January 25, 2012

Conference

Rodin's presence in Pamplona: "The Thinker" and "The Burghers of Calais".

Mr. José Javier Azanza López.
Chair of Navarrese Heritage and Art

Between January 11 and February 19, 2012, the urban space of the place del Castillo hosted the traveling exhibition "Auguste Rodin in Pamplona", composed of seven monumental sculptures from the Musée Rodin in Paris: The ThinkerThe Thinker, and the six programs of study corresponding to the figures that make up the set of The Burghers of Calais. The sample is part of the program Street Artpromoted by Obra Social "La Caixa", with the support and partnership of the City Council of Pamplona.

Auguste Rodin (Paris, 1840-Meudon, 1917) is considered one of the great sculptors, a timeless artist whose work breaks with academic canons and is impossible to classify in any trend. After an initial training in the workshop of Albert Carrier-Belleuse, in 1874 he undertook a trip to Italy that led him to know the work of Michelangelo, from whom he took several specific teachings: taste for the nude; admiration for strength and musculature; beauty of the unfinished; and reflection of inner feeling. In his opinion, the human figure should embody the feelings of the character, and he does so with such intensity that some of his figures become true symbols; hence one critic defined Rodin as "a Michelangelo who has listened to Wagner".

In addition to the expression of feeling, other features characterize his work: the expression of movement, achieved through the study of the work of Jean Baptiste Carpeaux; and the study of the effects of light on the surface, translating atmospheric vibrations. In fact, the unfinished work itself, in addition to referring to Michelangelo, connects with Impressionist painting and its disdain for the superficial appearance of the finish (remember his friendship with Monet and the joint exhibition of both in 1889, at the Georges Petit Gallery in Paris).

One of the works of the exhibition is The Thinkeroriginally conceived to crown the Gates of Hell, and later became an autonomous sculpture. Raised on a pedestal that forces the viewer to admire it in contrapposto, it is a figure two meters high and 650 kilos of real muscular tension in bronze. It translates the activity of thinking into the tension of each of the muscles, giving sensitive expression to the intellectual work . Rodin said in this regard: "I have always tried to express inner feelings through muscular tension... without life, art does not exist". And the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who was for a time his secretary, described him as follows The ThinkerHis whole body has become a skull, and all the blood in his veins, a brain.

The Thinker
 

With his powerful feet and hands, this "dishonorable pitecantropus", as defined by some critics, stands as a true symbol to which various interpretations have been sought: symbol of Democracy and Human Rights; concentration of the thoughts of all Humanity; act of rebellion of man, who rises above the animal condition and illuminates his first thought, thus acquiring the human condition. Be that as it may, there are precedents in art, from the Torso of the Belvedere (Apollonius of Athens), to the figures of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence, and the Prophet Jeremiah in the Sistine Chapel, both by Michelangelo. All this, without forgetting that in Pamplona we have our own "Thinker" in the Monument to the Dead (Life and Death) executed in 1922 by Ramón Arcaya during his boarding school in Paris, where he got to know Rodin's work and attended classes by one of his disciples, Antoine Bourdelle.

As for The Burghers of Calais, the monument commemorates a historical event of the mid-14th century, when six notable men of the French city decided to sacrifice their lives to save those of their fellow citizens. In the phase prior to the composition of the final group , Rodin made individual programs of study of each of the six characters, first nude, and later clothed; this is the reason why on the exhibition two of the figures - Jean d'Aire and Jean de Fiennes - appear nude.

Eustache de Saint Pierre
 

The six bourgeois set out from the place of the Calais Market towards the camp of the English King George III, aware that they are on their way to death. A set of different psychological programs of study unfolds before our eyes, where human reactions to the certainty of the fate that awaits them are explored with immediacy. Rodin analyzes each individual response: Eustache de Saint Pierre's dignity, not without a certain heaviness; Jean d'Aire's restrained rage; Pierre de Wissant's determined, brave and courageous gesture; the pride, mixed with a hint of doubt and fear, of his brother Jacques de Wissant; the youth sacrificed in a heroic act of Jean de Fiennes; and the despair and impotence in the face of death, to the point of not wanting to look it in the face, of Andrieu d'Andres, who closes a funeral procession in which each of its components occupies his position according to the Degree of heroism that they manifest.

Jean d'Aire
 

Although in his first sketches he considered the possibility of placing it on a high pedestal, Rodin finally placed group almost at ground level, so that the viewer can enter into the tragedy and appreciate every detail of the human reactions in their slow procession towards death. The luminous programs of study , with the light sliding over the surfaces, endow the work with an impressionist technique; and at the same time, the rough surface and the deterioration of the characters' anatomies - Camille Claudel took part in its execution - announce the vigorous deformations of Expressionism.

Pierre de Wissant

Jacques de Wissant

Jean de Fiennes

Andrieu d'Andres