Born Nov. 12, 1840, in Paris; died Nov. 17, 1917, in Meudon, near Paris. French sculptor. Son of a minor official.

Rodin studied in Paris at the School of Drawing and Mathematics from 1854 to 1857 and at the Museum of Natural History with A. L. Barye in 1864. From 1864 to 1871 he worked in the studio of A. Carrier-Belleuse, with whom he designed maquettes for small decorative sculptures, including some for the National Sèvres Works. Between 1871 and 1877 he worked on decorative sculpture for a number of buildings in Brussels. In 1875, Rodin visited Italy, where he was captivated by the art of Michelangelo, Donatello, and Ghiberti. In 1877 he began his study of French Gothic monuments.

Rodin’s earliest works, including the bust Man With a Broken Nose (1864), are distinguished by great craftsmanship. The statues The Age of Bronze (1877) and John the Baptist (1879) fully demonstrate the graphic and expressive boldness, the philosophical depth of conception, the dynamic rendering of complex movement, and the energetic modeling of form characteristic of all Rodin’s works. The Age of Bronze embodies mankind’s awakening and apprehensions of the future, and John the Baptist is imbued with the enthusiasm of prophecy.

In 1884, Rodin began his bronze Burghers of Calais (completed 1888, installed 1895) for the city of Calais. The sculpture depicts burghers of Calais offering their lives for the sake of their native city during a siege by the English king in the mid-14th century. The drama of the scene, the atmosphere of emotional conflict, and the heroes’ spiritual agony are expressed by the agitated, staccato rhythm of the sculpture’s composition, by the sharp contrasts between static and highly dynamic figures, and by the contrast between the overall massiveness of the sculpture and the expressiveness of pose and gesture. Rodin’s characterization of each burgher is simple yet profound.

From 1880 to the end of his life, Rodin worked on the huge high-relief composition The Gates of Hell, which symbolically represented the range of human passions. The Gates was inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, motifs from ancient Greek and Roman mythology, biblical stories, and the poetry of F. Villon and of poets of Rodin’s lifetime. The individual themes of this composition were developed in independent pieces, such as La Belle Heaulmière (1885), The Kiss (1886), and The Thinker (1888). La Belle Heaulmière is noted for its gro-tesqueness, whereas the sculptural group The Kiss is imbued with subtle poetry. The Thinker exudes inner strength and spiritual greatness.

Rodin’s work of the mid-1880’s reflected with growing intensity an attraction to complicated symbolic images and to the revelation of diametrically opposed human emotions—from serene harmony and tender lyricism to total despair and a somber intensity of concentration. The artist’s technique also changed. His works acquired a deliberately sketchlike, unfinished quality. The play of light and shadow incorporated much more contrast, and the modeling of forms, sometimes fluid, became emphatically painterly. This technique allowed Rodin, one of the founders of impressionism in sculpture, to convey by means of a “spiritual outburst” the slow, at times tortuous, birth of form from elemental, amorphous matter.

Unlike the impressionist painters, Rodin always tended toward a metaphysical understanding of artistic creation and toward the portrayal of timeless, general human subjects. However, he always preserved a certain definition of form and gave special significance to texture as a means of sharpening his image. Nevertheless, a loss of power and massiveness is reflected in such works as the monuments to Hugo (marble, 1886–1900) and Balzac (bronze, 1893–97; installed 1939) in Paris and his model for The Tower of Labor (plaster-of-paris maquette).

In the 1880’s and 1890’s, Rodin sculptured a number of busts, such as those of A.-J. Dalou (1883) and H. Rochefort (1897), which are noted for an accurate revelation of the character and inner world of the subject. Also of particular artistic merit are Rodin’s sketches and etchings, which are dynamic and deliberate in execution.

Rodin’s art marks an epoch in the history of sculpture. Although it remained true to the traditions of romanticism, it unquestionably belonged to the realm of realism (particularly the psychologically profound portraits). Like impressionism and symbolism, Rodin’s work stimulated the creative seekings of such varied 20th-century sculptors as E. A. Bourdelle, A. Mayel, C. Despiau, and A. S. Golubkina—all of whom were pupils of Rodin.

Versions of all the sculptures mentioned in this article, executed in plaster of paris, bronze, and marble, are in the Rodin Museum in Paris and in many other museums throughout the world.