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In the 19th century, a sculpture was only be regarded as finished if its subject were identifiable, and if it were a complete figure, except for portrait busts. Rodin played on the expressive potential afforded by the enlargement of a figure and its bronze cast: the marks made by his fingers when modelling acquired greater force.

Initially used by Rodin in a manner similar to other sculptors, for figures related to the monuments of the 1880s and 1890s ( The Burghers of Calais, Victor Hugo, Balzac), the enlargement process of a model gained the status of a new working method, conferring monumentality and new vigour upon works conceived twenty years earlier such as The Thinker (1903) and The Walking Man (1907). Profiting from the machine invented by Achille Collas in 1830, based on a pantograph system, Rodin employed skilled assistants, notably Henri Lebossé from 1894, for making enlargements or reductions of his models. Having an enlargement made of them also enabled Rodin to avoid accusations of making life casts, as he had faced during The Age of Bronze affair. Rodin began most of his sculptures by modelling small versions of them, which made them easier to handle and enabled the sculptor to pursue his creative idea without having to worry about technical constraints, as in The Kiss, for example. Likewise, the male figures in The Three Shades (before 1886) were borrowed from Adam (1880-81, itself inspired by the pose of Michelangelo’s Slaves).The three identical figures, grouped around a central point, initially placed at the top of The Gates of Hell, were enlarged in 1904 to create a monumental independent group. Rodin also took advantage of the opportunities that multiplication afforded within a work, using the same figure in different positions: the inspiration for Three Faunesses (before 1896) was thus drawn from a figure Rodin employed four times on The Gates of Hell. Cast from the same original work modelled by Rodin, several of them appeared two or three times on the finished Gates, arranged in different positions so as to confer new attitudes and meanings upon them: Fugit Amor appeared twice, and later became an independent group (before 1887), while one of the two figures comprised in this group turned into The Prodigal Son, a large-scale bronze of which was cast in 1905. Thus for The Gates of Hell, Rodin made multiple plaster casts of figures or fragments of figures whose poses or modelling pleased him. Rodin’s innovativeness resided in the fact that this technique became a systematic part of his creative process. Making a plaster cast was also a technical requirement in the process of casting a bronze or carving a marble.

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1872, was the starting point for a series of variants (in the hairstyle, accessories, base) entitled La Lorraine (or Innocence, Modesty, The Village Bride, The Daughter of Mme Angot).Īuguste Rodin, L'Enfant prodigue, īecause it enabled figures or fragments of figures designed earlier to be reproduced and multiplied, then combined differently in new compositions, notably for commercial purposes, casting was a very widespread practice in 19th-century sculptors’ studios. Another example is the bust of the young woman which, c. One example of this type of working method is provided by the female figure – alone or combined with others, nude or clad in drapery, with hair in a chignon or hanging loose, with a cherub on her knees or beside her – as can be seen in Venus (1871) Cupid’s Secret (1871), Venus and Cupid (1871), and The Toilette of Venus or The Spring (1871).

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He learnt how to get the most out of a single model, cast in multiples, by reworking the new clay models thus obtained and adding variations, if need be, before firing.

In the 1870s, under the direction of Carrier-Belleuse, and in tandem with the monumental sculpture destined to adorn Brussels’ new public buildings, Rodin executed a series of decorative clay busts and figures to be used as models for mass production.

The aesthetic revolution achieved in this work, which was to influence his own and future generations of sculptors (Boccioni, Giacometti…), came about when the artist was at the height of his powers, but was the end product of a thought process and working method that had begun in Rodin’s youth, during his training and employment in Carrier-Belleuse’s studio.

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