I. Preface

 

Fig 1. Auguste Rodin, 「The Statue of Balzac」, Rodin Museum, exhibited 1898; cast later

 

I. Preface

After the Industrial Revolution, there were a lot of changes in modern art. Most art forms such as painting and sculpture became quite abstract and individualized. Because of the invention of the camera, it became meaningless for artists to portray nature realistically.

 

Naturally most artists tried to seek different ways to express nature in a non-traditional way. In the process of this, Impressionism appeared in the middle of the nineteenth century. The appearance of Impressionism is very important in the modern history of art. From this period art abruptly changed and Impressionism influenced many later art movements directly and indirectly. This movement opposed the past classical art forms.

 

Generally, before Impressionism, the main idea and concept of art (beauty) were based on classical themes (Platonism). Works of art should contain a sense of beauty, have figurative and recognizable (static) forms, and should look grand and sublime. But after Impressionism everything in art was changed. Under this atmosphere Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism appeared before World War I. The Cubist movement was created by Braque and Picasso in the beginning of the twentieth century. At first, Cubism was the reaction to Impressionism, however ironically this became a catalyst to develop much more abstract art forms and new ideologies of art such as Dada, Neo-dada, Surrealism, Minimalism, and many others. 

 

In sculpture generally we can say that Rodin was the first modern sculptor in the history of art. Rodin's works were very different from the past works and quite abstract, but there were still many classical aspects in Rodin's work. A major theme of his work is to restore the classical and ideal beauty as found in Michelangelo's works in the Renaissance . As we can see, his works such as The Burghers of Calais, 1886-1887 and The Statue of Balzac, 1898, are public sculptures; the patrons are the City of Calais and the Societe des Gens de Lettres. But ironically both of them were rejected by their patrons at first because both figures are very different from the traditional public sculpture in both the appearance and the composition of the figure. The purpose of The Burghers of Calais is for a memorial of the brave burghers in Calais, but the figures are not very sublime, beautiful, and grand. In addition there is no harmony in composition of this sculpture. There are three groups in The Burghers of Calais, and they do not have any sense of harmony in terms of the pose and feeling. In The Statue of Balzac, this work is quite figurative but very different from the tradition. The Balzac is somewhat abstract and mysterious due to the wrapping of the body and also this Balzac figure is not grand and beautiful. According to Rodin, he tries to express Balzac's genius by depicting his meditating pose and moment in his room . That is the reason these works are different from others. Even though Rodin used traditional materials (bronze) and there still remain strong traditional aspects, the concept of those works is quite modern in theme.     
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