Auguste Rodin (François-Auguste-René Rodin) was born on November 12, 1840. Young Rodin loved to go to the Louvre and paint ancient sculptures. And years later, his own work will be considered one of the most interesting and significant phenomena in the history of world art.
Having destroyed frozen academic traditions, Auguste Rodin is considered one of the founders of modern sculpture. The most famous works The sculptures “The Thinker”, “Citizens of Calais” and “The Kiss” are considered to be a talented Frenchman. In honor of the 175th anniversary of the sculptor’s birth, we will tell you in more detail about each of them.
"The Thinker" (Le Penseur), 1880-1882.
One of Auguste Rodin's most famous sculptural works is now on display at the Rodin Museum in Paris.
In the history of sculpture, a person has often been depicted in a thought process. But Rodin’s “The Thinker” is not like any of the previously created plastic forms. According to the author’s original plan, the sculpture was called “The Poet” and was part of the composition “The Gates of Hell” based on the “Divine Comedy”.
In 1880, the government commissioned Rodin to design main entrance to the Museum under construction decorative arts in Paris. The master worked on this work almost until the end of his life, calling it “The Gates of Hell,” which became Rodin’s greatest creation. In the process of working on the seven-meter-high “Gates of Hell,” he created many compositions (more than 180 different figures), some of which later became independent works.
Over time, Rodin's plan became more complicated, in particular, the image of Dante was replaced by the universal image of the creator. The model for it was (as for many other works of this sculptor) Jean Baud, a French, muscular boxer who performed mainly in Paris. Rodin endowed his hero with physical strength, but performed him in a pointedly allegorical way, having no real prototypes.
The Thinker was first publicly exhibited in 1888 in Copenhagen.
Four years later, the sculpture was cast in bronze and enlarged to 181 cm. Rodin exhibited it at the Paris Salon in 1904. And in 1922, this bronze was transferred to the Rodin Museum at the Hotel Biron.
In addition, there are more than 20 bronze and plaster copies of the statue in different cities scattered around the world.
Citizens of Calais, 1884-1888
This bronze sculpture is dedicated to one of the episodes Hundred Years' War.
After the victory at Crecy in 1346, the English king Edward III besieged the key French fortress of Calais. The siege lasted almost a year. French attempts to break the blockade failed. Finally, when hunger forced the townspeople to begin negotiations for surrender, the English king demanded that the six most noble citizens be handed over to him, intending to have them executed as a warning to others.
The first to volunteer to give his life to save the city was one of the main rich men, Eustache de Saint-Pierre. Others followed his example. At the request of the king, the volunteers had to bring the keys to Calais to meet him naked, with ropes tied around their necks. This requirement was fulfilled. Queen Philippa of England was filled with pity for these emaciated people and, in the name of her unborn child, begged forgiveness for them from her husband.
The idea of creating a monument in honor of outstanding Frenchmen was hatched for a long time, until the mayor of Calais Devavrin finally organized a fundraiser for the monument by subscription and ordered the sculpture to Rodin.
Rodin insisted on eliminating the pedestal so that the figures would be at the same level as the audience who first saw it in 1889. But nevertheless, at the insistence of the city authorities, it was installed on a traditional pedestal and with a fence. The sculptor's idea was realized only after his death in 1924.
"The Kiss", 1889
E. A. Bourdelle said “There was not and will not be a master capable of putting a rush of flesh into clay, bronze and marble more soulfully and intensely than Rodin did.” He said this about marble sculpture, created and presented by Rodin in 1889 at the Universal Exhibition in Paris.
Although at first this sculpture was also part of the relief group decorating the large bronze sculptural gates of the Gates of Hell, it was soon removed from there. But then it was called not “The Kiss” at all, but “Francesca da Rimini”, in honor of the noble Italian lady of the 13th century depicted on it, whose name was immortalized by Dante’s Divine Comedy.
The woman fell in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta's younger brother, Paolo. Soon they were killed, in fact, by the husband. By the way, the lovers do not actually touch each other's lips, as if hinting that they were killed without committing a sin.
Yours modern name The sculpture received “The Kiss” (Le Baiser) from critics who first saw it in 1887.
