Musée Rodin: Looking Beyond The Thinker

The Hôtel Biron

The Hôtel Biron is impressive. The building itself is gorgeous, and the gardens are spacious enough that the sculptures have room around them. I think that is an important part of visiting the Musée Rodin. The works are not simply placed in a series of rooms where you move from one sculpture to the next.

The gardens are beautifully kept, and the sculptures sit within them naturally. It gives the whole place a very different feeling from a conventional museum.

Rodin is also an artist most people know through a couple of famous works. The Thinker and The Kiss are so well known that it is easy to forget how much else he made. The Hôtel Biron makes that very clear.

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Hôtel Biron, where Musee Rodin is based and which was his studio

Seeing the Sculpture Up Close

What struck me most were the portraits of the women and girls. There was something very pure about them.

I also love the sculptures where it seems as though the figure is already inside the rock or marble and Rodin simply had to bring it out. There is something very Michelangelo about that way of thinking.

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‘I saw the angel in the marble, and carved until I set him free’.

Michelangelo

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You can see this particularly well in the unfinished works. Rodin leaves a large area of clear rock or marble and the sculpture appears from within it. Seeing several stages, fragments and studies makes the process important. You start to see how he imagined a work before it became the finished sculpture.

His antiquities collection adds another part to this. You can see that he studied ancient works and had a great respect for proportion. That connection is interesting because you are not only looking at what Rodin created, but also at some of what he looked at himself.

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one of the sculptings that comes out of the rock

Camille Claudel

Then there is Camille Claudel. I was so happy to introduce Claudel to Marisa who didn't know about the lover and the terrible faith of her. Touched by genius, she sculpted the most incredible works alongside Rodin. Seeing her work alongside Rodin's gave me even more respect for her. I have to be honest: Marisa and I were particularly captivated by her sculptures upstairs. Her proportions and expressions are just extraordinary. The way she creates real bodies and expressions through the material is something else. After looking at her work, I found myself comparing it with Rodin's differently than I had before.

Some of Rodin's smaller works that I already knew also looked different in person. I remembered some of my favourites from a week I spent studying art with my mentor, but this time, visiting the museum twelve years later, they did not make quite the same impression. Other sculptures did.

That is one of the strange things about seeing sculpture again. You remember an image, but the actual object can be quite different.

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Marisa's first encounter with Camille Claudel

Don't Miss Upstairs

If you only have ninety minutes, skip the garden but do not miss upstairs. I would also spend time in the first rooms downstairs. There you see Rodin's work alongside his antiquity study objects and the works of Claudel. There are also connections to artists such as Balzac, Van Gogh and Monet.

I do wish the museum gave more information about Rodin himself and his relationships with other artists. There are a huge number of sculptures, but sometimes it felt like we were simply walking from one to another without enough information about what we were seeing. For me, knowing the story and knowing the facts makes looking at art much more interesting. I would have liked more of that here.

Still, the museum is not only for people who already love sculpture. It is a good place for a general visitor because you can see how a sculptor developed his ideas and worked through the material. And if you arrive knowing only The Thinker and The Kiss, you will leave knowing that Rodin made much, much more. The Hôtel Biron alone is worth seeing.

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Phenomenal sculptures and magical light in Musee Rodin

Musee Rodin and many other magical museums in Paris

If you are interested in Rodin, Camille Claudel, sculpture or the artistic world of Paris, the Musée Rodin is one of those places we would happily include in a Paris itinerary. It is also a museum where having some context can make the visit much more rewarding. We can help you discover Paris through the artists, museums and collections that fit your interests.

Book your call here.

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