Art Bulletin ofNationalmuseumStockholm

Volume 22

Rodin

Nationalmuseum@Konstakademien, Stockholm1 October 2015 – 10 January 2016

Ateneum Art Museum/Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki5 February – 8 May 2016

Linda HinnersCurator, Sculpture

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Volume 22, 2015

© Stockholms Auktionsverk, Stockholm (Fig. 5, p. 35)© Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels (Fig. 2, p. 38)© Teylers Museum, Haarlem (Fig. 3, p. 39)© Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Shelfmark: Riserva.S.81(int.2) (Fig. 2, p. 42)© Galerie Tarantino, Paris (Figs. 3–4, p. 43)© Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain (Figs. 3–4, pp. 46–47)© National Library of Sweden, Stockholm (Figs. 5–6, pp. 48–49)© Uppsala Auktionskammare, Uppsala (Fig. 1, p. 51)© Landsarkivet, Gothenburg/Johan Pihlgren (Fig. 3, p. 55)© Västergötlands museum, Skara (Fig. 4, p. 55)© Svensk Form Design Archive/Centre for Business History (Fig. 2, p. 58)© Svenskt Tenn Archive and Collection, Stockholm (Fig. 4, p. 60)© Denise Grünstein (Fig. 5, p. 152)© The National Gallery, London (Figs. 1–3, 6–7, 17, pp. 167–169, 172–173, 179)© The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo/Jarre Anne Hansteen, CC-BY-NC (Fig. 8, p. 174)© Nicholas Penny (Figs. 9–10, 12–14, 16, pp. 175, 177, 179)© Museum Gustavianum, Uppsala (Fig. 11, p. 176)© Getty Museum CC-BY. Digital image courtesy of the Gettys Open Content Program (Fig. 15, p. 178)© The Swedish Royal Court/Håkan Lind (Fig. 9, p. 188)© Eva-Lena Bergström (Figs. 1, 3–4, 6–7, 9, pp. 191–192, 194–196, 198)© Statens Museum for Kunst/National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, CC-PD (Fig. 2, p. 193)© The Nordic Museum, Stockholm/Karolina Kristensson (Fig. 5, p. 195)

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, is published with generous support from the Friends of the Nationalmuseum.

Nationalmuseum collaborates with Svenska Dagbladet and Grand Hôtel Stockholm. We would also like to thank FCB Fältman & Malmén.

Cover IllustrationAnne Vallayer (1744–1818), Portrait of a Violinist, 1773. Oil on canvas, 116 x 96 cm. Purchase: The Wiros Fund. Nationalmuseum, NM 7297.

PublisherBerndt Arell, Director General

EditorJanna Herder

Editorial CommitteeJanna Herder, Linda Hinners, Merit Laine, Lena Munther, Magnus Olausson, Martin Olin, Maria Perers and Lidia Westerberg Olofsson

PhotographsNationalmuseum Photographic Studio/Linn Ahlgren, Bodil Beckman, Erik Cornelius, Anna Danielsson, Cecilia Heisser, Per-Åke Persson and Hans Thorwid

Picture EditorRikard Nordström

Photo Credits© Samlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (Fig. 5, p. 15)© Museum Bredius The Hague (Fig. 6, p. 16)© The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo/Jacques Lathion (Fig. 2, p. 23)© Kalmar läns museum, Kalmar/Rolf Lind (Fig. 3, p. 27)

Graphic DesignBIGG

LayoutAgneta Bervokk

Translation and Language EditingGabriella Berggren, Erika Milburn and Martin Naylor

PublishingJanna Herder (Editor) and Ingrid Lindell (Publications Manager)

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum is published annually and contains articles on the history and theory of art relating to the collections of the Nationalmuseum.

NationalmuseumBox 16176SE–103 24 Stockholm, Swedenwww.nationalmuseum.se© Nationalmuseum, the authors and the owners of the reproduced works

ISSN 2001-9238

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exhibitions/rodin

Rodin

Nationalmuseum@Konstakademien, Stockholm1 October 2015 – 10 January 2016

Ateneum Art Museum/Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki5 February – 8 May 2016

Linda HinnersCurator, Sculpture

Fig. 1 Auguste Rodin (1840–1917), The Thinker, (1903), 1909. Bronze, H. 189 cm. Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde, Stockholm, in the Nationalmuseum exhibition Rodin.

