The sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) lived and worked in the Hôtel Biron in Paris for the last decade of his life. (The word Hôtel is used here in the old sense, meaning mansion.) In his will, he left the building and most of his sculptures to the French state, for use as a museum.
Victor Hugo by Auguste Rodin
In 1883 Rodin made a bust of the great French writer Victor Hugo (1802-1885), the author of Notre-Dame de Paris 1482, and Les Misérables, among many other works.
Gustav Mahler by Auguste Rodin
Much later, in 1909, Rodin made this bust of the composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911).
Allée and café in the garden of the Rodin Museum
Statue of a woman in the garden
Ugolino and his children, by Auguste Rodin
When I first saw the sculpture Ugolino and his children, by Auguste Rodin, my impression was that Ugolino was trying desperately to protect his children, perhaps from wolves or bandits. But I didn’t know the story then.
There really was a man named Ugolino della Gherardesca who lived in the thirteenth century, from about 1220 to 1289. He was an Italian count who was very much involved in the feuds and conflicts of his era. On orders of his enemy, the Archbishop, Ugolino and his sons and grandsons were imprisoned in a tower and left there to starve to death, the keys having been thrown into the river.
This probably would have been forgotten as just another gruesome episode from Italian history, except that Dante Alighieri picked up on the story a quarter century later and used it in his Divine Comedy — in the Inferno part, of course. In Dante’s version, the dying children beg their father to eat their bodies after they have died, and he finally gets so desperate that he does so. For this crime of cannibalism (among other crimes) he is condemned to eternal torture in the ninth circle of hell — along with his enemy, the Archbishop.
Garden of Musée Rodin
In the garden of the Rodin Museum in Paris, the bronze casting of Ugolino and his children is on an island in the middle of a round pond, with other Rodin sculptures around the edges and the Dome of Les Invalides rising up in the background.
The Gates of Hell, in the garden of the Rodin Museum
Auguste Rodin originally made the sculpture Ugolino and his children as part of The Gates of Hell, but then he also decided to have it cast as a free-standing sculpture.
The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin, in the garden of the Rodin Museum
Le penseur (The Thinker) is one of Auguste Rodin’s best known sculptures. Multiple castings of it were made during his lifetime. I used to see it every day when I was a student in New York, because there is a full-size casting of it in front of the Law Library at Columbia University.
The Kiss by Rodin
The Kiss (originally entitled “Francesca da Rimini“) is another well-known sculpture by Rodin that was cast repeatedly during his lifetime. The casting in my photo is on display outside the Orangerie, which is 2 km north of the Rodin Museum (a quarter of an hour by bicycle) on the other side of the river. This is a somewhat messy place to display a sculpture, with lots of distractions from the Place de la Concorde in the background. Note that the lady’s right knee is black, no doubt from being rubbed by countless passers-by.
Balzac by Rodin, in the middle of Boulevard Raspail
Speaking of messy places to display a sculpture, another such place is Boulevard Raspail at Place Pablo Picasso (formerly Place Vavin), where another Rodin sculpture is on display in the stripe between the two directions of traffic, across from the café La Rotonde.
Balzac by Rodin
The person portrayed here is the French author Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), whose novel Le Père Goriot I recently read because it was recommended by the French economist Thomas Piketty in Le capital au XXIe siècle.
Rodin’s Balzac has always been a controversial sculpture, and just from seeing it here on the Boulevard Raspail I never quite knew what to think of it, since the face is up so high that I have trouble making out the details. Also I have never been sure whether Balzac in this sculpture is wearing sunglasses or not, or if perhaps some prankster climbed up and put sunglasses on him. Rodin, in any case, insisted that his intention was not to make a realistic portrait of Balzac, but to capture his essence, and this I think he has done.
My photos on this post are from 2012, 2013 and 2017. I revised the text in 2017.
See also: Camille Claudel at the Rodin Museum.
The Rodin Museum is at 79 rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris.
I came following Sarah’s post on Rodin, Don, but I find that it is the story of Camille Claudel that most engages me. Hard to see the details of her work from the links but I like what I see. Thanks for sharing.
I have been to the Rodin Museum several times as it is one of my favorite places to visit in Paris.Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for your comment. Glad you liked the museum and the post.
Great writing and photography on the Rodin museum. I was there some ten years ago and love some of his work especially the famous kiss, and the thinker, also Balzac. But I read the biography of Camille Claudel and found the whole connection and the influence on his work very interesting. A lovely post Don.
Thanks, glad you liked the post. Have you seen the film on Camille Claudel, with Isabelle Adjani?
I’ve seen the movie though it is a while ago Don. The book I read on her life was by Anne Delbee and is called ‘Camille Claudel – een vrouw. I perferred the book.
Fascinating post, amazing works of art. Ugolino must have been popular. Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827–1875) also created an agonising work ‘Ugolino and His Sons’ made of Saint-Béat marble and displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Thanks for your visit and comment. It seems to me there is also a version of Carpeaux’s Ugolino at the Orsay museum in Paris.
I have also visited Rodin museum and I admired Rodin… until I discovered Brancusi. I would really like to see a post written by you about Brancusi. He worked for a very short period with Rodin and he suddenly left telling to Rodin that “nothing grows under the shadow of big trees.”
Rodin lead some sculptors to mould statues for him, whilst Brancusi worked alone, discovering with the chisel his “Birds in Space” inside the marble blocks or with the grinder his “princess X” controversial work in bronze.
Thanks for your comment! By coincidence I am just working on a blog post on the Montparnasse Cemetery (which I hope to post tomorrow), but I didn’t find Brancusi’s grave there. Also I don’t seem to have any photos of his atelier at Centre Pompidou, but I’ll try to take some on my next visit to Paris.
It looks like a great place to visit. So many museums I haven’t visited yet in Paris.
Another great suggestion for our visit to Paris – thanks!
Great blog. I was happy to visit this beautiful place on one of my very first trips to Europe, in 1988. Thanks for all the lovely reminders!
And thanks to you for your visit to my blog.
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, also has a copy of, “The Thinker” in the garden.
Thanks, Linda. I didn’t know that.
The story of Ugolino and his children makes me shiver. Quite a vivid one and I am unlikely to forget it soon. I shall have to look up the Rodin Museum the next time I am in the city.
The Rodin Museum we did see. I have a biography of Rodin called “Naked Came I” by David Weiss. Apparently he had very poor eye sight. It’s amazing what he did under those circumstances.
Leslie
I didn’t know he had poor eyesight. Perhaps that helped him to get to the essence of things, rather than just the outward appearance.
It definitely influenced his works.
Leslie
Thanks for the insights. Alas the museum was closed for renovation when I was in Paris. One trip to Paris in not enough… I know you have been there many times now.