Short answers, pulled from the story.
Auguste Rodin is generally considered the founder of modern sculpture and is known for works including The Thinker, The Gates of Hell, The Burghers of Calais, The Kiss, and Monument to Balzac. He modeled the human body with naturalism, emphasizing individual character and physicality rather than idealized or allegorical forms.
Rodin applied to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris three times, beginning in 1857, and was rejected each time. The rejections were considered significant setbacks because the school's entrance requirements were not particularly high. The judges' Neoclassical tastes likely clashed with Rodin's grounding in lighter 18th-century sculpture.
The Thinker originated as a 27.5-inch bronze figure created between 1879 and 1889, designed for the lintel of The Gates of Hell, from which it would gaze down upon scenes from Dante's Inferno. Originally titled The Poet, in reference to Dante, the figure has also been associated with the Biblical Adam, Prometheus, and Rodin himself. It was Rodin's wish that a cast of The Thinker serve as his headstone and epitaph at his tomb in Meudon.
Rodin met Camille Claudel in 1883 when she was 18 years old and he agreed to supervise a course in sculptor Alfred Boucher's absence. They formed a passionate but stormy relationship; Claudel modeled for Rodin's figures, assisted on commissions, and created her own acclaimed works, including a Bust of Rodin shown at the 1892 Salon. They parted in 1898, and Claudel was later confined to an institution by her family for 30 years until her death in 1943, despite doctors' repeated efforts to explain that she was sane.
Surmoulage is the practice of taking a direct cast from a living model rather than sculpting the form from life. When The Age of Bronze debuted in 1877, critics found the figure so naturalistic that they accused Rodin of having cast it from a living Belgian soldier. Rodin denied the charges, demanded an official inquiry, and was eventually exonerated by a committee of sculptors. The French state subsequently purchased the work for 2,200 francs.
The Burghers of Calais depicts six men from the town of Calais who offered their lives during the Hundred Years' War to spare their fellow citizens from execution by King Edward III. Rodin began the commission in 1884, inspired by the chronicles of Jean Froissart. He rejected a heroic, unified composition in favor of showing each of the six men individually absorbed in his own fear and deliberation; the bronze figures stand 6.6 feet tall and the completed work weighs 2 short tons.