Visiting Paris? Come See Musée Rodin, Where the Paths of Art, Literature, and History Intersect
- dthorgus
- Apr 30, 2023
- 15 min read
What is Auguste Rodin’s enigmatic sculpture The Thinker actually thinking? A visit to Paris can help us untangle the riddle of what Rodin was trying to say about his age, and perhaps steer us to work that we have yet to do in ours.
This is the second time I have written about the sculptor, Auguste Rodin. My first essay, euphemistically speaking, was “co-written” by me and my parents. It was my college admission essay. My mother still laughs when we make mention of it.
We wrote about movement as reflected in wrestling, Rodin’s work, and my own attempts at sculpture. It deserved the subtitle “the jock has an artistic side.”
Mercifully, I was admitted to college. A couple of years later, I participated in a study abroad program that took a turn through Paris. Once there, I followed the crowds and did tourist-y things: I walked the Champs-Élysées, stared into fancy store windows, and ate dinner in the Latin Quarter.
There were also uncomfortable moments. On a surreal Bastille Day evening under the Eiffel Tower, a group of firework-throwing adolescents amused themselves by menacing a woman who was pushing her baby in a stroller. A friend and I almost came to blows with them before they sauntered away.
On the train out of town, I found myself reflecting that Paris was undeniably beautiful, although it didn’t meet my preconception of how wonderful it was supposed to be. Then I learned from a fellow passenger that I missed Musée Rodin.
How could this happen!? It was something about me in my 20s. In those years, I could be passionate about something, but actually know so little about it. I had no idea the museum even existed.
Rodin in America
In later years I found Rodin’s masterful work in other locations, such as at Stanford University in Palo Alto and the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia. It is worth taking a moment to describe those places.
Sometimes a museum inspires a vivid snapshot in my memory. My picture of the Stanford museum is of the big modernist windows spreading exquisite light on Rodin’s Burghers of Calais.
The Philadelphia museum is also a gem. Rather than including the work of other artists, it is built entirely around Jules Mastbaum’s Rodin collection. It is a place where architectural proportions and lines of sight elegantly frame specific works, such as The Kiss in the atrium.
The patina of The Gates of Hell in Philadelphia is also different from other outdoor visions I have seen, brighter and showing more depth, perhaps because it is protected by the portico of the museum. Simply stated, you don’t need to travel all the way to France to have a wonderful Rodin experience.
Rodin in Paris
Still, I have yearned to see Rodin in Paris. Following the death of my son, Jack, going there has also felt like an emotional pilgrimage for me. He visited Paris shortly before his death, and I feel drawn to walk in his footsteps. He told me that he cried when he first beheld I.M. Pei’s Pyramid at the Louvre. In a similar way, I felt overwhelmed with gratitude to walk through the front gate of Musée Rodin for the first time.
When the day comes for you to walk through the Musée Rodin gates, you will see on your right, surrounded by teardrop-shaped bushes, a large bronze of The Thinker. To your left, at a slightly greater distance, The Gates of Hell. A comfortable cafe can be found following the walking path to your right.
You may recall that a smaller version of The Thinker sits near the top of The Gates of Hell. Rodin created bronze casts of 20 different solo versions of The Thinker during his lifetime.
Incredibly, after 37 years of effort, the sculpture that was the origin of The Thinker and so many other works, The Gates of Hell, remained in plaster until after his death. Scholars have debated whether The Gates were ever finished by Rodin, but they agree that the sculpture was the central project of his life.
Standing before you is an elegant building, originally constructed as a family chateau, and later serving as a religious order, a school for girls, a hotel, Rodin’s studio, and finally, his museum. Like other classical structures constructed in the 1720’s, the chateau has sweeping rocaille decorative features. Rocaille deserves a definition: “a French style of exuberant decoration, with an abundance of curves, counter-curves, undulations and elements modeled on nature.” It is an appropriately beautiful setting for Rodin’s work.
