.3 ft) and contains 180 figures.
The Age of Bronze is a bronze statue by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). The figure is of a life-size nude male, 72 in. (182.9 cm) high. Rodin continued to produce casts of the statue for several decades after it was modelled in 1876.
The Walking Man is a bronze sculpture by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. This sculpture was made in 1907.
Monument to Balzac is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in memory of the French novelist Honoré de Balzac. According to Rodin, the sculpture aims to portray the writer's persona rather than a physical likeness. The work was commissioned in 1891 by the Société des Gens de Lettres and a full-size plaster model was displayed in 1898 at a Salon in Champ de Mars. After coming under criticism the model was rejected by the société and Rodin moved it to his home in Meudon. On 2 July 1939 the model was cast in bronze for the first time and placed on the Boulevard du Montparnasse at the intersection with Boulevard Raspail.
Cybele is a sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin. It is one of the first of Rodin's partial figures known as "fragments" to be displayed as sculpture in its own right, rather than an incomplete study.
The Falling Man is a sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin modeled in 1882 and is part of Rodin's emblematic group The Gates of Hell.
Pierre de Wissant is a bronze sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin, part of his sculptural group The Burghers of Calais. This sculpture represents one of the six burghers who, according to Jean Froissart surrendered themselves in 1347, at the beginning of the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), in order to save the inhabitants of the French city of Calais from the English laying siege to the city.
Head of Saint John the Baptist is a marble sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin, sculpted in 1887 as part of a series of sculptures based on his Saint John the Baptist, exhibited for the first time in 1880 with great acceptance and recognition from critics.
La Defense, also known as The Call to Arms, is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin.
Despair or Despair at the Gate is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin that he conceived and developed from the early 1880s to c. 1890 as part of his The Gates of Hell project. The figure belongs to a company of damned souls found in the nine circles of Hell described by Dante in The Divine Comedy. Other title variations are Shade Holding her Foot, Woman Holding Her Foot, and Desperation. There are numerous versions of this work executed as both plaster and bronze casts and carved marble and limestone.
Iris, Messenger of the Gods is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin. A plaster model, created between 1891 and 1894, was cast in bronze by Fonderie Rudier at various times from about 1895. Iris is depicted with her right hand clasping her right foot and her naked body posed provocatively with her legs spread wide, displaying her genitalia.
Balzac, the Open Sky is a black and white photograph taken by American photographer Edward Steichen in 1908. The photograph is part of a series created by Steichen that depict the statue of Honoré de Balzac by Auguste Rodin, executed in plaster, in 1898. The statue would eventually be cast in bronze and inaugurated in Paris, in 1939.
