Paris - The Kiss - 7me

Plate LX - The Kiss...

Rodin’s amorous pursuits were the subject of much society talk during his lifetime. In 1864 at the age of twenty three he began a lifetime affair with the seamstress Rose Beuret, finally marrying her at age seventy seven, only months before her death in Febraury 1917. Rodin was to die only nine months later.

A man of undoubted passion and ardour he conducted many affairs including one for fourteen years with his student, muse, collaborator and model Camille Claudel. The affair was ended in 1898 perhaps because of, but certainly contributing to, Claudel’s increasing madness.

Rodin completed other works of couples ‘in flagrante delicto’, but none as passionate as this 1886 highlight of the museum collection, another study for the Gates of Hell.

I took this picture specifically for a couple of friends of mine who had a small marble cast replica of The Kiss in their home (consigned to a private bedroom space). A source of debate between this husband and wife, Rodin’s work was once deemed improper and unsuitable for public display.

It remains indoors - in the Hotel Biron in Paris.

Paris - The Thinker - 7me

Plate LIX - The Thinker…

Although Rodin died before completing his Gates of Hell, two of his most celebrated and well known works were concepts for this the final commission of his life.

The Thinker was Rodin’s 1880 study for a seated image of the poet Dante, to be included in the upper part of the door. Other examples of this casting of his statue are known to exist, but this is the best known of them.

I have sometimes been accused of not including people in many of my pictures. It is true. I had to wait quite some time to get this shot of Rodin’s masterpiece without some intrusive tourist face becoming part of the composition, finally begging the guide of a busload of foreigners to grant me just one shot before they clambered one by one onto the plinth to record for posterity that they too were here.

What were they thinking?

Paris - Hôtel Biron - 7me

Plate LVII - The Hotel Biron (Rodin Museum) …

There is an elite group of art figures where a single name is identity enough. Rodin is one.

The Hôtel Biron, dating from around 1730 was built by Jacques Gabriel and Jean Aubert as a private residence, becoming in turn - the home of Marshal de Biron in 1753, a convent for the Nuns of the Society of Sacre-Coeur in 1820, a secondary school in the early 1900’s and then, scheduled for demolition, several rooms were placed at the disposal of the sculptor Rodin until his death in 1917.

His bequest of works, some 500 - in bronze and marble and left to the state, may be seen at the Rodin Museum today housed within and around the still extensive gardens of the Hôtel Biron. The once austere interiors, stripped of decorative ornamentation during the convent occupation have regained some of their original features, now restored to their original positions. A friend and collector of works by van Gogh, Renoir, and Monet these works once owned by Rodin are here too, as are some by his student and lover Camille Claudel.

But it is the work of (François Auguste René) Rodin you will come to see.