His History
The Musée Rodin in Paris does an exceptional job helping us appreciate Rodin as a person; better, I think, than Stanford or Philadelphia. For example, we learn his early years as a sculptor were less than auspicious. Lacking other opportunities, he first found work in a sculptural ornamentation business producing run-of-the-mill fat babies and nymphs.
When he later struck out on his own, his work was mostly met with criticism. As was the case for his ground-breaking contemporaries such as Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, and Camille Pissarro, Rodin’s efforts to gain training and exhibit his works met with rejection from the standards-wielding Academie des Beaux-Arts.
Rather than allow himself to be beaten down, however, Rodin’s lowly start helped him cultivate a unique kind of pragmatic genius as a sculptor. Rodin’s early mass-production experience taught how to use and re-use his earlier sculptural forms, casting them in different expressive stories. Having been rejected by the Academie, he wasn’t beholden to the establishment.
Controversies
Another thing I appreciate about Musée Rodin is that it doesn’t shy away from the complexity and controversies of Rodin’s life. For example, he would often cast sculpture in cursory terms and then have his disciples bring them to form. Here we see, for example, Rodin’s austere clay and plaster model, next to the angelic final marble produced by another hand. There are, consequently, open questions of authorship in his work.
Musée Rodin also doesn’t back away from his relationship with Camille Claudel. As powerfully portrayed in the film Camille Claudel, she was his consort for 10 years, “muse,” collaborator, and ultimately, the lover to whom he would not commit. Likely because she was a woman,
the world also denied her the artistic recognition she deserved. Claudel lost her emotional footing and eventually died in an asylum. Even if overdue recognition, it is encouraging that the museum has a room dedicated to her sculpture.
Seeing Rodin’s Sculpture in Paris
While it is true that the museum does a nice job telling us about Rodin as a person, the main reason to come to Musée Rodin is to experience his sculpture. Does seeing his work in Paris make that experience more meaningful? My answer is a definite “yes.”
We could take any number of examples to support the see-him-in-Paris case. For example, consider Rodin’s sculpture of Victor Hugo, the author of that most Parisian parable of defeat and hope, Les Miserables--with the view of the French flag and the streets he wrote about visible through the adjoining window. The connections between Rodin’s sculptural and Hugo’s literary works are amplified when you walk those streets and see buildings adorned with “Liberte, Egalite, and Fraternite” (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, the motto of the French Revolution).
Visit the Pantheon and see the indefatigable political philosopher Rousseau literally extending a torch to light your way from beyond the grave–a gesture both heartening and oddly whimsical. As Victor Hugo noted, in Paris misery often led to more misery, but it also led to change.
For my part, I am glad I saw Rodin in Paris because it left me with an interesting question about the placement of those first two works that I mentioned earlier, The Gates of Hell to your left and The Thinker to your right. Musée Rodin documents emphasize the great care that was made in the placement of The Thinker.
I have yet to find any explanation, however, as to why it was placed in that way. What is The Thinker pondering in his particular view of humanity?
Following the Paths in Search of Answers
You might think I am off my rocker, or auditioning for the next Da Vinci Code movie, but one way to answer the question is to look at a map. If you look down the angles of the triangular walking paths that extend from The Thinker, there are intriguing possibilities to consider. Some of the paths are hopeful; others feel like a warning.
The Path to the Northwest
The beautiful teardrop-shaped bushes lining the path to the northeast leads to a landmark over the River Seine, the Arc de Triomphe. My Arc de Triomphe mental association is with a race I adore, the Tour de France. The race is like the World Cup and the Super Bowl combined, but one where everyone in France gets a free ticket to watch in person. On the final day of the race, the riders do eight laps around the Arc de Triomphe, down the slight hill of the Champs-Élysées, around les Tuileries and the Louvre, and back up to the Arc. Here is a fantastic video showing the area, one that mostly lacks commentary--other than Sam Bennett’s jubilant yells when he won the final sprint of the 2020 Tour.
