Editing Auguste Rodin (section)

===Commissions and controversy {{Anchor|Balzac}}===
[[File:Auguste Rodin portrait middle aged.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Rodin in mid-career]]

Commissioned to create a monument to French writer [[Victor Hugo]] in 1889, Rodin dealt extensively with the subject of ''artist and muse''. Like many of Rodin's public commissions, ''Monument to Victor Hugo'' was met with resistance because it did not fit conventional expectations. Commenting on Rodin's monument to Victor Hugo, ''[[The Times]]'' in 1909 expressed that "there is some show of reason in the complaint that [Rodin's] conceptions are sometimes unsuited to his medium, and that in such cases they overstrain his vast technical powers".<ref>{{cite news|title=M. Rodin and French Sculpture|newspaper=The Times|date=4 October 1909|page=12}}</ref> The 1897 plaster model was not cast in bronze until 1964.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Ruth |title=Rodin's monument to Victor Hugo |last2=Plottel |first2=Jeanine Parisier |last3=Roos |first3=Jane Mayo |date=1998 |publisher=Merrell Holberton Iris and B. Gerald cantor foundation |others=Iris and B. Gerald Cantor foundation |isbn=978-1-85894-070-0 |location=London Los Angeles |pages=IV}}</ref>

The ''Société des Gens des Lettres'', a Parisian organization of writers, planned a monument to French novelist [[Honoré de Balzac]] immediately after his death in 1850. The society commissioned Rodin to create the memorial in 1891, and Rodin spent years developing the concept for his sculpture. Challenged in finding an appropriate representation of Balzac given the author's rotund physique, Rodin produced many studies: portraits, full-length figures in the nude, wearing a [[frock coat]], or in a [[robe]] – a replica of which Rodin had requested. The realized sculpture displays Balzac cloaked in the drapery, looking forcefully into the distance with deeply gouged features. Rodin's intent had been to show Balzac at the moment of conceiving a work<ref name="times1711">{{cite news|title=Auguste Rodin. His Sculpture And Its Aims|newspaper=The Times|date=19 November 1917|page=11}}</ref> – to express courage, labor, and struggle.<ref>Hale, 136.</ref>

[[File:Auguste Rodin - Monument to Victor Hugo.jpg|thumb|Rodin observing work on the monument to [[Victor Hugo]] at the studio of his assistant Henri Lebossé in 1896]]
When ''[[Monument to Balzac]]'' was exhibited in 1898, the negative reaction was not surprising.<ref name="bell">{{cite journal|last=Bell|first=Millicent|title=Auguste Rodin|journal=Raritan|volume=14|pages=1–31|date=Spring 2005}}</ref> The ''Société'' rejected the work, and the press ran [[parodies]]. Criticizing the work, Morey (1918) reflected, "there may come a time, and doubtless will come a time, when it will not seem ''outre'' to represent a great novelist as a huge comic mask crowning a bathrobe, but even at the present day this statue impresses one as slang."<ref name="morey"/> A modern critic, indeed, claims that ''Balzac'' is one of Rodin's masterpieces.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Schor|first=Naomi|title=Pensive Texts and Thinking Statues: Balzac with Rodin|journal=Critical Inquiry|year=2001|volume=27|issue=2|pages=239–64|doi=10.1086/449007|s2cid=161863627}}</ref>

The monument had its supporters in Rodin's day; a manifesto defending him was signed by [[Monet]], [[Debussy]], and future [[Prime Minister of France|Premier]] [[Georges Clemenceau]], among many others.<ref>Hale, 122.</ref> In the [[BBC]] series [[Civilisation (TV series)|''Civilisation'']], art historian [[Kenneth Clark]] praised the monument as "the greatest piece of sculpture of the 19th Century, perhaps, indeed, the greatest since [[Michelangelo]]."<ref>[[Civilisation (TV series)|Civilisation]], [[BBC]], Episode 12</ref> Rather than try to convince skeptics of the merit of the monument, Rodin repaid the ''Société'' his commission and moved the figure to his garden. After this experience, Rodin did not complete another public commission. Only in 1939 was ''[[Monument to Balzac]]'' cast in bronze and placed on the [[Boulevard du Montparnasse]] at the intersection with [[Boulevard Raspail]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rodin Works: Monument to Balzac |url=http://www.rodin-web.org/works/1891_balzac.htm |access-date=2025-04-03 |website=Rodin-Web.org}}</ref>