An ancient French chronicle tells that during the Hundred Years' War, in the 14th century, the city of Calais was besieged by the troops of the English king Edward III and suffered famine and cruel deprivation. Exhausted and desperate residents were ready to ask for mercy from the enemy, but he set a heartless condition: the six most respected townspeople had to come to him and surrender to his will; and these six inhabitants of Calais - so demanded the arrogant enemy - were obliged to leave the city and appear before the king in only linen shirts, with their heads naked, with a rope around their necks and with the keys to the city gates in their hands.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Les Bourgeois de Calais Calais
The French chronicler goes on to say that the burgomaster, sir Jean de Vienne, having received this notification, ordered the citizens to be called together by ringing the bells. market square. Hearing from his lips about the British demand, the meeting was silent for a long time until six volunteered to go to certain death. Shouts and groans rang through the crowd. One of the six, Eustache de Saint-Pierre, was the biggest rich man in the city, the other - Jean d'Her - lived in honor and prosperity and had two beautiful young daughters. The third and fourth - Jean and Pierre de Wissans - were brothers, also from among wealthy citizens.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Les Bourgeois de Calais Calais
It is not surprising that the story of the “six from Calais” became a popular, “textbook” story in France. The events described took place shortly before the heroic epic of Joan of Arc and were associated with the course of the same war of the French people against foreign troops invading France. The heroes of the feat were representatives of the urban bourgeoisie. This circumstance was especially significant for the glorification and perpetuation of the episode in Calais. In the end The 19th century bourgeoisie was reluctant to remember the great heroes of its revolutionary past - the Marats, Dantons, Robespierres. The greater the halo it surrounded the memory of people who, even in very ancient times, could imagine it as a bearer of general civic virtues, an image of readiness for self-sacrifice and love for the homeland.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Les Bourgeois de Calais Calais
The idea of commemorating the feat of six citizens by installing a monument in the main city square came from the municipality of Calais. The intention was to erect a statue, rather of an allegorical nature, designed to remind of a long-standing event that took place in the city.
Auguste Rodin, having received this order in 1884, created a group of six figures. He rejected the idea of a “collective” or symbolic image, turning to the true picture of the event and its real acting persons. “Citizens of Calais” turned out to be a new type of multi-figure monument, new not only in its compositional structure, but also in the very understanding of the monumental image.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Les Bourgeois de Calais Calais
Rodin worked on his “Citizens of Calais” during a period when French sculpture was almost completely dominated by the “salon” - a smoothed-out and thoughtless art that fed on the academic remnants of a once living classicism. A monument to patriotism and civic self-sacrifice was a rare and significant event under these conditions. The theme of patriotic feat required a monumental embodiment, long forgotten in the prosaic everyday life of the Third Republic and its official art.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Les Bourgeois de Calais Calais
Rodin proposed a solution as unusual as the very concept of civic heroism was unusual in this time of small deeds.
Six figures, sculpted after a long search for preparatory studies, represent a rare experience in the history of monumental sculpture in the plastic interpretation of a feat as a drama of human characters.
