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拍品专文
Auguste Rodin’s Eve au rocher, petit modèle–modèle aux pieds détaillés forms part of his larger sculptural meditation on the first woman. The subject had become quite popular following the 1850 Salon, and initially, he conceived of Eve as part of his Porte de l’enfer, an immense and opulent doorway commissioned, in 1880, by the French government. The monumental project consisted of over 200 figures, and Eve was to be installed, according to his earliest sketches, atop the portal. Over the course of the year, however, he began to see Eve as a separate work, pairing her with the sculpture now known as Adam, which had been exhibited at the Salon in the spring of 1881 with the title La Création. As a result of this artistic reimagining, Rodin petitioned the Ministry of Fine Arts for an additional 10,000 francs for the two works, deciding to place them on either side of La porte de l’enfer. There they would stand as permanent, potent reminders regarding the origins of mankind’s suffering.
When shown alongside Adam, Eve is part of the first narrative. Shown alone, however, and she is transformed into the vessel for all humanity’s agony. Racked with remorse, her body contorts under the pain of her own repentance. ‘The truth of my figures,’ Rodin explained, ‘instead of being merely superficial, seems to blossom from within to the outside, like life itself’ (A. Rodin quoted in A. Rodin and P. Gsell, Rodin on Art and Artists: Conversations with Paul Gsell, New York, 1983, p. 22). Indeed, she is the physical embodiment of profound anguish, a sense which emanates from her serpentine body and beautiful, albeit despondent expression. Formally, Rodin’s Eve au rocher recalls Masaccio’s Eve in the Expulsion from Paradise as well as Michelangelo’s own depiction of the subject on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; since his first visit to Italy in 1876, Michelangelo had been a source of inspiration for the sculptor.
Although there are numerous historical antecedents for the sculpture, Rodin’s image of Eve suggests the wholly modern desire to represent truthfully the wonder and grief of the human experience. His abject representation echoes Picasso’s Blue Period beggars and Brancusi’s sculptures such as La prière, 1907. In these and other works, Rodin and his contemporaries strove to give image to the experiences and sentiments of the era in all their brutal beauty.
Rodin’s model for Eve was a young Italian woman, possibly Adéle Abruzzezzi, who he described as having ‘sunburned skin, warm, with the bronze reflections of the women of sunny lands’. ‘Her movements,’ Rodin told to the artist Henri-Charles-Etienne Dujardin-Beaumetz, ‘were quick and feline, with the lissomness and grace of a panther; all the strength and splendour of muscular beauty, and that perfect equilibrium, that simplicity of bearing which makes great gesture’ (A. Rodin quoted in A.E. Elsen, Rodin’s Art, Oxford, 2003, p. 190). In 1881 however, midway through the sculpting process, she became pregnant. As her bodily proportions began to change, Rodin found himself unable to continue with his sculpture and instead of finding a new model, abandoned the project altogether. He would later blame the statue’s incompletion on the woman's pregnancy, saying that ‘it is for this reason that my Eve is not finished’ (H. Dujardin-Beaumetz, Entretiens avec Rodin, 1913, p. 64).
Despite this outward show of resentment, Rodin nevertheless seems to have been sufficiently pleased with his progress up to that point as he went on to cast the life-sized work in bronze and to produce a series of smaller figures on the same theme. In reconceiving his initial Eve, Rodin placed a more youthful version atop a small outcropping, which led Georges Grappe to christen her Eve au rocher. The textured, weather-beaten stone offers a stark contrast to the figure’s smooth legs, fleshy stomach, and eloquent hands. Representations of Eve continued to be produced throughout Rodin’s career owing, perhaps, to his enduring interest in the nature of sin.
When shown alongside Adam, Eve is part of the first narrative. Shown alone, however, and she is transformed into the vessel for all humanity’s agony. Racked with remorse, her body contorts under the pain of her own repentance. ‘The truth of my figures,’ Rodin explained, ‘instead of being merely superficial, seems to blossom from within to the outside, like life itself’ (A. Rodin quoted in A. Rodin and P. Gsell, Rodin on Art and Artists: Conversations with Paul Gsell, New York, 1983, p. 22). Indeed, she is the physical embodiment of profound anguish, a sense which emanates from her serpentine body and beautiful, albeit despondent expression. Formally, Rodin’s Eve au rocher recalls Masaccio’s Eve in the Expulsion from Paradise as well as Michelangelo’s own depiction of the subject on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; since his first visit to Italy in 1876, Michelangelo had been a source of inspiration for the sculptor.
Although there are numerous historical antecedents for the sculpture, Rodin’s image of Eve suggests the wholly modern desire to represent truthfully the wonder and grief of the human experience. His abject representation echoes Picasso’s Blue Period beggars and Brancusi’s sculptures such as La prière, 1907. In these and other works, Rodin and his contemporaries strove to give image to the experiences and sentiments of the era in all their brutal beauty.
Rodin’s model for Eve was a young Italian woman, possibly Adéle Abruzzezzi, who he described as having ‘sunburned skin, warm, with the bronze reflections of the women of sunny lands’. ‘Her movements,’ Rodin told to the artist Henri-Charles-Etienne Dujardin-Beaumetz, ‘were quick and feline, with the lissomness and grace of a panther; all the strength and splendour of muscular beauty, and that perfect equilibrium, that simplicity of bearing which makes great gesture’ (A. Rodin quoted in A.E. Elsen, Rodin’s Art, Oxford, 2003, p. 190). In 1881 however, midway through the sculpting process, she became pregnant. As her bodily proportions began to change, Rodin found himself unable to continue with his sculpture and instead of finding a new model, abandoned the project altogether. He would later blame the statue’s incompletion on the woman's pregnancy, saying that ‘it is for this reason that my Eve is not finished’ (H. Dujardin-Beaumetz, Entretiens avec Rodin, 1913, p. 64).
Despite this outward show of resentment, Rodin nevertheless seems to have been sufficiently pleased with his progress up to that point as he went on to cast the life-sized work in bronze and to produce a series of smaller figures on the same theme. In reconceiving his initial Eve, Rodin placed a more youthful version atop a small outcropping, which led Georges Grappe to christen her Eve au rocher. The textured, weather-beaten stone offers a stark contrast to the figure’s smooth legs, fleshy stomach, and eloquent hands. Representations of Eve continued to be produced throughout Rodin’s career owing, perhaps, to his enduring interest in the nature of sin.