Rodin: The Shape of Genius [Hardcover]

Ms. Ruth Butler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 1993

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was arguably the most famous sculptor in the world in 1900 - a time when painting and painters excelled. How he reached such heights at the age of 60, and what happened when he did, are important questions that have not been closely considered in previous works of biography. In this reinterpretation of Rodin's life and times, the author draws for on closely guarded archives and family letters to disentangle the facts of his life from the myths that have grown up around them. Butler had exclusive access to a voluminous archive of unpublished letters written to Rodin by the most important people in his life - his son, his lover, Emile Zola, Claude Monet and George Bernard Shaw, amongst many others. The result is a richly textured account of the artist and his world, Paris's Left Bank at the turn of the century, in which Rodin's life is placed firmly in a historical and political context and one in which the author considers the meaning of his life, his work and his relationships.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), the sculptor whose Balzac , Victor Hugo and The Thinker were part of a grandiose hymn to male genius, was obsessed with female anatomy and the physical basis of sexuality, as his thousands of erotic female nude drawings make clear. Drawing on archival sources, Butler, art professor at the University of Massachusetts, illuminates Rodin's heroic quest and his relationships with women in this detailed, richly illustrated biographical study. Overwhelmed by grief at the death in 1862 of his older sister, Maria, Rodin, suggests Butler, relived an oedipal attachment to her through his obsessive love for his protege, Camille Claudel. Meanwhile, he treated his common-law wife Marie-Rose Beuret as a "desexualized mother" who tended his hearth. Claudel went mad after Rodin reneged on his promise to marry her, but Butler challenges the standard image of Rodin as a male chauvinist, arguing that willful, ambitious Claudel "tyrannized" Rodin and imagined herself replacing him as France's preeminent sculptor. Butler portrays a titan hiding anger and lifelong loneliness beneath his immense charm.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

An insightful life of Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) that's based on many previously unpublished letters and a fresh interpretation of familiar facts. Butler (Art/UMass at Boston) is especially perceptive about Rodin's relationships--how they inspired, energized, and influenced his art--particularly his relations with the women to whom he claimed he ``owed everything'': his sister, who died when he was 21; his companion of 51 years, Rose Beuret, whom his biographer, Judith Cladel, arranged for him to marry when they were both near death; Camille Claudel, the student whom he reputedly drove mad; wealthy married women who commissioned portraits; and dozens of models who inspired and posed for his thousands of frenetic erotic drawings. Returning to France from Brussels, where he'd began his career, Rodin stopped in Florence, where he encountered the grandeur of Michelangelo and was liberated from the Grecian academic style that prevailed in Paris. This new, more natural, and somewhat vulgar style, as well as the artist's own demanding nature, accounted for his alienation from the centers of power in the artistic community, especially from the Salon system. Nonetheless, in an age of ``statuemania,'' of nationalism and public art, Rodin created major icons: The Kiss, The Thinker, The Burghers of Calais, and The Gate of Hell, the sublime portals based on Dante and cast for a museum that was never built. Butler's special strengths are in analyzing the politics of the artistic community and the art of politics; the expensive and collaborative nature of sculpture (the space, technology, and immense amount of assistance that Rodin required); Rodin's entrepreneurial dimension; his neglect of his illegitimate son; his fame abroad (Rilke wrote his first biography) but his equivocal position in France; and his loneliness. Like Rodin's art: simplified but rounded; monumental. (Two hundred photographs) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First Edition edition (October 27, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300054009
• ISBN-13: 978-0300054002
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,447 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PERFECT!, May 21, 2009

By 

REDLEG (RALEIGH,NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rodin: The Shape of Genius (Paperback)

It is EXACTLY what I ordered and arrived in a timely fashion. This was my very first Amazon order! Kudos so far.