The bearded man fixed his heavy gaze on the ground. He walks with heavy steps. It's as if he doesn't see anything around him. Among six people so unexpectedly connected to each other by fate, he is left alone with himself. His determination is unshakable, but still he asks - fate? sky? -most likely, himself about the meaning or nonsense of what is happening, about near death without any guilt, about the impossibility of changing this fatal course of things.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Fragment
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Fragment
Another human type, a different character and a different drama are represented by the figure of a younger townsman, clasping his head with both hands. Deep and bitter thought, almost despair, is expressed by this gesture at the first glance at the figure. Peering into the bowed face, covered on both sides by bare hands, one can read something else: not the man’s fear for his personal fate, but the bitter anxiety that gripped his entire being in these moments of defeat.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Fragment
A slightly different psychological shade is captured in the figure of a man who pressed his hand to his forehead and eyes, as if protecting himself from the inevitable and terrible thing that threatens him and everyone. The laconic, highly vital gesture speaks of the clash between faith in life and the inevitability of senseless death, between the sense of self-preservation and the duty of self-sacrifice - a clash that is conveyed in this figure, perhaps, by the most meager means.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Fragment
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Fragment
IN highest degree the fourth hero is clearly characterized - a round-headed, middle-aged man with the key to the city in his hand. His stubborn head is raised, he looks straight ahead, his hand tightly grips a huge key - a symbol of surrender to the mercy of the winner. This man is wearing the same wide and long shirt as everyone else, the same rope around his neck, but he wears this prisoner’s clothing like a priestly cassock, and the shameful noose seems to be part of the clergyman’s attire.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Fragment
In contrast to the two neighboring figures - a man with a beard and one who has his head in his hands - this townsman is depicted motionless, as if frozen, before taking a decisive step. A sloping forehead, a slightly protruding lower jaw, tightly compressed lips, a hooked nose - the large features of a rough, shaved face speak of a stubborn will, perhaps fanaticism. Large hands tightly grip a heavy key - a material sign of the tragedy being experienced, and the greatest tension is invested in this simple and seemingly passive gesture, emphasized by the calm immobility of the figure.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Fragment
The psychological antithesis of this statue is the adjacent figure of a man with his right hand raised upward. If others hide their protest deep inside, withdraw with their anger and despair into themselves, then this city dweller carries his protesting thought and will to the world, more than to the world - higher powers, who rules the world. A hand raised to the sky in a questioning and reproachful gesture is a challenge to these higher powers, a demand for an answer for the lawlessness and injustice that has befallen innocent people, their lives, their wives and children, hometown, to his native land.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Fragment
Movement right hand, bent at the elbow, sharply highlights this figure. Here, in the first and last time, a person’s thought is not limited to the earthly circle, but breaks through upward, turning to the deity, moreover, not with a prayer or even a call for intervention, but with an angry reproach. In this gesture one can read both a puzzled question and bitter disappointment - disbelief in the very possibility of divine justice, the very existence highest truth. This is also indicated by the mouth, half-open in a sorrowful curve, and the gaze downward, as if arguing with the gesture of the hand. This gesture is the most complex in meaning and expression: the “reference” to the sky has the character of a philosophical result of the entire episode, a result that returns dramatic conflict to its true root cause, rooted in man himself and in human relationships.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Fragment
Next to this man, facing the other five, on the left edge of the group, stands a man with a stern noble face, With long hair, with hands lowered along the body and open in a gesture of question and doubt. If previous character, the one who raised his hand is addressed, in addition to the sky, to one of his comrades, then precisely to this neighbor. Isn’t he the first who responded to the words of the burgomaster and now turns to his comrades who share his call and his fate, with a silent confirmation of the inevitability decision taken?
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Fragment
The tragic in “The Citizens of Calais” goes far beyond the plot of the story about the feat of French patriots of the 14th century. The inner world of people of the feudal Middle Ages is endowed with the features of Rodin's modernity, contradictions and doubts, rather characteristic of a man of the end XIX century. Along with the tragedy of duty and self-sacrifice, Rodin’s heroes also experience another tragedy - the tragedy of loneliness, insurmountable even at a moment when, it would seem, the public dominates everything personal. And although all six who make up this tragic group are united by a single will and their behavior is dictated by the same categorical dictate of social duty, each of them remains immersed in his own tightly closed spiritual world. Sacrificing their lives, Rodin’s people remain “alone with themselves” even in these moments of high moral uplift.
Individualism, which tried to different forms present yourself as philosophical basis artistic creativity, put his stamp on Rodin’s quest. It is in this sense that we can talk about the impact of the decadence of the late 19th century on his work.
The group is deprived of a common base or pedestal - all the figures, according to the sculptor’s plan, were supposed to stand directly on the ground and grow out of it. The sculptor's intentions in this part were violated when the monument was erected on the site in 1895: at the request of the municipality of Calais and despite the objections of Rodin, the figures were raised onto a specially constructed high pedestal. A piece of the city square - the site of a long-standing incident - is the arena of sculptural action.
