Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Copyright, 1912 by Small, Maynard and Company, Inc.
ART
Auguste Rodin
From a photograph by Edouard J. Steichen, 1907
PREFACE
Not far from Paris, on the Seine, near Meudon,is a hamlet bearing the delightful nameof Val-Fleury. Crowning the little hill above thisvillage rises a group of buildings which in theircharm and originality at once attract interest. Youmight almost guess that they belonged to an artist,and it is there, in fact, that Auguste Rodin hasmade his home.
Approaching, you find that the main buildingsare three. The first, a Louis XIII. pavilion of redbrick and freestone with a high-gabled roof, servesas his dwelling. Close by stands a great rotunda,entered through a columned portico, which isthe one that in 1900 sheltered the special exhibitionof Rodin’s work at the angle of the Pont del’Alma in Paris; as it pleased him, he had it reerected6upon this new site and uses it as his atelier.A little further on at the edge of the hill, whichhere falls steeply away, you see an eighteenth-centurychâteau—or rather only a façade—whosefine portal, under a triangular pediment, frames awrought-iron gate; of this, more later.
This group, so diverse in character, is set in themidst of an idyllic orchard. The spot is certainlyone of the most enchanting in the environs ofParis. Nature has done much for it, and the sculptorwho settled here has beautified it with all theembellishments that his taste could suggest.
Last year, at the close of a beautiful day inMay, as I walked with Auguste Rodin beneath thetrees that shade his charming hill, I confided tohim my wish to write, from his dictation, his ideasupon Art.
“You are an odd fellow,” he said. “So youare still interes