Stepping Forward

Some of this potential was realized with Rodin’s overt integration of a determined, active pose in his next Salon sculpture, St. John the Baptist Preaching. Exhibited in 1880, Rodin’s representation of the famed biblical figure - a popular academic subject - is one of St. John striding forward, and in the words of Gsell, “about to leave his pedestal to carry his words of faith everywhere” (qtd. Rodin, 28). Having taken the dynamism of this figure a step further than that of the one in his The Age of Bronze, Rodin had thus seemingly lent an air of spontaneity to his sculpture in the minds viewers like Gsell by giving a more overt sense of animation in his figure, which in turn made the impending action ‘about to’ occur in St. John the Baptist Preaching seem much more prominent than that of his previous work. There is no mistaking the pose of this sculpture as a banal, static, and academic one; instead, we see a dynamic pose in St. John the Baptist Preaching that presents a man clearly full of vigor, straining in his inexorable advance, with the appearance that his next step will take him even closer to us. The action inherent in the sculpture’s pose is made possible primarily through the lower body of the figure. The hips pivot, and the body’s weight is transferred along the axis of the right leg. The muscles are flexed in both legs, and because we cannot distinguish whether the figure of St. John has just finished taken a step or if it is instead beginning another stride, there is a palpable sense that this action is still occurring. The back leg, which, if Rodin wished to portray the human figure sincerely, would already be raised and moving forward (Rodin, 31), is instead firmly planted on the ground, exaggerating and highlighting the impression of forward movement present in the pose of St. John. Rodin struggled a bit with the consequences of this exaggeration, stating, “the very thought of balancing a figure on both legs seemed like a lack of taste, an outrage to tradition, almost a heresy”, but ultimately deciding it was “absolutely necessary” in order to “transmit [his] impression exactly” (qtd. Elsen, 546). With Rodin’s words in mind, we can perceive that he was more concerned with capturing the impression of spontaneous pose than he perhaps was with true accuracy. Rodin, at this time, would also come to call having an active and seemingly ‘moving’ pose the “foundation of the purpose of a figure” (qtd. Elsen, 43). Taking these statements and the dynamic figure in St. John the Baptist Preaching into account then, we can see a strong progression in which Rodin begins to wholeheartedly incorporate action and thus openly presents impressions through his figure’s poses.