by Benjamin Quinn

Introduction

In Auguste Rodin’s published conversations with his protégé, Paul Gsell, conducted at his home regarding a variety of topics, Gsell, startled by his mentor’s hesitance when asked evaluate his work, praises Rodin for his thoughtful and successful depictions of writers. The ponderous, concerned nature of the author was brilliantly captured in each visage, Gsell insists, lauding Rodin for representing “all the writers with the head bent, as if beneath the weight of their thoughts.” (Gsell 186). Regarding Rodin’s portraits of writers, Gsell’s praise was not anomalous; Rodin’s monument of the ever-contemplative Victor Hugo was widely praised. However, Rodin’s other  attempt at rendering a powerful figure of nineteenth-century literature—Honoré de Balzac, the French novelist known for his stirring depictions of French Society following the period of the Restoration—was not as successful. Standing aghast at the monument’s unveiling at the 1898 Salon, audiences and critics described a head that, bearing the weight of its thoughts, had become deformed, even grotesque. In Mount Holyoke College’s 1962 cast of the Head of Balzac, the asymmetry and misshapen forms that stunned original nineteenth-century audiences have been preserved, even emphasized, by Georges Rudier’s singular treatment of the original plaster fragment study of the head. Imparting his own vision onto the surface of the replication, Rudier paints an additional fictive layer upon a sculpture that is, inherently, a fiction: Rodin, in his exhaustive search for the inner quality that “produced” Balzac’s vision, stumbled upon a visage that was neither idealized nor representational. In doing so, however, Rodin created something that was not a falsehood, but captured a fictive reality that was truer than the superficial “truth.”

A Momentous Commission and a Communion of Artists

Rodin’s relationship with Balzac first began in 1891, when the eminent Société des Gens de Lettres—following the sudden death of their first choice, sculptor Henri Chapu—issued to Rodin a commission to sculpt a full-size depiction of the nineteenth-century writer, a former President and co-founder of the literary society. Revered, during his time, for his panoramic depictions of contemporary French life, Balzac was an avowed Realist. Rejecting the Romanticism of his fellow Société members (including Victor Hugo and Théophile Gautier), Balzac favored precise language and genuine situations, crafting stories that plumbed the depths of his characters in search of deeper truths. Balzac’s esteem and connection to the Société made him the obvious choice for the society’s newest commission, a decision made much to the elation of the Société’s president, Emile Zola (Schor 282). A founder of Naturalism, a literary movement concerned, much like Realism, with the accurate depiction of detail, Zola felt akin to the nineteenth-century literary titan, whose writings prefigured and legitimized Zola’s contemporary career (Butler 252). Invested in supporting artists who shared his sensibilities, Zola used the opportunity presented by Chapu’s sudden death to promote August Rodin as the most appropriate candidate, praising the sculptor as “the preeminent naturalist sculptor of the age” (Butler 253). Rodin, in the eyes of the Société, was the “Zola of sculpture” (Schor, 283), a prolific and practiced artist whose incomparable creations captured the barest realism of his subjects.

The early years of Rodin’s commission were defined by this communion of artists. As Zola continued to bombard Rodin with praise, the sculptor embarked on his earliest research into his subject, beginning with an extensive study of Balzac’s many works. It was here—in the homes and squares of Balzac’s settings, in the sighs and musings of his protagonists—that Rodin, his close friend, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, claims, found his subject. Among the community of Balzac’s creations, Rodin “saw that these hundreds of characters, whatever their various functions might be, could all be traced back to the man who created them…he searched all these characters’ faces for the man who had given them life” (Rilke 79). Although considerate of the many pre-existing depictions of Balzac—most notably, Nadar’s photographic copy of a daguerreotype taken by Louis-Auguste Bisson in 1842 [Figure 2]—Rodin’s understanding of his subject’s external appearance began with a reflection on the features beneath the skin: the brain that made entire worlds with language, the eyes that were able “to see into the human heart, to make everything come alive with his striking reality” (Butler 254). Rodin, throughout his study of Balzac, was fond of repeating Lamartine’s observations of the famous writer, whose plump cheeks, alert and piercing eyes, and disheveled hair gave him “the face of an element…he possessed so much soul that his heavy body seemed not to exist” (qtd. in Butler 303). Lamartine’s separation of Balzac’s head from his body would incite Rodin’s creative direction, as he began to produce studies of Balzac in which, regardless of the bodies that clothe them, the heads are the most distinct feature.

