Editing Auguste Rodin (section)

===Formative years===
Rodin was born in 1840 into a working-class family in Paris, the second child of Marie Cheffer and Jean-Baptiste Rodin, who was a police department clerk.<ref>{{cite magazine |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |first=Peter |last=Schjeldahl |title=The Stubborn Genius of Auguste Rodin |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/02/the-stubborn-genius-of-auguste-rodin |quote=Rodin was a child of the working class. (His father was a police clerk.) |access-date=7 October 2017}}</ref> He was largely self-educated,<ref>"(François) Auguste (René) Rodin." ''International Dictionary of Art and Artists''. St. James Press, 1990. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006.</ref> and began to draw at age 10. Between ages 14 and 17, he attended the ''Petite École'', a school specializing in art and mathematics where he studied drawing and painting<!--with Belloc-->. His drawing teacher [[Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran]] believed in first developing the personality of his students so that they observed with their own eyes and drew from their recollections, and Rodin expressed appreciation for his teacher much later in life.<ref>Jianou & Goldscheider, 31.</ref> It was at Lecoq's studio that he met [[Jules Dalou]] and [[Alphonse Legros]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ando |first=Tomoko |date=2016 |title=Rodin’s Reputation in Great Britain: The Neglected Role of Alphonse Legros |url=https://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/autumn16/ando-on-rodin-reputation-in-great-britain-neglected-role-of-alphonse-legros |journal=Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide |language=en-gb |volume=15 |issue=3}}</ref>

[[File:Auguste Rodin, Paris, c1862 by Charles Hippolyte Aubry.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Rodin c. 1862]]
In 1857, Rodin submitted a clay model of a companion to the [[École des Beaux-Arts]] in an attempt to win entrance; he did not succeed, and two further applications were also denied.<ref name="nytobit"/> Entrance requirements were not particularly high at the ''Grande École'',<ref>Hale, 40.</ref> so the rejections were considerable setbacks. Rodin's inability to gain entrance may have been due to the judges' [[Neoclassicism|Neoclassical]] tastes, while Rodin had been schooled in light, 18th-century sculpture. He left the ''Petite École'' in 1857 and earned a living as a craftsman and ornamenter for most of the next two decades, producing decorative objects and architectural embellishments.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-04-07 |title=The story of French sculptor Auguste Rodin |url=https://www.completefrance.com/living-in-france/the-story-of-french-sculptor-auguste-rodin-6274362/ |access-date=2025-04-26 |website=Complete France}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Reily |first=Nancy Hopkins |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Georgia_O_Keeffe_A_Private_Friendship_Pa/SgUPDgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=did+Rodin+created+St.+John+the+Baptist+in+his+own+time&pg=PT67&printsec=frontcover |title=Georgia O'Keeffe, A Private Friendship, Part I: Walking the Sun Prarie Land |date=2017-02-01 |publisher=Sunstone Press |isbn=978-1-61139-508-2 |language=en}}</ref>

Rodin's sister Maria, two years his senior, died of [[peritonitis]] in a convent in 1862, and Rodin was 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]], founder and head of the congregation, recognized Rodin's talent and sensed his lack of suitability for the order, so he encouraged Rodin to continue with his sculpture. Rodin returned to work as a decorator while taking classes with animal sculptor [[Antoine-Louis Barye]]. The teacher's attention to detail and his finely rendered musculature of animals in motion significantly influenced Rodin.<ref name="morey">{{cite journal|last=Morey|first=C. R.|title=The Art of Auguste Rodin|journal=The Bulletin of the College Art Association of America|volume=1|issue=4|year=1918|pages=145–54|doi=10.2307/3046338|jstor=3046338}}</ref>

In 1864, Rodin began to live with a young seamstress named [[Rose Beuret]] (born in June 1844),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rodin-web.org/bio/bio_long_1.htm|title=Auguste Rodin – Biography|work=rodin-web.org|access-date=14 March 2017|archive-date=19 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200319123415/http://www.rodin-web.org/bio/bio_long_1.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> with whom he stayed for the rest of his life, with varying commitment. The couple had a son named Auguste-Eugène Beuret (1866–1934).<ref>Date of death from Elsen, 206.</ref> That year, Rodin offered his first sculpture for exhibition and entered the studio of [[Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse]], a successful mass producer of ''objets d'art''. Rodin worked as Carrier-Belleuse' chief assistant until 1870, designing roof decorations and staircase and doorway embellishments. With the arrival of the [[Franco-Prussian War]], Rodin was called to serve in the French National Guard, but his service was brief due to his near-sightedness.<ref>Jianou & Goldscheider, 34.</ref> Decorators' work had dwindled because of the war, yet Rodin needed to support his family, as poverty was a continual difficulty for him until about the age of 30.<ref name = "tabhhj">Jianou & Goldscheider, 35.</ref> Carrier-Belleuse soon asked him to join him in Belgium, where they worked on ornamentation for the [[Brussels Stock Exchange]] in 1871.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sculpture and architecture {{!}} Musée Rodin |url=https://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/sculpture-and-architecture |access-date=2025-04-03 |website=www.musee-rodin.fr}}</ref>

Rodin planned to stay in Belgium a few months, but he spent the next six years outside of France. It was a pivotal time in his life.<ref name = "tabhhj"/> He had acquired skill and experience as a craftsman, but no one had yet seen his art, which sat in his workshop since he could not afford castings. His relationship with Carrier-Belleuse had deteriorated, but he found other employment in Brussels, displaying some works at salons, and his companion Rose soon joined him there. Having saved enough money to travel, Rodin visited Italy for two months in 1875, where he was drawn to the work of [[Donatello]] and [[Michelangelo]]. Their work had a profound effect on his artistic direction.<ref>Hale, 49–50.</ref> Rodin said, "It is Michelangelo who has freed me from academic sculpture."<ref>Taillandier, 91.</ref> Returning to Belgium, he began work on ''[[The Age of Bronze]]'', a life-size male figure whose naturalism brought Rodin attention but led to accusations of sculptural cheating{{snd}}its naturalism and scale was such that critics alleged he had cast the work from a living model. Much of Rodin's later work was explicitly larger or smaller than life, in part to demonstrate the folly of such accusations.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=The Age of Bronze {{!}} Musée Rodin |url=https://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/musee/collections/oeuvres/age-bronze |access-date=2025-04-26 |website=www.musee-rodin.fr}}</ref>