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The Rodin exhibition , which opened in autumn 2015 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, was the National-museum’s first exhibition entirely devoted to sculpture since Sergel and his Roman Circle in 2004. The purpose of the exhibition was to present Auguste Rodin’s (1840–1917) sculptures and oeuvre to the Swedish and Nordic audience. The last time a mono-graphic exhibition of this sculptor took pla-ce in Sweden was in 1988 at Millesgården, and the Nationalmuseum had not featured Rodin in a solo exhibition since 1966.

The project was a collaborative effort with Ateneum Art Museum/Finnish Natio-nal Gallery in Helsinki and Musée Rodin in Paris. Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, the previous Chief Curator of Musée Rodin, ser-ved as the project’s senior advisor. Our selec-tion of Rodin sculptures was based on the works in Swedish and Finnish collections. Several lenders, and in particular Musée Ro-din, also generously let us borrow works for the exhibition.

Our focus was to highlight the sculptor Rodin’s artistic practice and his experimen-tal approach, and to show how he changed the art of sculpture forever. Over the years, many of Auguste Rodin’s works have beco-me very famous and loved. However, when they were exhibited in the late 19th cen-tury, they were often deemed too daring and realistic, or dismissed as unfinished and lacking narrative context. Rodin’s live-ly, spontaneous imagery was entirely novel. With his intense focus on portraying the human body, he could be perceived as one of the last classical sculptors. His naturalis-tic rendition of muscles and movement ex-press strong feelings, and the traces of the hands that shaped the clay or the rough stone are part of the artistic expression. What the world perceived as unfinished was for Rodin the embodiment of perfec-tion. “In every object, the artist reveals the inner truths that underlie appearance”, he said.

Figs. 2–3 Interiors from the exhibition Rodin.

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An underlying theme in the exhibition was formed by the Nordic collectors of Rodin’s works and the contacts between the Nordic countries at the time, where Rodin encoun-tered both outrage and admiration.

The exhibition filled three rooms and was structured chronologically and themati-cally. The idea was that visitors could follow the trajectory of Rodin’s career and creative development, while gaining an idea of his approach and artistic aspirations, by getting to know some of the themes and subjects that recur throughout his practice. An in-troduction to the exhibition was provided by The Thinker, Rodin’s most famous sculp-ture, which exists in countless versions and reproductions. (An internet search for “Ro-din’s The Thinker” gives thousands of hits.) This monumental version of the sculpture – the sixth to be made – was commissioned directly from Rodin by the Swedish artist Prince Eugen. Since 1909 it stands in the garden of Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde in Stockholm. In the Nationalmuseum’s exhibition it was displayed indoors for the first time in nearly a century (it was alleged-ly featured at Liljevalchs konsthall in Stock-holm in the 1920s) (Fig. 1).

Near The Thinker was The Age of Bronze, which was one of the first works by Rodin to be bought by the Nationalmuseum (1914). The Age of Bronze or The Awakening Man, or The Vanquished One, as it is also called, were shown in public for the first time in 1877, causing a scandal because it was considered to be far too realistic. Rodin was even sus-pected of having made life casts of the mo-del, rather than sculpting freely. Another aspect that puzzled the audience was that the sculpture seemed to be devoid of theme or narrative (it was originally exhibited without a title). For Rodin, however, the true subject was man, human emotions and passions, articulated in the human body. Rodin made the body speak (Fig. 2).

Despite the scandal around The Age of Bronze, Rodin was commissioned in 1880 by the French government to make a bronze door for a planned museum of decorative arts in Paris. The museum was never built,

Fig. 4 Interior from the exhibition Rodin.

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ling Man and Crouched Woman, which, when combined, form the group I am Beautiful. The Gates of Hell, which is more than six feet tall, was not included in the exhibition, but the position of the various sculptures on the work was presented in a slide show (Fig. 3).

The large middle room was intended to convey the feeling of an artist’s studio, with bare-wood skirting boards and natural light, and enlarged photos from Rodin’s workshops. Here, visitors could acquaint themselves with a few of Rodin’s numerous portraits (Jules Dalou, Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Laurens) and most popular separate sculp-tures, including Three Sirens or The Prodigal

and the door, called The Gates of Hell after Dante’s Divine Comedy, was never comple-ted. However, Rodin continued to work on it to the end of his life. The first exhibition room was devoted to The Gates of Hell, with its hundreds of figures that came to serve as an inspirational reservoir for Rodin’s crea-tivity. Many of his figures and compositions originate in the Gates, including The Thin-ker, Shadows, The Kiss and Danaïd. Rodin was also unconventional and daring in his crea-tive process. Using an approach commonly called assemblage, he combined different figures into new compositions and expres-sions. This is the case with, for instance, Fal-

Son, in various materials and formats (Fig. 4). One of the most spectacular features of the exhibition was the plaster model for a monument to Victor Hugo (second version, second model). This version of the monu-ment includes Three Sirens, which, inciden-tally, also originated in The Gates of Hell. The monument was not considered to be suffi-ciently heroising – with Hugo portrayed as a naked old man leaning against a rock – and was rejected, as were most of Rodin’s public commissions. Despite the disappointments and the ensuing scandals, public monu-ments were the vehicle for Rodin’s conti-nuous experimentation.