There is also no general architectural background of the monument, like the pylon in front of which the volunteers of Ryudov’s “Marseillaise” set out on a campaign. The background for “The Citizens of Calais” is only air, only free space, readable in the gaps between the figures, in the gaps formed by the movements of the hands, turns of the heads, and clothes. This “background” envelops each figure, forcing the viewer to gaze intently not so much at the group as a whole, but at each individual sculpture.
It is very instructive to continue comparing Rodin’s sculptural group with Rud’s “La Marseillaise” - the sculptural group of the Arch of Triumph on the Place des Stars in Paris. This comparison is all the more appropriate since both works, separated by an interval of fifty years, are close to each other in their theme; besides, in both cases this theme is expressed sculptural composition from the same number of figures.
The fate of the Ryudov volunteers is clear - after all, it is shown right there: it is she, the winged Freedom, who leads them on a campaign, inspires them, calls them to fight for a common goal. The fate of the six citizens of Calais is a dark, hanging sentence; this fate requires sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, it is senselessly cruel, like the very whim of a feudal lord taking hostages from a defenseless city.
That is why the eyes of the volunteers setting out on the campaign are so open and clear, their step is so confident, the rhythm of this procession is so upbeat, so numbly static, internally constrained are the figures of the citizens of the city of Calais, going to the enemy’s camp.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Les Bourgeois de Calais Calais
The sculptor arranges these figures no longer in a compact, close-knit group passing in front of the viewer, but in the form of a disorganized group of individual statues. This group does not have its own frontal facade; it requires many viewing points. Moreover, the composition of the group does not allow all six statues to be seen simultaneously; at least one of them is obscured by a neighboring figure.
Francois Auguste René Rodin (1840-1917) Citizens of Calais. 1884-1888 Les Bourgeois de Calais
That is why there is no photograph of Rodin’s monument that would show all six heroes. From each new point new relationships of figures appear, various gaps between them. This intermittent silhouette and equally intermittent rhythm reinforce the impression of the contradictory complexity of what is happening.
D.E.ARKIN. Images of architecture and images of sculpture. 1990
Siege of Calais
Main article: Siege of Calais
Rodin worked on the group of six figures from 1884 to 1888. At that time, Rodin’s execution of the monument seemed extremely controversial. The customers expected a sculpture in the form of a single figure, symbolizing Eustache de Saint-Pierre. In addition, before Rodin, monuments depicted heroic victories and dominated the audience from their pedestals. Rodin insisted on abandoning the pedestal so that the figures were on the same level as the audience (although they were made somewhat larger than human height).
The monument was first presented to the public in 1889 and was met with almost universal admiration. Several more years passed before it was installed in Calais: the opening ceremony took place in 1895. However, at the insistence of the city authorities, it was installed on a traditional pedestal and with a fence. The sculptor's will, according to which the "Citizens of Calais" were to be placed on the ground, was fulfilled only after his death, in 1924.
As the 20th century continued, copies of Rodin's sculptural group appeared in many cities around the world, including Paris and London.
The dramatic sound of the entire scene as a whole, its contradictory emotional atmosphere, the feeling of the spiritual tension of the characters, the laconic and at the same time deep characterization of each of them are born thanks to the restless fractional rhythm of the composition, the sharp contrasts of static figures and figures full of dynamics, the contrast of the weight of the masses with the expression of poses and gestures.
Notes
Literature
- Bernard Champigneulle Rodin. - London: Thames and Hudson, 1999. - 285 p. - ISBN 0500200610
- Magali Domain, Les Six Bourgeois de Calais, La Voix du Nord, 2001
- Jean-Marie Moeglin, Les Bourgeois de Calais, essai sur un mythe historique, Albin Michel, 2002
Coordinates: 51°29′51″ n. w. 0°07′29.5″W d. / 51.4975° N. w. 0.124861° W d.(G) (O)51.4975 , -0.124861
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Everyone knows the name of the great French sculptor Auguste Rodin. When you mention him, “The Thinker”, “Eve”, “Eternal Spring”, “Kiss” immediately appear before your eyes. The sculptural group “Citizens of Calais” occupies a special place in his work.
There is no greater love than if
whoever lays down his life for his friends.
