was a moment in this story when something portentous took place,
something independent of time and place, something simple, something
great. He concentrated all his attention upon the moment of the
departure. He saw how the men started on their way, he felt how through
each one of them pulsated once more his entire past life, he realized
how each one stood there prepared to give that life for the sake of the
old city. Six men rose before him, of whom no two were alike, only two
brothers were among them between whom there was, possibly, a certain
similarity. But each of them had resolved to live his last hour in his
own way, to celebrate it with his soul and to suffer for it with his
body, which clung to life. Rodin then no longer saw the forms of these
men. Gestures rose before him, gestures of renunciation, of farewell,
of resignation. Gestures over gestures. He gathered them together and
gave them form. They thronged about him out of the fulness of his
knowledge, a hundred heroes rose in his memory and demanded to be
sacrificed. And he concentrated this hundred into six. He modeled them
each by himself in heroic size to represent the greatness of their
resolution, modeled them nude in the appeal of their shivering bodies.
He created the old man with loose-jointed hanging arms and heavy
dragging step, and gave him the worn-out walk of old men and an
expression of weariness that flows over his face into the beard.
He created the man that carries the key, the man who would have lived
for many years to come, but whose life is condensed into this sudden
last hour which he can hardly bear. His lips are tightly pressed
together, his hands bite into the key. There is fire in his strength
and it burns in his defiant bearing.
He created the man who holds his bent head with both hands to compose
himself, to be once more alone.
He created the two brothers, one of whom looks backward while the other
bends his head with a movement of resolution and submission as though
he offered it to the executioner.
He created the man with the vague gesture whom Gustave Geffroy has
called "Le Passant". This man moves forward, but he turns back once
more, not to the city, not to those who are weeping, and not to those
who go with him: he turns back to himself. His right arm is raised,
bent, vacillating. His hands open in the air as though to let something
go, as one gives freedom to a bird. This gesture is symbolic of a
departure from all uncertainty, from a happiness that has not yet
been, from a grief that will now wait in vain, from men who live
somewhere and whom he might have met some time, from all possibilities
of to-morrow and the day after to-morrow; and from Death which he had
thought far distant, that he had imagined would come mildly and softly
and at the end of a long, long time.
This figure, if placed by itself in a dim, old garden, would be a
monument for all who have died young.
Thus Rodin has made each of these men live again the last concentrated
moment of life. Each figure is majestic in its simple greatness. They
bring to mind Donatello and, perhaps, Claux Sluter and his prophets in
the Chartreuse of Dijon.
It seems at first as though Rodin had done nothing more than gather
them together. He has given them the same attire, the shirt and the
rope, and has placed them together in two rows: the three that are
in the first row, are about to start forward, the other three turn
to the right and follow behind. The place that was decided upon for
the erection of the monument was the market place of Calais, the same
spot from which the tragic procession had formerly started. There the
silent group was to stand, raised by a low step above the common life
of the market place as though the fearful departure were always pending.
The City of Calais refused to accept a low pedestal because it was
contrary to custom. Rodin then suggested that a square tower, two
stories high and with simply-cut walls, be built near the ocean and
there the six citizens should be placed, surrounded by the solitude
of the wind and the sky. This plan, as might have been expected, was
declined, although it was in harmony with the character of the work.
If the trial had been made, there would have been an incomparable
opportunity for observing the unity of the group, which, although it
consisted of single figures, held closely together as a whole. The
figures do not touch one another, but stand side by side like the last
trees of a hewn-down forest united only by the surrounding atmosphere.
From every point of view the gestures stand out clear and great from
the dashing waves of the contours; they rise and fall back into the
mass of stone like flags that are furled. The entire impression of
this group is precise and clear. Like all of Rodin's compositions,
this one, too, appears to be a pulsating world enclosed within its
own boundaries. Beside the points of actual contact there is a kind
of contact produced by the surrounding atmosphere which diminishes,
influences and changes the character of the group. Contact may exist
between objects far distant from one another, like the conflux of forms
such as one sees sometimes in masses of clouds, where the interjacent
air is no separating abyss, but rather a transition, a softly-graduated
conjunction.