The Quest for the Perfect Head and the Ultimate Defeat

Rodin’s preparation for the early stages of his sculpture was extensive, even consuming: he retreated into the backwaters of Touraine, the writer’s birthplace, in search of a model whose stocky physical force was comparable to the writer (Geffroy 16). It was in Touraine that Rodin first encountered one of his earliest models, a man named Estrager, whose similarity to Balzac would inspire one of Rodin’s first plaster head types [Figure 3]. Experimentation with prototype heads did not cease with Rodin’s discovery of Estrager, however; unsatisfied with his initial results, Rodin continued to generate new sketches of Balzac’s facial features for two years, even as his final deadline—May 1, 1893—approached (Schor 285). His earliest attempts to capture Balzac’s appearance, conducted between 1891 and 1892, demonstrate Rodin’s commitment to finding the perfect expression, the perfect age. In Mask of Balzac Smiling [Figure 4], a jolly Balzac leers with a slightly upturned mouth and softened eyes. Also completed in 1891, the Bust of the Young Balzac [Figure 5] sees a drastic departure from the round and disheveled Balzac of the Bisson daguerreotype: angular and dignified, Rodin, in his endeavor to “penetrate the character of Balzac” (Butler 293), has idealized his subject, depicting him at his youthful prime. Even as praise of these various sketches poured in from the Capitol, however, Rodin was unable to produce a completed design, forcing him to retreat to the countryside “still searching for Balzac’s soul.” (Butler 291) In an 1893 article featured in the French newspaper, Le Figaro, Rodin’s acquaintance, Gustave Geffroy, would reflect on Rodin’s repeated trips back to Touraine as a painstaking search for not just the correct visage, but for a better understanding of “the land of [Balzac’s] physical and intellectual transformation” (Geffroy 16). The answer to Balzac’s face lay not just in the content of Balzac’s novels, but in the land that shaped him during his formative years. The answer was out there and Rodin had to find it.

Around the time that Rodin began to experiment with head types, he also began experimenting with different bodies to support the head. In Study for a Clothed Figure [Figure 6], sculpted between 1891 and 1892, Rodin put the head of Balzac—now sporting the disheveled hair of the daguerreotype—on top of a body wearing a monk’s robe, his torso and head facing forward with the right leg elevated atop a pedestal. An early sketch of this model received rave reviews from the Société, who adored Rodin’s choice to adorn Balzac in a monk’s robe so much that they declared his work complete (Butler 285). For Rodin, however, he had still failed to capture Balzac’s true likeness, prompting him to generate further studies of Balzac with a variety of expressions, poses, and accoutrements. One notable example, the infamous Naked Balzac with Folded Arms [Figure 7], shocked the members of the Société during a surprise visit to Rodin’s workshop, who were startled by the grotesque nudity and the severity of his stance (Butler 286). This interaction would mark the beginning of Rodin’s tensions with the members of the Société, who were now demanding that the sculptor begin to finalize his work. When May of 1893 arrived, however, Rodin had still not crafted a final product. His refusal to meet yet another deadline one year later would draw even greater censure from the Société, who, having developed a greater understanding of their artist, offered Rodin an ultimatum that would ultimately allow him to complete his work (Butler 290).

In August of 1894, after an amiable dinner with Aurelien Scholl, the new President of the Société, during which Rodin explained his inability to meet his deadlines, a new contract was drafted granting Rodin unlimited time on the sculpture in exchange for the return of the ten thousand francs, to be placed in a separate account until the completion and delivery of the statue (Butler 292-293).  Liberation from the pressure of time constraints, while it gave Rodin a peace of mind that supported his creative endeavor, did not expedite his process, and it was not until 1897 that, following the final approval of his beloved mistress Camille Claudel, Rodin finally alerted the Société that his work was complete, nearly six years after he first started (Butler 315). Before it was sent to the foundry, however, the plaster of the statue would first be exhibited alongside an unprecedented seven thousand other works, as part of the Salon of 1898, held in the Galeries des Machines in the Champs-de-Mars [Figure 8]. Still in its uncast form, Rodin and the members of the Société shared concerns that his work would go unnoticed among the sea of other creations.

Any anxiety that Rodin’s creation would be swallowed up by the vastness of its surroundings disappeared soon after its much anticipated unveiling, when cries of shock, admiration, and spite met the statue that towered over the central axis of the entire exhibition (Butler 317). Immediate attention was directed towards the “grotesque” features of the head, with Jean Rameau writing in Le Gaulois that the “monstrosity” of the head should stand as a testament to the “perilous degree of mental aberration we sank at the end of our century” (Rameau 1). Although there were some reviewers that praised the monument—in a long article published in the Saturday Review, Frank Harris remarked on Rodin’s adept ability to capture “a face intact with a devouring vitality and intelligence” (Harris 8)— the additional praise of figures such as Oscar Wilde, recently released from prison, could not protect Rodin from the reaction of the Société, who signed a letter on May 9 in which they committed their refusal to recognize the statue as part of the commission. His years of pondering and revisiting Balzac’s interior, years that had turned him into a typically Balzacian character, the pensive, consumed with a “preoccupation and fullness of care” (Schor 241), had culminated in humiliating failure, the biggest disappointment of Rodin’s career.