In. 15.13
How does a person feel who voluntarily goes to death for the sake of the lives of other people? What happens in the soul of a hero when he accomplishes a feat? Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) answered these questions by creating the sculptural group “Citizens of Calais,” and thereby revolutionized monumental sculpture.
The tradition that had become established by the second half of the 19th century demanded, first of all, greatness from works of this genre. The hero (usually one) had to rise above the audience and evoke a feeling of pride and admiration. The monument did not intend to depict the emotional experiences of the person depicted. It is in this traditional spirit that the municipality of the French city of Calais decided to perpetuate the memory of Eustache de Saint-Pierre, one of the heroes of the Hundred Years' War. The year was 1845. The then famous sculptor David of Anzhersky took on the task of completing the order, but the work was not completed. Anzhersky died, neither his students nor other sculptors were able to complete the idea, especially since the city also had financial problems. The project froze for almost forty years.
By the time the municipality of Calais came up with the idea of creating a monument, Auguste Rodin was only five years old. He was the son of a simple employee, studied first at a church school, then at a secondary school. The boy discovered artistic passions early, and his parents encouraged his interest in art. Auguste often went to the Louvre. Getting acquainted with masterpieces, he learned from the masters of the past. The boy wanted to paint, but poverty became an obstacle. Paints and canvases were expensive, but paper and pencil were available to Rodin’s meager finances. Therefore, he concentrated on drawing, making endless copies of masterpieces, filling his hand. After graduation high school Rodin tried three times to enter the Higher art school Paris, and he was not accepted three times! However, Auguste had amazing tenacity and patience. He felt strong, so he was confident in his destiny.
When Rodin was 22 years old, a misfortune happened. His beloved younger sister, a nun with whom Rodin was very close, died. Auguste was overwhelmed by grief. He retired to a monastery. Here he created his first serious work: a bust of the founder of the monastery, Father Emar. Engaging in creativity brought the young man back to life, he returned to the world and began his journey as a sculptor.
Over time, Rodin learned from rumors about the unfinished monument in Calais. He was already famous artist, recognized not only in France. “The Thinker” and “Eve” had already been created, work was underway on the grandiose “Gates of Hell”... The core of his work was clearly defined - the philosophical search for meaning human life, expressions of its essence as eternal struggle between good and evil, chaos and order, destruction and creation. Rodin was interested in strong feelings, situations of extreme choice. In essence, he expressed the idea of human responsibility for everything that happens in the world - something that later found its embodiment in the philosophy of existentialism. Inspired by the idea of a monument in Calais, Rodin became familiar with Jean Froissart's Chronicles. The story he learned amazed him.
At the beginning of the Hundred Years' War, the British were very successful in advancing deep into France. But the attempt to take the key fortress of Calais failed - the city offered stubborn resistance. The British began a siege that lasted almost a year. Finally it became clear that the French could not hold out: all food supplies in the city had run out - the residents even ate rats. During the negotiations for the surrender of the fortress, the British put forward an ultimatum: the city will not be destroyed and the inhabitants will be spared if the six most eminent citizens of Calais, barefoot, with bare heads, with nooses around their necks, hand over the keys to the city to them. These six will be executed, but there will be no more victims.
The bell on Town Hall Square summoned residents to general meeting. The burgomaster announced the British demand, and then the most noble resident of the city, Eustache de Saint-Pierre, was the first to take a step forward. He was followed by Jean d'Her, brothers Jean and Pierre de Wissant, Andried Andre and Jean di Fienne - rich and respected townspeople. They did everything as the enemy demanded - they put nooses around their necks and walked out of the city gates, carrying the keys.
The idea that the monument should be dedicated not only to Eustache de Saint-Pierre, but to all six heroes, became clear to Rodin immediately. It was a plot in which it was possible to show what worried the artist so much - a man in highest manifestation his essence. Six heroes, six personalities, each with their own character, and what unites them all is duty, self-sacrifice, the consciousness of imminent death. Showing the moment of farewell - to people, to the city, to life - with all the nuances of feelings, in the movement of figures, as a single ensemble, was very interesting task. However, the municipality insisted on a single figure. The main reason The stubbornness of the city authorities was due to financial limitations. Then Rodin, inspired by the idea of a group composition, agreed to the fee that was due for a single figure.
