François Auguste René Rodin was born on the 12th of November 1840 into a working-class family in Paris. His father Jean-Baptiste Rodin worked as a police department clerk while his mother Marie Cheffer managed their household. The young boy began to draw at age 10 and attended the Petite École between ages 14 and 17. This school specialized in art and mathematics where he studied drawing and painting under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran.
Lecoq believed in developing the personality of students so they observed with their own eyes. Rodin expressed appreciation for this teacher much later in life. It was at Lecoq's studio that he met Jules Dalou and Alphonse Legros. In 1857 Rodin submitted a clay model to the École des Beaux-Arts but failed to win entrance. Two further applications were also denied despite entrance requirements not being particularly high at the Grande École.
Rodin left the Petite École in 1857 and earned a living as a craftsman and ornamenter for most of the next two decades. He produced decorative objects and architectural embellishments. His sister Maria died of peritonitis in a convent in 1862. Rodin felt anguished with guilt because he had introduced her to an unfaithful suitor. He turned away from art and joined the Catholic order of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament as a laybrother.
Saint Peter Julian Eymard recognized Rodin's talent and encouraged him to continue with sculpture. Rodin returned to work as a decorator while taking classes with animal sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye. The teacher's attention to detail significantly influenced Rodin. In 1864 Rodin began to live with Rose Beuret who was born in June 1844. They stayed together for the rest of his life though commitment varied.
The Gates Of Hell Commission
A commission to create a portal for Paris' planned Museum of Decorative Arts was awarded to Rodin in 1880. Although the museum was never built, Rodin worked throughout his life on The Gates of Hell. This monumental sculptural group depicted scenes from Dante's Inferno in high relief. Laws of composition gave way to the disordered and untamed depiction of Hell.
The figures and groups were physically and morally isolated in their torment. The Gates of Hell comprised 186 figures in its final form. Many of Rodin's best-known sculptures started as designs of figures for this composition such as The Thinker and The Kiss. These works were only later presented as separate and independent pieces.
Rodin conceived The Gates with the surmoulage controversy still in mind. He determined to make the sculpture on the door of figures smaller than life to prove he could model from life as well as other sculptors. Other well-known works derived from The Gates include Ugolino Fallen Caryatid Carrying her Stone Fugit Amor She Who Was Once the Helmet-Maker's Beautiful Wife The Falling Man and The Prodigal Son.
Often lacking a clear conception of his major works Rodin compensated with hard work and striving for perfection. His meditation on the condition of man became a lifelong project that spawned some of the most recognizable images in modern art history.