The Mt. Holyoke Head and La Science du Modelé

In the Georges Rudier cast of Rodin’s Tête de Balzac, done nearly fifty years after the death of the original artist in 1962, the head that once beguiled viewers in the Champs-des-Mars on that fateful day in 1898 has been taken down from its pillar-like body. Cast from one of the thousands of plaster fragments and studies left behind in Rodin’s studio—Rodin left his entire estate of plasters to the French nation after his death, including the rights to their reproduction (Krauss 151)—Rudier’s rendering of Balzac’s head accentuates the original design’s irregular, bulbous forms. Cast in a dark bronze and treated with a black and green patina, the murky appearance of the surface compliments the head’s disturbing lack of symmetry, giving the composition a sense of putrefaction, of a head that has continued to age beyond the absence of its maker. In contrast to the 1902-1904 Monumental Head of Balzac [Figure 9], cast during Rodin’s lifetime under the direction of Paul Jeanneney, Rudier’s cast includes the minutest of surface impurities and manipulations, such as the tiny pin-pricks on the right cheek [Figure 10] and the deep claw-marks that form the strands of hair above Balzac’s left temple [Figure 11].

In preserving the original markings of the original artist that Jeanneney concealed, Rudier betrays his own agency as the overseer of the production, illuminating the gulf that separates the Rudier foundry, in the year 1962, from Rodin.

Once known as one of Rodin’s favorite Foundries (he was especially fond of their method of sand casting), Rodin’s associations with the Rudier Foundry were conducted through Eugène Rudier, son of founder Alexis. After weathering the unstable tides of Occupied France during World War II—during which the Foundry struck up a business deal with Arno Breker, Hitler’s favorite artist—Eugène turned the business over to Georges, who continued to cast Rodin’s plasters with the permission of the Musée Rodin. The possibility that Georges, Eugene’s nephew, had never even met Rodin presents a troubling conundrum that plagues all of Rodin’s posthumous casts: should it be considered forgery? Rosalind Krauss’s compelling takedown of the popular pastime of calling Rodin casts “fake” points out that, throughout Rodin’s work, he frequently repeated the same figures, repositioning and recoupling one multiplied, unoriginal body an infinite number of times (Krauss 153-154). What Krauss instead seeks to illustrate is that Rodin’s work was intended to be “an art of reproduction, of multiples without originals” (Krauss 155), therefore making their reproduction throughout time a part of their original process. Although, in the case of The Gates of Hell, Rodin’s famous plaster that was assembled by his assistants (per his penciled instructions), Krauss’s comment regarding the lack of Rodin originals conveys a certain truth, in the case of Georges Rudier’s cast of the Head of Balzac, there is still an important question to be answered: if it is not a fake, then what is it? An original once-removed? A “thought obsessively thought again?” (Steinberg 358). The answer to this question lies in the form of the Mt. Holyoke head, and how it preserves Rodin’s fundamental artistic concept:  la Science du modelé.

Towards the end of his conversation with Gsell, Rodin strikes up a conversation regarding art’s ability to unveil the mystery of its subject, tunneling into the deepest parts of the observed in order to locate an inner truth. He begins by identifying a misconception: “it is a general belief that we live only through our senses, and that the world of appearances suffices us” (Gsell 177). This misconception, Rodin believes, is dangerous, especially for an artist who “should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth” (Gsell 178). In terms of how this “inner truth” should shape an artist’s rendering of a subject, Rodin had a name for this concept: le modelé, a way of envisioning the form of an object taught to him by “a certain Constant” who advised him to “never regard a surface as anything but the outermost point of a volume, as the broader or narrower summit which it directs towards you” (qtd in Steinberg 367). The surface originates from within, pushed out and formed by some interior structure or idea. Rodin’s search for Balzac’s innermost content, for the beautiful mind buried deep within the head that dreamt whole lives and worlds into being, inspired the planes, lines, and shapes of Balzac’s head, a principle that has been preserved in Rudier’s copy. Seen from either profile [Figure 13 & Figure 14], the cavernous depth of the head and the summit of its projecting features depict a man with a complex interior process, a man who, Rodin described in his conversation with Gsell, was “alone in his studio, hair in disorder, eyes lost in a dream.” (Gsell 410) Rodin’s depiction of Balzac is not mimesis, but an invention that, through its refusal to accept the superficial details as the truth, burrows deeper into the subject, deriving from a man who wrote fiction a portrayal that is fictive yet brutally honest. In Georges Rudier’s reproduction, he adds an additional fictive layer, infusing the original design with the vision of its reviver.

In one of his final thoughts shared with Gsell, Rodin dreamily remarks on the inspiration of artists, stating: “Everywhere, the great artist hears spirit answer to his spirit.” Creativity is an answer to the presence of other people and things, whose lives are constantly calling out for company, connection, and understanding. The many kindred artists that have been addressed—from Balzac to Zola, from Balzac to Rodin—have all, through their communion, answered one another, and in doing so have helped craft a work of art that captures the pure, ephemeral spirit of one of their ranks, a writer whose brilliance caught the attention of one obsessive sculptor. Through his own interpretation of Rodin’s work, Rudier has joined the company of these artists through time. His contributions to Rodin’s original design have not tainted the original, but have simply added another set of hands to its surface, extending the lineage of artists and transforming the Head of Balzac into not just a copy, but a culmination.

Bibliography