Of course, there was no question of simply continuing the project of David of Angers. Rodin proposed his project, and it was fundamentally different from everything that had happened before in monumental sculpture. All four years during which Auguste Rodin worked on the work, he fought with the customer for the right to realize his plan. At first, he had great difficulty convincing the municipality of the need for a group composition. The customer then made a claim regarding appearance figures, finding it "pathetic and offensive". Members of the municipality would like to see them elegantly dressed, in a proud pose - as befits a monument. Rodin depicted almost all the characters half-naked, with their heads bowed, and the size of the figures did not exceed two meters.
In the art of sculpture, the naked body is one of the most important exponents inner world personality. Muscle tension, the dynamics of gestures - all this is a mirror in which the soul is reflected. Like the great Michelangelo, Rodin in to a greater extent attracted by the texture male body. In it one can express the idea of strength more clearly than in a woman’s version, to show a person who takes upon himself the burden of responsibility for life and death, for everything that happens in the world. “The Bronze Age”, “The Thinker” are works that are iconic in this sense. They show a person in his development - from the first steps of adulthood, when his strength is still awakening, to the reflections of a mature personality, fully aware of the contradictions of existence.
"The Citizens of Calais" can be seen in in a certain sense as a development of the “Thinker” concept. In “The Thinker” we see, first of all, the concentration of a person’s intellectual and physical power, where mental tension is shown in harmony with the physical. In this sense, nudity is the only acceptable solution. And in “Citizens” we can talk about the concentration of moral forces that are revealed at the most dramatic moment of life - at the moment of realizing the inevitability of death. Rodin combined clothed and nude figures in this sculpture with amazing tact. The flowing robes emphasize the monumentality of the monument, while the naked fragments express the idea of sacrifice and emphasize the tragedy of the plot. The heroes walk, barefoot, along the uneven ground towards death, each of them thinks about his own, but the whole group is united by a single impulse and a common pathos of salvation and farewell. Each person's facial expressions and gestures carry a wealth of meaning, complementing each other and creating a general mood.
Rodin wanted the monument to be placed on a very low pedestal and not enclosed, so that viewers could interact with the work at close range. This was it artistic design master: he wanted to bring the figures as close as possible to the viewer, to create a feeling of closeness and reality of what is happening. Approaching the monument, anyone could carefully examine both the entire composition as a whole and individual fragments. You can get a complete picture of the work only by walking around it. A very low pedestal and no more than two-meter figures would allow viewers to peer into the faces of those depicted, literally look into their eyes.
However, the city authorities did not agree with this artist’s demand in any way...
When Rodin completed work on the work, another problem arose - the city did not have the money to cast the monument in bronze. It was time to give up, but Rodin knew how to wait. We had to wait more than five years. Languishing in the stables (there was no room in the workshop), the “Citizens of Calais” excited public opinion. Everyone who saw the work was shocked... Finally, a nationwide lottery was announced in favor of the monument; In addition, the Ministry of Art allocated a subsidy, and funds for the casting were collected.
The opening of the monument took place on June 3, 1895 with a large crowd of people and became one of the most important cultural events in France in those years. Rodin had to give in to the municipal authorities, who insisted on a high pedestal and fence. In addition, he yielded to them on the issue of the location of the monument - instead of Town Hall Square, it was placed on Richelieu Square. By and large, this became not so important against the backdrop of the main thing: the composition was finally presented to everyone.
The effect exceeded all expectations. Even on a high pedestal, behind the fence, the “Citizens of Calais” amazed with their humanity and were perceived as their own, family and friends, sacrificing themselves out of love. It was a monument celebrating strength human spirit, tragic and touching at the same time. It penetrated into the very heart, causing catharsis in souls.
When did the first one begin? World War, the composition was hidden, and then, following the wishes of the sculptor, they placed it on a low pedestal in the square in front of the old town hall, where it is still located.
