Rodin's Classical Training

In 1854, at the age of thirteen, Rodin enrolled in the Ecole Spéciale de Dessin et de Mathématiques. At the Petite Ecole, as it was known, instruction concentrated on traditional styles and decorative art techniques; it was there that Rodin would, for the first time in his life, wholly immerse himself in art.

His instructor, and in many ways his mentor, during the young Rodin’s three years at the Petite Ecole, was Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, a well-known artist and gifted teacher. It was from the innovative lessons of Lecoq that Rodin would find a foundation for his later fascination with dynamic poses and their ability to create impressions:

“He took his students to a secluded outdoor location—a beautiful spot, a sort of natural park—where hired models, both clothed and unclothed, walked, ran, sat, or stood about in full sunlight or deep shadow. Lecoq allowed his students entire liberty to choose the impression that had most vividly struck them, then had them reproduce the remembered images as exactly as possible.” (“The Tradition of Drawing from Memory”)

While this description of his instructor hints at a creative man perhaps ahead of his time, Lecoq was nevertheless a tried-and-true traditionalist. Believing that such precise copying of the human body would “fill his students’ memories with ugly forms and spoil their taste for the ideal” Lecoq instead told them to idealize their figures, in the neoclassical, academic manner, after their initial sketches. (“The Tradition of Drawing from Memory”) It was this sort of contradictory instruction in particular that would have Rodin later looking back and saying about Lecoq, “despite the originality of his teaching, he kept to tradition,” and that his teacher’s studio was “in effect, a studio of the 18th century.” (Lampert, 2) Rodin would thus spend his formative years in the tutelage of a committed traditionalist, with a school curriculum that would have him read classical literature and visit the Louvre repeatedly in order to copy the academic art of the ‘old masters.’

It is no wonder then, that the majority of Rodin’s early works hold such striking classical and academic characteristics. The bust of his father, Jean-Baptiste Rodin (left), completed six years after Rodin’s graduation from the Petite Ecole, is Rodin’s earliest surviving work. He would, however, never display the work in his lifetime; instead, in his waning years, the portrait bust would be found in the basement of his home. Seeing it for perhaps the first time in decades, Rodin would tell his secretary:

“Papa was not happy because I refused to make his side-whiskers, which he wore like a magistrate. He did not know how to concede that in treating him in the ancient manner, I had suppressed them.” (qtd Elsen 433)

In Rodin’s own words, his portrait, with its straightforward head and stern demeanor, was planned and executed to depict his father with an air of academic dignity. The ‘ancient’ style Rodin employed not only befitted the Greeks and the Romans, but corresponded with the classical academic standards he had be taught since a child.

Just how much Rodin embraced the academic can be seen through his The Man with the Broken Nose (right). Completed a year after the bust of his father, The Man with the Broken Nose was sculpted with the “Salon jury and classical bias in mind” (Elsen, 441), demonstrating Rodin’s focus on academic credibility with his work. He would attempt to obtain this credibility by giving his sculpture, in the words of Raphael Masson, “the air of a Socrates with the impact of an antique bust” (Masson, 18). We can see that Rodin does indeed impart a look of almost philosophical distinction in his sculpture; the hair tied back in a fillet, the well-groomed beard, the straightforward stare, and the austere simplicity of The Man with the Broken Nose all imitate ‘antique’ Greek portrait busts. The Man with the Broken Nose would be accepted into the Salon in 1875 (Masson, 18), affirming Rodin’s talent in working in the academic style.

We can see through the success of these early sculptures then, that Rodin had taken in the lessons of his classical training and excelled in the applications of its style. In fact, his works at this time could arguably be considered on par with even the best of the academic sculptors of the era. What Rodin had done at such an early point in his career was parlay his incredible talent into creating truly impressive academic sculptures.