Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece
A Special Visit to the British Museum
Thursday, 28 June 2018, saw a group of SSS members brave public transport to visit the British Museum for a special lecture and exhibition of Rodin and the Parthenon sculptures of Greece. Barbara Marshfield organised this privileged group visit and it was both a surprising and very enjoyable experience.
In 1881 the French sculptor, Auguste Rodin made his first trip to London. No doubt the trains ran on time in those days. On a trip to the British Museum he saw the Parthenon sculptures and was captivated by the beauty of these ancient Greek masterpieces.
Though weathered and broken over centuries, the Parthenon sculptures still convey a power through the bodies of the figures alone. This inspired Rodin, who went on to remove heads and limbs from his own sculptures to capture the feeling of these artworks of the past and, in the process, create a new genre of contemporary art.
Text supplied by David Paynter and
photographs from the British Museum Blog by Ian Jenkins
Descending the stairs from the very airy and modern Great Court to the Education Centre, we were given tea and biscuits before being entranced by a lecture given by Ian Jenkins, the British Museum’s curator of artworks from Ancient Greece.
His encyclopaedic knowledge of these ancient sculptures and the link between them and Rodin allowed us to gain an insight into the processes and the motivation of this master sculptor.
There were a few surprises – apparently Rodin never carved anything! His team of craftsmen worked from Rodin’s drawings and clay maquettes. Plaster casts were made and scaled up to be cast in bronze or carved in marble. Rodin supervised closely but never actually laid a hand on a chisel! Many of his works were deliberately left unfinished as if the work would never be complete. Rodin’s figures are essentially human rather than idealised.
Block XLVII (figs. 132–136) of unmounted youths preparing for the cavalcade from the north frieze of the Parthenon, c 438–432 BC. Auguste Rodin (1840–1917), The Age of Bronze. Bronze, 1877, sand cast before 1916. S. 986. © Musée Rodin. Photo: Christian Baraja.
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