You can ask anyone to name a famous artist and you'll receive an array of answers. Leonardo, Picasso, Van Gogh and Rembrandt are all renowned much like their most memorable works. Ask for the name of a sculptor on the other hand and the result is very different. We all  see statues and monuments just about anywhere we go, but who can name the sculptor? The artwork itself is nearly always much more celebrated.

There are some exceptions. Michelangelo is but one, Rodin is one more. His statues are amongst the most legendary in the world today and although they received plenty of criticism throughout his life, Rodin was by far the most famous artist of his period. Just about everyone has heard the name.

Rodin took his work seriously and in no way attempt to challenge the establishment or be intentionally defiant, but his life was filled with intrigue as well as scandal and his sculpture, particularly his nude statues, were at the time regarded as revolutionary, beautiful, and at times overly erotic.

Rodin's purpose had been realism, a thing which put him at odds against the neoclassical tastes of that time period and he was evidently successful. His earliest work, a nude sculpture called 'the age of bronze' led to a charge of surmoulage, utilizing a plaster cast from life to create his ar work. Eventually he was cleared, however due to this fact he usually worked in sizes which were obviously  never obtained from a real person.

Quite possibly the most famous Rodin sculpture is known as 'The Kiss', a nude statue featuring two lovers interrupted as their lips are about to meet. The Kiss Rodin began as part of 'The Gates of Hell' a design Rodin worked on for quite some time that was meant to form the gates of a new museum.  Several of his most prominent statues began in this way yet he took out 'The Kiss' as it didn't appear to match along with overall motif. A relief variation of Rodin's 'Young Mother With Child' may be seen within the lower left side of the Gates of Hell.   It appears very likely the mother is modelled on his mistress, Rose Beuret and the child on their son.

Other Rodin statues were imagined from a very different source of creativity. At age forty three Rodin met Camille Claudel who was then eighteen.  They had a passionate affair, but Rodin continually refused to make a complete break with Rose and after some 12 years Camille ended their relationship. Three years later Rodin returned to Rose.

Camille had been herself a sculptor and in the opinion of many art historians a genius in her own right. She aided  Rodin with many of his works and was also the  inspiration for some of his most renowned nude statues, such as 'Eternal Idol'. She can also be viewed as the model for  'The Bather', another nude statue by Rodin which started out as a faun in 'The Gates of Hell'.  Camille had been skillful as a sculptress but a few years following her breakup with Rodin she appeared to have a nervous breakdown, destroyed many of her statues and accused Rodin of stealing her work and trying to kill her. Though she recovered, in 1913 her family had her committed to an institution in which she stayed for many years. Employees wrote repeatedly, counseling her family members  that Camille was not mentally ill , however her mother would not consent and so Camille remained in the mental hospital until she passed away in 1943. Rodin finally married Rose in 1917, the year they both passed away.

Rodin made his statues by creating them in a considerably smaller size in a medium that was easy to shape. He had assistants replicate the scaled-down statue in marble after which he produced the finishing details himself. One particular consequence of this is that there is simply no definitive version of many Rodin statues. There are three large (about 6 feet)  marble versions of 'The Kiss':  The very first was commissioned by the French government and is now in the Musée Rodin in Paris, the second was commissioned by an unconventional Englishman and can now be seen in the Tate Modern in London and the third and last, made in 1903 is exhibited in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

Rodin worked for over 50 years and during the period made thousands of statues, busts, oil paintings and watercolors including his famous the Thinker Statue. He died in 1917.

In a bizarre twist, works by Camille Claudel typically sell for much more than equivalent works by Rodin, but the woman's name is practically anonymous. Her face and figure, immortalized by her renowned lover, will be appreciated.

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