Editing Auguste Rodin (section)

===Method===
Instead of copying traditional academic postures, Rodin preferred his models to move naturally around his studio (despite their nakedness).<ref name="morey"/> The sculptor often made quick sketches in clay that were later fine-tuned, cast in plaster, and cast in bronze or carved from marble. Rodin's focus was on the handling of clay.<ref name="ReferenceA">Quoted in Jianou & Goldscheider, 62.</ref>

George Bernard Shaw sat for a portrait and gave an idea of Rodin's technique: "While he worked, he achieved a number of miracles. At the end of the first fifteen minutes, after having given a simple idea of the human form to the block of clay, he produced by the action of his thumb a bust so living that I would have taken it away with me to relieve the sculptor of any further work."<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

He described the evolution of his bust over a month, passing through "all the stages of art's evolution": first, a "[[Byzantine art|Byzantine]] masterpiece", then "[[Bernini]] intermingled", then an elegant [[Houdon]]. "The hand of Rodin worked not as the hand of a sculptor works, but as the work of ''[[Elan Vital (term)|Elan Vital]]''. The ''Hand of God'' is his own hand."<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

After he completed his work in clay, he employed highly skilled assistants to re-sculpt his compositions at larger sizes (including any of his large-scale monuments such as ''The Thinker''), to cast the clay compositions into plaster or bronze, and to carve his marbles. Rodin's major innovation was to capitalize on such multi-staged processes of 19th century sculpture and their reliance on plaster casting.<ref name="Victoria and Albert Museum">{{Cite web |title=Auguste Rodin: production techniques · V&A |url=https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/rodin-production-techniques |access-date=1 July 2023 |website=Victoria and Albert Museum |language=en |archive-date=21 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230321194321/https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/rodin-production-techniques |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=ArtMuseLondon |date=20 June 2021 |title=The Making of Rodin at the Tate Modern |url=https://artmuselondon.com/2021/06/20/the-making-of-rodin-at-the-tate-modern/ |access-date=1 July 2023 |website=ARTMUSELONDON |language=en |archive-date=3 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230203162707/https://artmuselondon.com/2021/06/20/the-making-of-rodin-at-the-tate-modern/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Since clay deteriorates rapidly if not kept wet or fired into a terra-cotta, sculptors used plaster casts as a means of securing the composition they would make from the fugitive material that is clay. This was common practice amongst Rodin's contemporaries, and sculptors would exhibit plaster casts with the hopes that they would be commissioned to have the works made in a more permanent material. Rodin, however, would have multiple plasters made and treat them as the raw material of sculpture, recombining their parts and figures into new compositions, and new names.<ref name="Victoria and Albert Museum" />

As Rodin's practice developed into the 1890s, he became more and more radical in his pursuit of fragmentation, the combination of figures at different scales, and the making of new compositions from his earlier work. A prime example of this is the bold ''[[The Walking Man]]'' (1899–1900),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Walking Man {{!}} All Works {{!}} The MFAH Collections |url=https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/47819/walking-man |access-date=1 July 2023 |website=emuseum.mfah.org |language=en |archive-date=1 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701130518/https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/47819/walking-man |url-status=live }}</ref> which was exhibited at his major one-person show in 1900. This is composed of two sculptures from the 1870s that Rodin found in his studio – a broken and damaged torso that had fallen into neglect and the lower extremities of a statuette version of his 1878 ''St. John the Baptist Preaching'' he was having re-sculpted at a reduced scale.<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 April 2018 |title=Together and apart: Fragmentation and completion in Auguste Rodin |url=https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/25/together-and-apart-fragmentation-and-completion-in-auguste-rodin-part-1/ |access-date=1 July 2023 |language=en-US |archive-date=9 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180909023928/https://www.stanforddaily.com/2018/04/25/together-and-apart-fragmentation-and-completion-in-auguste-rodin-part-1/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=1 October 2015 |title=Shadow: Rodin and the Modern Psyche |url=https://ahlstromappraisals.com/art-history-blog/shadow-rodin-and-the-modern-psyche |access-date=1 July 2023 |website=Ahlstrom Appraisals LLC |language=en-US |archive-date=6 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190706133317/https://ahlstromappraisals.com/art-history-blog//shadow-rodin-and-the-modern-psyche |url-status=live }}</ref>

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px">

File:Rodin The Shade.jpg|''[[The Shade (sculpture)|The Shade]]'' (1880–81), [[High Museum of Art]], Atlanta
File:Age of bronze plaster.jpg|A [[plaster]] of ''[[The Age of Bronze]]''
</gallery>