But are we too comfortable with the Arc de Triomphe? How would The Thinker regard us for making it a picturesque back-drop to bike races and Champs-Élysées shopping trips? The Arc, after all, was conceived by Napoleon I to celebrate his victory in the Battle of Austerlitz. It dramatically symbolized his intention to make Paris a new Rome, one in which he would reign as Emperor.
Over time, France has sought to distinguish The Arc as a memorial to those who have died in wars, versus triumphalism. In the midst of World War I, before France knew who would prevail, they made The Arc the final resting place of a person who had known hell. This Tomb of the Unknown (and if we are being honest, unidentifiable) Soldier is now a central part of the monument. In this way, the Arc de Triomphe itself, and its interlocutors such as Christo, challenge us to think for ourselves about its meaning.
Looking Straight Ahead
Look directly at The Thinker. After you get over the startle of him looking at you with those powerful questioning eyes, behind him you will see the Eiffel Tower.
The Tower is a dramatic architectural contrast in a city that values history and consistency. Everywhere you look in Paris, for example, you will see the same mid-1800s Haussmann limestone buildings, with the five stories, capped by a slanted roofline of Chambres de Bonne rooms. Nonetheless, the dominant architectural symbol of the city is a soaring exemplar of change, the Eiffel Tower.
Paris is changing even now. Walking around, for example, it is startling how quiet it is for such a big city. One explanation is that Paris is taking global warming seriously. Rules are being enforced regarding hybrid and other low-emissions vehicles. Rather than excuse older and bigger vehicles from standards of efficiency, France is making hard decisions in the interest of our shared humanity.
The Path to the Southwest
What will we find looking down the southwestern path? Adjacent to Musée Rodin is an enormous complex of buildings, the Hôtel des Invalides. The southwest path leads visually to the entrance of a huge domed structure at the southern end of that complex. Michelle and I had no idea what to make of Hôtel des Invalides, other than it didn’t look like a “hotel” for invalids in English parlance.
So, when we left Musée Rodin, we ambled over to the dome. We learned the House of Invalids was constructed by Louis XIV as a home for soldiers disabled in battle. It now houses a military museum and governmental offices. The domed church was originally intended to be the private chapel for the king. In 1861 the focus of the building changed to housing a sarcophagus containing the cremated remains of a Frenchman who we keep running into around Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Pictures don’t begin to capture what it is like to stand before the sarcophagus. It is absolutely gargantuan. You can see a picture of it below. Here is an article about what the French love and hate about Napoleon. Churchill and de Gaulle had a conversation standing at this same place in 1944. Churchill is said to have looked at the sarcophagus and said “In the world, there is nothing grander.” De Gualle disagreed, responding “Napoleon left France smaller than he found her.”
Finally, a glance at a bigger map shows that if you keep going southwest out of town, you will be going in the direction of the Versailles Palace. We don’t know what Rodin thought of Napoleon, although his sculpture Napoleon in a Dream is notable for its ambiguity. At Versailles we can clearly see what Napoleon thought about himself, however.
There you can find Napoleon’s version of scrapbooking. A succession of large rooms are filled with floor-to-ceiling paintings of his accomplishments that year. His paintings show him conquering a big slice of the globe.
The paintings also show there were no ends to which Napoleon would claim victory, even in defeat. Consider this picture in which no fewer than five dying soldiers turn their grateful final glances toward their august commander.
Studying The Gates of Hell
Three days later, I returned to Musée Rodin to study The Gates more carefully. My hope was to learn more about The Thinker by learning more about the sculpture over which he presides.
To stand before The Gates of Hell is to face a phantasma of both incalculable loss and appetites unleashed. Even for a modern audience, it is shocking.
