The best example of Rodin’s ‘sketchy’ impressionist sculpture also happens to be his most well-known ‘incomplete’ figure. This work personifies the latter part of Rodin’s career: the dynamic pose of a partial figure. Deriving much from Rodin’s earlier work St. John the Baptist Preaching, including the powerful stance, Rodin had stripped all academic associations from his figure, and instead focused on what he considered essential: the dynamic pose.
According to the bibliography supplied by the National Gallery of Art, The Walking Man is a version of St. John without head and arms. This sculpture was previously considered a preliminary study for the complete Baptist and was based on the movement of that piece. According to Albert Elsen and Henry Moore's suggestions, The Walking Man was created for the purpose of a Roman or Greek art without any live reference.[clarification needed]
Praise
The art historian Leo Steinberg said of The Walking Man’s pose:
The stance is profoundly unclassical, especially in the digging-in conveyed by the pigeon-toed stride and the rotation of the upper torso. Unlike the balanced, self-possessed classical posture with both feet turned out, Rodin uses the kind of step that brings all power to bear on the moment’s work
Inspiration
The statue has served as the inspiration for the works of other artists, such as Carl Sandburg, who described it in his 1916 poem, "The Walking Man of Rodin":
THE WALKING MAN OF RODIN Legs hold a torso away from the earth. And a regular high poem of legs is here. Powers of bone and cord raise a belly and lungs Out of ooze and over the loam where eyes look and ears hear And arms have a chance to hammer and shoot and run motors. You make us Proud of our legs, old man.
And you left off the head here,
The skull found always crumbling neighbor of the ankles.
The Walking Man entry, including downloadable 3D stereolithography (.stl) file, based on photogrammetric survey of Norton Simon Art Foundation Object Number: M.1966.05.S: The Walking Man, bronze cast No. 7, edition of 12, on Thingiverse.com
The Walking Man 3D stereolithography (.stl) file viewer, based on photogrammetric survey of Norton Simon Art Foundation Object Number: M.1966.05.S: The Walking Man, bronze cast No. 7, edition of 12, on Thingiverse.com.
BIBLIOGRAPHY (supplied by The National Gallery of Art, Washington)
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 Thinker is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin, usually placed on 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 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.
Saint John the Baptist (preaching) is a bronze sculpture, by Auguste Rodin.
The Spirit of Eternal Repose is a 1898–1899 sculpture of a sprite by French artist Auguste Rodin.
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.
Eternal Springtime is a c. 1884 sculpture by the French artist Auguste Rodin, depicting a pair of lovers. It was created at the same time as The Gates of Hell and originally intended to be part of it. One of its rare 19th-century original casts belongs to the permanent collection of Calouste Gulbenkian Museum.
Fugitive Love is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin made between 1886 and 1887, both sculpted in marble and cast in bronze. It represents a man and a woman embracing each other on top of a rock. More specifically, the author was inspired by the story of Francesca da Rimini's love affair with Paolo Malatesta, an allusion to Dante Alighieri's depiction of lust on the second circle of Hell in his Inferno.
Avarice and Lust is a sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin, conceived between 1885 and 1887, representing two of the seven capital sins and is part of his sculptural group The Gates of Hell, where it can be found in the lower part of the right door. It's possible that the name was inspired by Victor Hugo's poem Après une lecture du Dante:
The Kneeling Man is a work originally conceived in 1888 by the French artist Auguste Rodin for his The Gates of Hell project.
Glaucus is a sculpture by the French artist Auguste Rodin, first conceived in 1886 as a representation of the mythological figure Glaucus, son of Poseidon. Originally made in plaster, bronze casts of it are now in the Brooklyn Museum and the Museo Soumaya.
Jean de Fiennes is a sculpture by the French artist Auguste Rodin, first produced between 1885 and 1886. A bronze cast of it is now in the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City.
Jean d'Aire is a sculpture by the French artist Auguste Rodin, first conceived around 1885 as part of the planning for his group The Burghers of Calais.
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.
Polyphemus is an 1888 sculpture by Auguste Rodin, showing Polyphemus and his love for the Nereid Galatea, as told in Book XIII of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
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.
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