Customer Reviews

Auguste Rodin: Erotic Sketches (Erotic Sketchbook) (German Edition)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Though very small in format and in brevity of content (a mere 64 pages with 38 illustrations), this little book serves art lovers and art historians well. Contained in this slight volume, and interspersed with cogent commentary by Norbert Wolf in both English and German, are Auguste Rodin's final sketches in pencil, watercolor and gouache of the female nude. Quite in contrast to his monumental sculptures these sketches reveal a different aspect of Rodin's genius - he introduces nude and nearly nude drawings of women in tandem, works that at the time of creation were scandalously dismissed as pornography.

In today's harsher light these fine sketches provide a glance at not only Rodin's psyche but also at his amazingly fluid style of committing drawing to paper, a style in significant contrast to his strictly anatomically correct sculptural figures. The book is a delight to read and to peruse and allows us entry into the climate of the late 19th and early 20th century art realm. Grady Harp, September 06