One of Rodin's friends, M. Léon Bourgeois, the eminent,
highly cultivated French statesman, has said, "Rodin is himself
a cathedral." This remark wonderfully characterizes Rodin's
intellectuality as it appears to us to-day. Rich in years and
experience, his intellect is in truth as complicated as a
cathedral, but like it, too, superbly simple in its general
structure. His intellect possesses the wealth of detail that makes
up life and the calm balance of the laws that govern nature. His
mind, formed on principles scrupulously controlled by observation,
abounds in that wonderful artistic imagination which is the poetry
of life. Ever renewing itself, ever active, his mind inspires
intense confidence because it is deeply rooted in truth. It looks
at its subjects of study with such conscientious devotion that it
perceives every phase of reality; for it is only love such as this,
a love springing not from impatience and passion, but from faith
and hope, that is always victorious in the end.
Churches! He lives near them, so as to study them in the
fleeting changes of the hours. He likes to be enveloped by the
sound of the church bells that for seven or eight centuries have
spoken the same language of discipline to the spirit of France.
Day and night he visits the naves. There his soul feels the sacred
mystery. The churches are truly the cradle of his artistic faith.
But it is only recently that the joys which he drew from them
reached their height; for although he was long under the influence
of Gothic art, that most extraordinary product of the hand of
man, only in the last few years has he learned to penetrate its
principles and understand its methods.
How often in my youth I questioned him about the cathedrals!
He always replied with that caution which in deep natures is a
form of deference: "I am pervaded by the marvel of this art; but
I cannot as yet explain it to myself. The Gothic is the world
foreshortened. Where am I to begin? For more than thirty years
I have been accumulating and comparing my observations. Perhaps
eventually I shall succeed in deducing the rule, the law of divine
intelligence; but perhaps I shall not have sufficient time. Then it
will be the task of another, younger than myself, who will start
his researches earlier, and who, besides, will have been informed
by me."
On his return from each of these pilgrimages he was possessed
by the happy restlessness of one who would soon be able to give
expression to his secret. One felt that "the law of divine
intelligence" was being formulated in his mind. I then hoped and
expected that soon he would reap the fruit of his long labors.
At last one day Rodin took me to Notre Dame, beautiful among
the beautiful, despite the modern restorations that have detracted
from the grace and suppleness of its sculpture. Notre Dame of Paris
is beautiful in itself and in its situation on the banks of the
Seine, that river of feminine grace, which in its innocent course
draws with it the memory of many terrible historic events.
From Notre Dame to Saint-Eustache, from the Tour Saint-Jacques
to Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, during this long walk of ours Rodin
talked, quite unaware of the curious glances of those who
recognized him, and of the scoffing of the street urchins, who
mistook the great Frenchman for a stranger discovering the capital
of France. Later he gave me numerous notes that supplemented his
conversations.
His words and notes combined form the clearest and most
important lesson on Gothic art that has been handed down since the
days of the Gild of the Francs-Maçons, by one of their own sort, a
craftsman such as they were, a veritable sculptor, a stone-cutter
loving the material in which he works.
Has Rodin, after so thoroughly grasping the secrets of the
builders of bygone days, never felt the desire to apply them in the
execution of some work of architecture? Was he never tempted by
their example and by that of Michelangelo to expand his resources
beyond those of the sculptor? Those who know the creative power
and the vastness of imagination of the modeler of "The Burghers of
Calais" and of "The Gate of Hell" may well ask this question.
Well, yes, he has had that great dream, which in more prolific
times would have become a glorious reality. He hoped to revive
the spirit of a day when a whole nation of artists covered France
with masterpieces; he hoped to organize labor collectively, and
to gather about him a legion of artisans to work together on a
monument which should become in a certain sense the cathedral of
the modern age.
He even drew up plans for that wonderful project, the subject
of which was to be the glorification of labor, that triumphant
force of our present civilization. He did not plan to rival the
Gothic style, the prodigious achievement of which would have
required throngs of workmen thoroughly organized and disciplined,
well trained under the system of master and apprentice,
accomplishing their common task in the joy of work and the
enthusiasm of faith. He planned to approximate the art of the
Renaissance, less removed from modern intellectuality, and simpler
of execution.
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF LABOR.]
In Rodin's studio at Meudon one can see the plan for this
monument. The axis is a high column calling to mind Trajan's
Column, and, like it, covered with bas-reliefs. A tower broken
by large openings, as in the Tower of Pisa, encircles it. In the
interior a gradually inclining way leads one from the base to the
top along the bas-reliefs. These represent all the active crafts
and trades: those of the cities, such as masons, carpenters,
weavers, bakers, brewers, glass-workers, and goldsmiths; and
those of the country, such as plowmen, harvesters, vintagers,
vine-dressers, shepherds, and farmers. On the exterior, between
the arches, stand statues of the great geniuses that have led
humanity, whose efforts have raised them to celestial heights; that
is, to the peace and happiness of creating. There great thinkers,
inventors, and artists have their niches, just as the prophets
have theirs in the vaults of cathedrals. The edifice rests on a
crypt where groups of sculpture are devoted to the glorification
of work under the earth and its obscure heroes, miners, divers,
pearl-fishers. At the time when the plan for this monument was
advanced, and was exciting the imagination of European writers and
journalists, an ardent admirer of Rodin even proposed to build
the tomb of the master under the crypt, where he would have had a
resting-place worthy of a Pharaoh. On each side of the entrance is
a statue representing Morning and Evening, and at the summit of
the column two angels, messengers of God, their hands outstretched
toward the earth with a gesture of exquisite tenderness, shed the
blessings of heaven on the work of man.
