Exhibition of the week: The Making of Rodin

In 1899, Auguste Rodin mounted a “decidedly unconventional” exhibition in Paris, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. Rodin (1840-1917) took the decision to show his works in plaster,

a material hitherto considered only as a “transitional” part of the process by which a sculpture progressed from the drawing board to its finished state in bronze or marble. The artist

aimed both to “emphasise the fundamental role” that plaster played in the development of his “audacious modern vision”, and to “mythologise himself as a solitary genius”; because unlike

bronze cast, a work in plaster would bear the imprint of his hand. The resulting show was “a muddle of figures and fragments and maquettes”, evoking the atmosphere of the artist’s studio. It

would, the curators of a new exhibition at Tate Modern argue, set the pace for sculpture in the 20th century.

In its first exhibition to open since lockdown restrictions were relaxed, the museum sets out to replicate the thrill of Rodin’s groundbreaking display, bringing together more than 200

works, mostly in plaster. The Making of Rodin includes many of his most famous sculptures and reminds us that he was unquestionably “the most innovative sculptor” of his time.

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In many ways, this is a “serious and accomplished” exhibition, said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph. It features a roll-call of Rodin’s “greatest hits”: several plaster versions of The

Thinker (1881) and a marble of his immortal The Kiss (1901-04) are present and correct, as are less-celebrated gems such as The Age of Bronze (1876-77), an “astonishingly supple likeness of

a young Belgian soldier”. Yet for all its strengths, the show is let down by a needlessly “censorious” attitude towards its subject. The curators make the mistake of judging the artist by

our contemporary mores. It tells Rodin off for “appropriating” classical sculpture, which he collected. A series of “frankly erotic” studies of naked women is accompanied by a caption

informing us that the relationship between artist and model was “starkly unequal”. Such “finger-wagging” is pointless and irritating: “if you don’t like the work, don’t show it”.

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