In his original design of The Gates, Rodin planned to sequentially depict stories from each of Dante’s circles of hell. He eventually abandoned this idea, however, and decided instead to create a vast undulating exposition on the anguish of loss. Amidst the swirl of humanity, there are individual stories from the Inferno, but the statue does not seek to tell the story in its entirety.
Above the frightful melee sits The Thinker. It is not clear if he is a divine presence, Dante, or a nameless philosopher looking over a damaged world. In his physical strength, he might be an embodiment of power and even agency. And yet, looking down the swarm of people in convulsive movement, he is the only one who is still. Does he sit watching us in detached judgment or active caring?
Adam and Eve stand to the right and the left of The Gates. The message is clear. The sculpture is meant to depict all of us.
Dante and Rodin Use Hell to Challenge Contemporary Norms
Under the pretense of a warning to sinners, Dante challenged the norms of his age and unabashedly pointed to failures of character among his contemporaries. He described the screams of the “uncommitted,” for example, who stand for nothing other than self-concern. Dante named leaders of his age who, in modern terms, we might describe as self-serving. With candor cloaked in a warning, he freed himself to say what he really thought.
In focusing on hell, Rodin, like Dante, found latitude to radically change artistic norms. Rodin opened the door to a new level of physical expression in sculpture. His characters, caught in a maelstrom of guilt, eroticism, and energy, move beyond the laws of physics.
It was barely OK to depict such expressive bodies in Rodin’s life; what made it just OK enough was that he could defend his work as a warning. With that license, he found the freedom to create sculptural modernism.
Everything the Academie des Beaux-Arts stood for, the rules of classical form in sculpture, are now gone. Rodin ended them.
Historical Context, A Society Thinking About War
I spent time digging in art history texts to better understand why Rodin created The Gates. In Rodin Rediscovered, Ruth Butler noted that he conceived of the sculpture during a phase of societal introspection following the Franco-Prussian war. France, who had started and then lost the war, was thinking deeply about itself. She wrote:
“Rodin had been reading the Divine Comedy and considering the possibility of creating works inspired by its vision around 1875. General interest in Dante gradually emerged as part of the seriousness of the post-war period… it [was] part of a larger impulse to understand human transgression and the presence of guilt in the world.”
Now the location of The Thinker has a new significance. Recall that the large structure looming behind The Thinker in Paris is the Hôtel des Invalides. Like our VA system, it was created to care for soldiers who were harmed in war.
Rodin and Dante, Their Message About War
While it was clearly not a war monument per se, Rodin intended The Gates of Hell to speak to his fellow citizens about the hell of their recent war. What was he trying to say? To begin to understand Rodin’s message, we need to take a close look at The Inferno.
You may recall that The Inferno is the first of Dante’s three epic poems that together are known as The Divine Comedy. In The Inferno, Dante himself is guided by the Roman poet and historian, Virgil, through the pit of hell. In the remaining two books, Pergatorio and Paradiso, he ascends and eventually glimpses the divine. Dante tells the stories in first person, as he is both the narrator and journeyman.
I have been [very] slowly reading The Inferno, with an eye to learning what might tell us about the nature of war. For a fellow dyslexic person like Rodin, The Inferno must also have been a tough read. He carried a copy of the book in his pocket for more than a year when he was composing the statue.
One prominent sculpture on The Gates that relates specifically to the subject of war in The Inferno is the horrifying story of Ugolino della Gherardesca. He was captured in 1289 amidst battles between the papacy and the remains of the Roman empire, and imprisoned in a tower with his two sons and two grandsons. Ruggieri degli Ubaldini had the keys to the tower thrown into the Arno River. The rumor was that Ugolino resorted to eating his dead family members before he too succumbed to starvation.
Authors throughout history, including Chaucer, have interpreted the story of Ugolino differently. In Dante's telling, the story of Ugolino and his children is ultimately about the retribution that Ugolino takes on his torturer. He and Ruggieri are trapped together in hell, but Ugolino is given more power (I will spare you the details).