"The Citizens of Calais" became a milestone in the life and work of Auguste Rodin. This work is the result of the master’s deep reflections on the nature of heroism and self-sacrifice. While working on the composition, the sculptor became so close to his heroes that he could no longer imagine life without them. Therefore, he cast a copy of the monument at his own expense and installed it in the courtyard of his Parisian workshop. Now here is the Rodin Museum. Another original copy was cast at the request and at the expense of the English government and installed in the center of London. The British asked the master about this with good reason. To understand why, it is worth returning once again to the events of 1347.
The citizens of Calais, barefoot, with bare heads, with nooses around their necks, stood before the English king Edward III. He had already given the order to execute them. And then his pregnant wife, Queen Philippa, shocked by the courage of the six heroes, threw herself on her knees in front of the king. She begged her husband to spare the condemned, in their name not yet born child. Edward III could not refuse his beloved wife. The citizens of Calais were spared their lives and released.
Thus, now Rodin’s masterpiece can be admired in three cities - Calais, Paris and London, and each copy is the author’s.
In addition, individual fragments of the composition were cast and can be seen in museums different countries. They are also in the Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin in Moscow.
I continue my story about the works of Auguste Rodin, presented at the exhibition in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
"Citizens of the City of Calais"
In 1884, the authorities of the French city of Calais commissioned a monument to Rodin in honor of the feat of its eminent citizens who sacrificed themselves to save the city.
This dramatic story has its roots in the Hundred Years' War between France and England. Then, in 1346, the English king Edward III besieged the French fortress of Calais and, as time passed, offered the city, already exhausted by famine, in exchange for lifting the siege, to hand over six of its most notable citizens for execution. They had to go out to him without clothes, in only shirts, barefoot, with bare heads, with ropes around their necks and with the keys to the city and the fortress. The already exhausted residents of Calais were horrified by this proposal, but such people were found - six people who were ready to give their lives to save others.
The first to volunteer was Eustache de Saint-Pierre, the most distinguished and respected person in the city. He was supported by others whose names are now known - Jean d'Eur, Jean Fien, Andre Andrew and the brothers Pierre and Jacques de Wissant. They fulfilled all the conditions of the English king, came to his camp and would have been executed, but the wife of Edward III, who was then pregnant, in the name of their unborn child, begged her husband to save the lives of the prisoners. Here's the story.
The authorities of Calais, when ordering a monument to Rodin, meant that it would be a statue of Eustache de Saint-Pierre, as the main character of this story, who led the rest. But Rodin, having become acquainted with the chronicles of those years, decided that the monument would be for all six, because they were all heroes. The sculptor chose to embody the most intense moment, when these six people are already going to the king, and each thinking about approaching own death, experiences these moments in his own way.
Eustache de Saint-Pierre
Jean d'Eur
However, the monument presented by the sculptor in 1889 was not immediately accepted by the authorities of Calais. This is hardly surprising. Firstly, six figures instead of one was completely not part of their plans. Secondly, in the monument there was no sense of any bravura heroic pathos at all. The sculptures created by Rodin are not abstract heroes, but LIVING PEOPLE going to their death. Here their feelings and experiences in the last minutes of their lives came to the fore. And this approach to the heroic theme at that time was still too new, too unusual.
Pierre de Wissan.
And the city authorities certainly could not agree with Rodin’s proposal to install this monument at ground level, as if they had just left the town hall and were heading to the place of execution. And the sculptor wanted the heroes to remain among people. Moreover, he was sure that reducing the distance between the viewer and the sculptural group only increased the emotional impact on the viewer. And this was also an innovation, which was difficult for many of the sculptor’s contemporaries to accept, and not just for the monument’s customers.
In the end, the monument was opened only in 1895, i.e. six years after its creation. And even then, contrary to Rodin’s will, the city authorities nevertheless installed the monument on a traditional pedestal. However, a few years after the death of the sculptor - in 1924, the monument in Calais was nevertheless installed on the ground, as Rodin wanted. Here's the story.
And how great it is that “Citizens of the City of Calais” was brought to St. Petersburg! This is one of my favorite works by Rodin. So much power, so much expression! You can look at each character for a very long time. Their faces, their poses... Real life life is in front of you, not a bronze monument.... Yes, Rodin is great!
Jean Fien, Jacques de Wissan
Andre Andrew