To Rodin the participation of the atmosphere in the composition has
always been of greatest importance. He has adapted all his figures,
surface after surface, to their particular space and environment; this
gives them the greatness and independence, the marvelous completeness
and life which distinguishes them from all other works. When
interpreting nature he found, as he intensified an expression, that,
at the same time, he enhanced the relationship of the atmosphere to
his work to such a degree that the surrounding air seemed to give more
life, more passion, as it were, to the embraced surfaces. A similar
effect may be observed in some of the animals on the cathedrals to
which the air relates itself in strange fashion; it seems to become
calm or storm according to whether it sweeps over emphasized or level
surfaces. When Rodin concentrates the surfaces of his works into
culminating points, when he uplifts to greater height the exalted or
gives more depth to a cavity, he creates an effect like that which
atmosphere produces on monuments that have been exposed to it for
centuries. The atmosphere has traced deeper lines upon these monuments,
has shadowed them with veils of dust, has seasoned them with rain and
frost, with sun and storm, and has thus endowed them with endurance so
that they may remain imperishable through many slowly-passing dusks and
dawn.
This effect of atmosphere, which is the monumental principle of
Rodin's art, is wonderfully achieved in "The Citizens of Calais."
These sculptural forms seen from a distance are not only surrounded by
the immediate atmosphere, but by the whole sky; they catch on their
surfaces as with a mirror its moving distances so that a great gesture
seems to live and to force space to participate in its movement.
This impression is conveyed also by the figure of the slender youth who
kneels with outstretched, imploring arms. Rodin has called this figure
"The Prodigal Son," but it has recently received the name--from whom
or from whence no one knows--of "Prière". The gesture of this figure
raises it even beyond this name. This is no son kneeling before his
father. A God is necessary to him who thus implores and in him are all
who need this God. This Prayer in stone reaches out to such distance
that the figure seems to be withdrawn into a great isolation.
Such, too, is the "Balzac" to whom Rodin has given a greatness which,
perhaps, overtowers the figure of the writer. Rodin has seized upon the
essence of Balzac's being, has not confined himself to the limitations
of his personality, but has gone beyond into his most extreme and
distant possibilities. These mighty contours might have been formed in
the tombstones of by-gone nations.
For years Rodin was entirely absorbed in this figure. He visited
Balzac's home, he went to the landscapes of the Touraine that rise
continually in Balzac's books; he read his letters, he studied the
portraits of Balzac and he read his works again and again. On all
the intricate and intertwining roads of these works he was met by
the people of Balzac, whole families and generations, a world that
still seemed to receive life from its creator. Rodin saw that all
these thousands of people, no matter what their occupation or their
life, contained him who had created them. As one may perceive the
character and the mood of a play through the faces of an audience,
so he sought in all these faces him who still lived in them. He
believed like Balzac in the reality of his world and he became for
a time a part of it. He lived as though Balzac had created him also,
and he dwelt unnoticed among the multitude of his people. Thus he
gathered his impressions. The actual world appeared at this time
vague and unimportant. The daguerreotypes of Balzac offered only
general suggestions and nothing new. The face which they represented
was the one he had known from boyhood days. The one that had been
in the possession of Stéphan Mallarmé, which showed Balzac without
coat and suspenders, was the only one which was more characteristic.
Reminiscences of contemporaries helped him; the words of Théophile
Gautier, the notes of the Goncourts, and the beautiful essay by
Lamartine. Beside these pen portraits there was only the bust by David
in the Comédie Française and a small picture by Louis Boulanger.
Completely filled with the spirit of Balzac, Rodin, with the aid of
these auxiliaries, began to model the figure of the writer. He used
living models of similar proportions and completed seven perfectly
executed portraits in different positions. The models were thick-set,
medium-sized men with heavy limbs and short arms. After these studies
he created a Balzac much like the one in Nadar's daguerreotype. But he
felt this was not final. He returned to the description of Lamartine,
to the lines: "He had the face of an element," and "he possessed so
much soul that his heavy body seemed not to exist." Rodin felt that a
great part of his task was suggested in these sentences. He approached
nearer its solution by dothing the seven figures with monk's cowls, the
kind of garment that Balzac was wont to wear while at work. He created
a Balzac with a hood, a garb much too intimate, the figure much too
retired into the stillness of its disguise.