Alas! this noble, stirring project will not be realized during
the life of the artist. Will there some day be another possessed of
the ardor and love of beauty necessary to build this mountain of
stone?
For a time Rodin's friends hoped that America, the nation of
work par excellence, would seize upon this idea. They pictured
the philanthropists of the New World in characteristic fashion
pouring forth millions for this work of universal art and national
glorification; they saw Rodin being called to the United States,
gathering about him not only American artists, but all the
intelligent forces of the world of culture. They saw the Tower
of Labor, with its angels bestowing their benediction over some
formidable industrial city, New York, Pittsburgh, or Chicago.
This might have been the starting-point for a new era of art, for
nothing is more contagious than the realization of beauty in actual
form.
Doubtless the writers of France did not discuss the matter
long or forcibly enough, and the Tour de Travail, which might have
been the ardent expression of a whole race, will remain the idea
of a solitary genius, a last offshoot of the masters of the Middle
Ages.
But if the hour has not yet struck for the construction of
the modern cathedral, at least we possess, thanks to the man who
dreamed of erecting it, the secrets and principles of those who
constructed the cathedrals of bygone days.
* * * * *
To acquire a thorough and fruitful understanding of the cathedrals, we
must break away from the narrow and cold spirit of the present day. The
spirit of our time does not harmonize in architecture with the monuments
of the past.
First let us contemplate the whole. The church is a cliff. The
construction of the slender side springing up is quite in the spirit of
our race. The Gothic towers are stones set up like Druidic monuments.
The church is laid out like a dolmen, and the towers are the menhirs.
Like the menhirs, they have beautiful, flexible lines; they possess the
eloquence of natural outlines, which are never cold or meager.
The line of the Gothic tower is slightly curved, swelling like that of
a barrel. A straight line is hard and cold. The Greeks perceived that;
they refrained from straight lines, and the columns of their temples
also show a slight swelling.
The two sides of the Gothic tower are not alike. The architects
considered that preferable to obvious symmetry. Look at the Tour
Saint-Jacques in Paris. One of the sides shows a long, sloping hollow,
making it look quite different from the other, which, again, is like
stones set on high. The hollowed line permits protuberances, details of
ornamentation that soften and harmonize with the line of the ensemble.
It has been restored, and therefore from near at hand seems cold, for
our workmen have lost the science and art of modeling. But the beauty of
the general structure remains; they could not detract from that.
This softened line, this line full of life, is one of the chief
characteristics of the Gothic. The sky of our northern climates ordained
it so, for the architects of the Middle Ages carved their monuments
out of doors. Once the general plan was established, they easily found
the details while working with their tools, guided by the light and
influenced by natural conditions.
Our light is not that of Greece. Humanity the world over is akin; but
to what the Greek expressed in a chastened manner, in keeping with his
eternally pure light, we have added the oblique slant of our sun, our
reality, our country, our autumns, the sting of our winters, our less
definite spirit, our remoteness from the glaring Olympian sun; and, last
of all, we have added our trees.
We also have light, but it is frequently obscured by passing clouds. Is
it not natural that we should reproduce them in our art? And the line,
the abundant line, is more accentuated in the half-night of our long
autumns. Thus we are more in the mood of our woods and our forests. Our
souls have more shadows than the Greek soul, our determinations are more
varied; for our clouds and our forests are reflected in our hearts.
Artists, let us, then, revert to the interpretation of our race, but in
the spirit, not in the letter. Let us copy only the soul of our external
nature, not its Gothic form, for a mere copy is cold and dead. Beautiful
architecture is a reproduction by man, but from a divine model. From
this it receives the warmth of life. If architecture is true to the
spirit of nature, it is embraced by the trees, the rocks, the clouds;
they are the silent company of beauty.
O Cathedral! Sphinx of Northern life! although mutilated, are you not
eternal? Do you cease to live? From a distance, and in the evening, when
dusk sets in, you seem truly a great sphinx crouching in the country.
The drama that unfolds itself on the stone pages of the churches recalls
to us with a very few gestures and movements the silent drama of
antiquity, the sculptures, illustrations of Æschylus and Sophocles.
From the Greek type, in truth, sprang the thoughts that guide man, and
again from the Egyptian granite; and eventually from the stone of the
Gothic, that Gothic which leads to the period of Louis XVI, and which in
France is always the principal path of art. Other styles were derived
from it, those of the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries. Their basis is Gothic; therefore the Gothic is the
fundamental style, which ought to keep us from the path of decadence,
if that is possible. You do not understand it? You say you prefer the
Greek? O ye mortals that wish to pass judgment on all matters, take
heed lest these masterpieces prevail against you! The cathedral is as
beautiful, perhaps more beautiful, than the Parthenon. If you do not
understand this style, then you are still further removed from the
Greek, which is of another country and epoch. It is more beautiful,
perhaps more concise, more marble; but we belong more with stone and
forests, we are more autumnal, more of the cold and melancholy season.