Fig. 5 Interior from the exhibition Rodin.

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Meditation, exhibited in the third room, is another work that was rejected. This figu-re also comes from The Gates of Hell but was enlarged and used for a new version of the Victor Hugo monument.

In order to squeeze it in, Rodin had to sever the arms and lower legs of the female figure. In that condition it represented per-fection to Rodin, and he decided to exhibit a plaster version of it, calling it Meditation or The Inner Voice. In 1897, it was included

in the art section of the Stockholm Exhibition. After the exhibition, it was offered to the Nationalmuseum as a gift, but the Museum turned it down! Reviews from the time in-dicate that the work was perceived as frag-mentary and incomplete, like “something unearthed at Pompeii”. The event caused yet another scandal, however, and this time it was in the sculptor’s favour. The Swedish artists who were opponents to academic art, headed by names such as Anders Zorn, Carl

Larsson and Richard Bergh, wrote a homa-ge to Rodin to express their sympathy with the sculptor. The sculpture was later acqui-red by Oscar II, King of Sweden, but has been missing since the early 1900s (Fig 5).

The final part of the exhibition featu-red a few of the Nordic sculptors who were influenced in one way or another by Rodin. Many Nordic artists went to Paris around 1900. Auguste Rodin had a seminal influ-ence on many of them, while others found

Fig. 6 Interior from the exhibition Rodin.

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it hard to understand his art. But hardly anyone remained unaffected by him. Seve-ral Nordic sculptors received advice from Rodin, but few were actually his students. Carl Milles and Carl Eldh both visited Ro-din’s studio and were strongly inspired by him. The two Finnish sculptors Sigrid af Forselles and Hilda Flodin, however, were among those who actively assisted at Ro-din’s studio. In this way, they gained the technical experience and self-confidence to launch their independent careers. A few artists, including Anders Zorn, became clo-se friends with the French sculptor. Zorn and Rodin exchanged art with each other (Fig. 6).

The exhibition offered a few “tactile sta-tions” with a selection of Rodin reproduc-tions from the Musée Rodin in Paris. Visi-tors were encouraged to touch the replicas. “Tactile guided tours” were also organised throughout the exhibition period for the blind and partially sighted. In the autumn, second-year dance students from the Aest-hetic Programme at Fryshuset in Stock-holm presented their interpretation of the Rodin exhibition. In the project, called “Unfreeze”, the students created their own works based on Rodin’s sculptures, emana-ting in four short dance videos, which were shown online and in the exhibition during the last four weeks.

The exhibition architecture was desig-ned by the Nationalmuseum’s Olof Lund-ström. The enlarged photographs were from Musée Rodin in Paris. The catalogue was produced jointly with Ateneum Art Mu-seum/Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki and Antoinette Le Normand-Romain.

Exhibition curator: Linda Hinners Senior advisor: Antoinette Le Normand-RomainExhibition design: Olof LundströmLighting design: Jan Gouiedo Exhibition technology and installation: The Technical Department at Nationalmuseum, under the supervision of Pär LindblomChief conservator: Veronika ErikssonExhibition coordinator: Anne Dahlström Education officers: Lena Eriksson, Jeanette Rangner Jacobsson and Helena Sjödin Landon

Exhibition catalogue: Rodin: Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) och Norden (Swedish edition)Rodin: Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) and the Nordic Countries (English edition)Rodin: Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) ja Pohjola (Finnish edition)Nationalmueum exhibition catalogue no. 675Ateneum exhibition catalogue no. 74Editor-in-chief: Linda HinnersEditorial committee: Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, Linda Hinners, Timo Huusko, Liisa Lind-gren, Ingrid Lindell, Janna Herder, Satu Itkonen and Milja Liimatainen Translation: Ulla Bruncrona, Liisa Kasvio, Martin Naylor, Victoria Selwyn, Tomi Snellman, Tuija Vertainen and Carl-Johan OlssonGraphic design: Patric LeoISBN 978-91-7100-859-6 (Swedish edition)ISBN 978-91-7100-860-2 (English edition)ISBN 978-91-7100-861-9 (Finnish edition)