Rodin slowly developed form after form. At last he saw Balzac. He saw
a mighty, striding figure that lost all its heaviness in the fall of
its ample cloak. The hair brisded from the nape of the powerful neck.
And backward against the thick locks leaned the face of a visionary in
the intoxication of his dream, a face flashing with creative force: the
face of an element. This was Balzac in the fulness of his productivity,
the founder of generations, the waster of fates. This was the man
whose eyes were those of a seer, whose visions would have filled the
world had it been empty. This was the Balzac that Creation itself had
formed to manifest itself and who was Creation's boastfulness, vanity,
ecstasy and intoxication. The thrown-back head crowned the summit of
this figure as lightly as a ball is upheld by the spray of a fountain.
There was no sense of weight, but a magnificent vitality in the free,
strong head.
Rodin had seen in a moment of large comprehension and tragic
exaggeration his Balzac and thus he created him. The vision did not
fade, it only changed.
The comprehensiveness which gave breadth to Rodin's monumental works
gave to the others also a new beauty; it gave them a peculiar nearness.
There are among the more recent works small groups that are striking
because of their concentration and the wonderful treatment of the
marble. The stones preserve, even in the midst of the day, that
mysterious shimmer which white things exhale in the twilight. This
radiance is not the result of the vibrant quality of the points of
contact alone, but is due in part to the flat ribbands of stone that
lie between the figures like small bridges which connect one form
with the other over the deepest clefts in the modeling. These ribband
fillings are not incidental, but are placed there to prevent too sharp
an outline. They preserve in the forms that otherwise would appear too
clear cut an effect of roundness; they gather the light like vases
that gently and continuously overflow. When Rodin seeks to condense
the atmosphere about the surfaces of his works, the stone appears to
almost dissolve in the air, the marble is the compact, fruitful kernel,
and its last softest contour the vibrating air. The light touching
the marble loses its will, it does not penetrate into the stone, but
nestles close, lingers, dwells in the stone.
This closing up of unessential clefts is an approach to the relief.
Rodin planned a great work in relief in which there were to be effects
of light such as he achieved in the smaller groups. He constructed
a column about which a broad ribband of relief winds upward. This
encircling ribband conceals a staircase which ascends under arched
vaultings. The figures in this ascending relief are modeled and placed
so as to receive an effect of life and vibrance from the atmosphere and
lighting.
A plastic art will some time rise which will disclose the secret
of twilight as it is related to those sculptures that stand in the
vestibules of old cathedrals.
This "Monument of Work" represents a history of work which develops
upon these slowly rising reliefs. The long line begins in a lower
chamber or crypt with the figures of those who have grown old in mines.
The procession traces its steps through all the phases of work, from
those who work in the roar and red glow of furnaces to those who work
in silence in the light of a great idea: from the hammers to the
brains. Two figures guard the entrance, Day and Night, and upon the
summit of this tower stand two winged forms to symbolize the Blessings
descending from the luminous heights. Rodin did not conceive work as a
monumental figure or a great gesture; for work is something near, it
takes place in the shops, in the rooms, in the heads, in the dark.
He knows, for he, too, worked; he worked incessantly; his life passed
like a single working day.
Rodin had several studios, some that are well-known in which visitors
and letters found him. There were others in out-of-the-way, secluded
places of which no one knew. These rooms were like cells, bare, poor
and grey with dust, but their poverty was like the great, grey poverty
of God out of which trees bud in March. Something of the Spring was in
each of these rooms, a silent promise and a deep seriousness.
In one of these studios "The Tower of Work" has risen. Now that it is
accomplished, it is time to speak of its significance. Some time after
this monument has been erected it will be recognized that Rodin willed
nothing that was beyond his art. The body of work here manifests itself
as did formerly the body of love:--it is a new revelation of life.
This creator lived so completely in his conceptions, so entirely in
the depths of his work, that inspiration or revelation came to him only
through the medium of his art. New life in the ultimate sense meant to
him, new surfaces, new gestures. Thus to him the meaning of life became
simple, he could err no more.
With his own development Rodin has given an impetus to all the arts
in this confused age. Some time it will be realized what has made
this great artist so supreme. He was a worker whose only desire
was to penetrate with all his forces into the humble and difficult
significance of his tools. Therein lay a certain renunciation of Life,
but in just this renunciation lay his triumph, for Life entered into
his work.