Most authors, however, have focused on Ugolino's alleged cannibalism. We don’t know why Rodin emphasized the story of Ugolino. Was he saying that once unleashed, the destruction of war is very hard to stop, and often will extend through generations? Dante noted of the wolf that blocks the path out of hell: “Her voracity for feeding makes her hungrier.” As our children are usually our warriors, was he saying that when we wage war we risk feeding upon our own?
Reading Dante, we can see that he struggled with what constitutes a just war. He felt some conflicts were justified. He regarded others, however, as the result of manipulation of communal fears by destructive leaders. As the political philosopher Eric Hoffer noted:
“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil.”
In this light, The Thinker calls us to be like him. His concern is great. His body is tensed–even his toes grip the ground under his feet–but he is determined to take his time, to think, and not to be swept along.
Redemption and The Gates
To leave hell, Dante first needed to find a path deeper into it. In contemporary terms, this is a lesson psychotherapy teaches. He does, thankfully, find a path back to the living:
“And following its path, we took no care
To rest, but climbed: he first, then I–so far,
Through a round aperture, I saw appear
Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears,
Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.”
We can consider the word “redemption” in many ways. Religiously grounded people, for example, may think about redemption in terms of their relationship with the divine.
Rodin’s work on The Gates also stands as an example of the redemptive nature of art. He took many smaller figures on and off The Gates over the 37 years that he worked on the project. The list of such major works is long, including Danaid, The Kiss, The Three Shades, The Old Courtesan, and I am Beautiful. In this way, The Gates were the canvas for many of his greatest independent works.
Crucially, figures had their origin in Dante’s hell, but standing alone, full-sized, their accepted meanings changed. The Kiss, for example, was a depiction of the youthful characters, Francesca and Paolo, as they gave one another an elicit first kiss. In Dante’s telling, this act ultimately sent them to hell. When The Kiss stood alone in museums, however, it underwent a kind of redemption in the popular imagination.
Like Hester Pryne’s scarlet letter, people changed their opinions. The Kiss became an enduring symbol of romantic love, grace, and even purity.
Even poor Ugolino has found a redemption of sorts. Elements of Dante’s story were true. Modern DNA and biochemical analysis of the human remains from the prison tower indicated they were all members of his della Gherardesca family. However, Dante was wrong about one important thing: biomarkers indicated Ugolino did not resort to cannibalism.
In a different light, consider what it means that Musée Rodin gave Camille Claudel her just recognition. This is a museum that points out its star, Rodin, had fallen. In their actions, the museum’s directors powerfully conveyed the message that when reality is brutal, unfair, and, yes, sinful, a measure of redemption is possible when we face ourselves.
It is a pilgrimage to travel to Musée Rodin. There you will find The Thinker, located at an intersection of hallowed ground. He sees us as we are, in our redemptive moments and our pain.
Closing Thoughts
Public sculptures both reflect and construct civic memory. They should be carefully considered, even fought over. When not simply triumphal, they can embrace contradictions. Some public sculptures, such as the Vietnam Memorial, have the power to help us heal.
We have just ended the longest war in American history. We haven’t even given it a clear name. In time, will it be “The War in Afghanistan,” “Operation Enduring Freedom,” or an entirely different name?
We entered both Iraq and Afghanistan under real and false pretenses. We have so many unanswered questions. Were our means consistent with our ends? Who did we help, and who did we hurt? Have we engaged in true introspection, or just moved on?
I’m glad veterans aren’t being ill treated, as they were after Vietnam, but it is still a kind of cynicism and neglect to just ask them to stand before football games, rather than have a real discussion about what has transpired. Moreover, it wasn’t just they who went to war when the twin towers fell, we all did.
Rodin shows us that one place to start our soul searching, and our healing, would be to work on a sculptural monument to our recent wars.
Thank you for reading this essay.
Dan Gustafson
