“Art is only a kind of love. I know quite well that bashful moralists will stop up their ears. But what! I express in a loud voice what all artists think. Desire! Desire! What a formidable stimulant.” Rodin
Long before Picasso's self aggrandizement of artist as Promethian figure, there was Rodin.
A new book by David J. Getsy, Rodin: Sex and the Making of Modern Sculpture reconsiders Rodin's influence, arguing that the sculptor emphasized his hands on process as a means of asserting his own desire's inseparability from his works.
During his lifetime, Auguste Rodin's name became synonymous with modern sculpture-- and sex.
(Shocking! Sound familiar as a marketing device? Rodin may not have invented it, but he owned it for the late 19th Century)
Rodin emphasized the importance of desire and the sexual as the creative fuel of his art, using them to fuel his increasingly daring treatments of the nude. In the minds of many viewers, the dramatic and activated surfaces of his sculptures came to be seen as evidence of not just a sculptor's touch but of a lover's touch as well.
Looking forward to reading it.
A new book by David J. Getsy, Rodin: Sex and the Making of Modern Sculpture reconsiders Rodin's influence, arguing that the sculptor emphasized his hands on process as a means of asserting his own desire's inseparability from his works.
During his lifetime, Auguste Rodin's name became synonymous with modern sculpture-- and sex.
(Shocking! Sound familiar as a marketing device? Rodin may not have invented it, but he owned it for the late 19th Century)
Rodin emphasized the importance of desire and the sexual as the creative fuel of his art, using them to fuel his increasingly daring treatments of the nude. In the minds of many viewers, the dramatic and activated surfaces of his sculptures came to be seen as evidence of not just a sculptor's touch but of a lover's touch as well.
Looking forward to reading it.
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