Adding to the Legacy

Rodin’s commitment to integrating a sense of action in the poses of his figures carried on through the 1880’s, and he eventually revisited and added upon the legacy of his St. John the Baptist Preaching in a work entitled Nude Honoré de Balzac with Folded Arms. Dedicated to the great French novelist who had passed decades earlier, this sculpture, completed in 1893 - thirteen years after St. John the Baptist Preaching - carried with it a sense of the artist’s growth and maturity in his employment of pose. Right away, we can see the similarity between the two figures’ postures: the dynamic lower body; the strong, forceful advance of the legs; and the exaggerated forward stride all contribute to an overall impression of spontaneity in both poses. Yet even with these similarities, at first glance the pose of the figure in Nude Honoré de Balzac with Folded Arms is not as striking as it is in St. John the Baptist Preaching - Balzac’s pose is subtle, while St. John’s is stark and steady. Upon closer examination however, we can see that this very same subtlety of pose in Nude Honoré de Balzac with Folded Arms makes its figure even more compelling than that of St. John the Baptist Preaching. The muscles in the figure of Balzac clearly strain in an effort to move the prodigious man into action; his assertive, commanding, and active pose, erected on the strength of his two great legs, indicates both the assured confidence of the subject and of the sculptor in his impression of the figure. Biographer Judith Cladel commented that the figure of Balzac had “the movement of a fighter who marches to combat” (qtd. Elsen, 368), while contemporary writer Séverine wrote, “the space between the legs, as if in the process of walking, with the conquering advance of the step, suggested so magnificently taking possession of the ground” (qtd Tancock, 434). This ‘movement,’ this ‘conquering advance’ that Rodin’s sculpture had impressed upon its viewers was thus the artist’s way of imbuing a powerful impression through a dynamic pose without being as overt as he was in illustrating it previously - ‘suggesting’ rather than boldly indicating. And though the sense of action in the pose of St. John the Baptist Preaching is held relatively isolated to just below the figure’s waist, in Nude Honoré de Balzac with Folded Arms this is not the case. The strength of the pose is heightened with the curvature of the figure’s back, with the rear foot seemingly to pushing off in tandem with a contortion of the body. Furthermore, the figure’s left shoulder dips down, creating a slight imbalance throughout the figure, which in turn gives a sense that an impending movement will soon occur to lead to the recovery of that balance. These features then, all combine to form a pose that is forceful, yet dynamic and spontaneous throughout - a clear departure from rigid academic poses - and truly impresses upon us the vigor, vitality, and confidence of Balzac. With Nude Honoré de Balzac with Folded Arms, Rodin had demonstrated his mastery of utilizing the whole of the body, both the upper and lower parts of his figure, to best convey the impression of his subject.