Review of the Auguste Rodin and Hans Arp exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler: similarities and differences

Hans Arp and Auguste Rodin, two figures of 19th and 20th century sculpture, made artistic experimentation the essence of their creative journey. As the exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler ended yesterday, let’s take a look back at the special attention the two artists gave to common themes such as creation, growth, transformation and disintegration, expressed through human bodies, animals or plants, as well as literary influences such as Dante’s Divine Comedy. The two artists were interested in the notion of vitality as a philosophical theme, to which they gave a different expression in the subjects represented: on the one hand the strength of an imposing, massive, exasperated material, and on the other hand the sinuosity and the sensuality of volumes almost completely devoid of figuration. The exhibition welcomed the public with The Thinker by Rodin and Ptolemy of Arp. The two works, exhibited in the foyer, interacted with each other by illustrating the transition from figurative sculpture to abstract sculpture.

Two different sculptural practices

The very famous Thinker was designed as the crowning glory of the Gate of Hell and already appeared in the third architectural model that Rodin developed for the ensemble. In the sculptor’s original intentions, the statue was to represent Dante looking at Hell, but the idea was discarded and the sculpture took on a life and meaning of its own. The title lent itself well to the Romantic-Symbolist climate of the mid-19th century: Rodin could celebrate “thought” as a creative element of the work of art and as a specific activity of man. The Thinker meditates on the world as Dante meditates on damnation.

Among the themes most fascinating to Arp was that of opposites. In this particular sculpture, the contrast between the material and the void is highlighted by the elegant twisted shape which embraces two gaping voids. The work takes its name from the mathematician, astronomer and geographer Claudius Ptolemy (who was also interested in opposites), who designed the geocentric system. This work is about being and nothingness, and the complex relationship between nature and humanity, which were inseparable for Arp.

Paolo and Francesca

For Rodin, it is one of the many versions of the subject that the artist has executed since the Gate of Hell was commissioned. The two lovers are always represented entwined, in postures which accentuate the drama of the Dantesque event. Rodin surrenders to the sensuality of the episode, dwelling on the softness of the clouds, which greet the two lovers. The famous Kiss was also born as a group representing Paolo and Francesca for the Gate of Hell. The work had an extraordinary success, as evidenced by the very numerous replicas. The presence of clouds exalts Dante’s verse “to the wind be light“.

For Arp, we find the same couple of lovers. Unlike Rodin, Arp reinterprets the subject by reducing the figures to simple forms and thus concretizing the break with sculptural tradition.

The representation of the human and female body

The two artists are fascinated by the theme of the human body, its sensuality, its generous shapes. Arp’s sculptures represent this sensuality well: the silhouette reaffirms the feminine silhouette with its voluptuous shapes and flowing lines. The work is presented as a synthesis of the essential forms of the human body, the undulating lines alluding to a barely explained femininity. The subtle concavities of life oppose the sphericity in the upper and lower limbs, only evoked. In the simplicity of the synthesis, Arp brilliantly manages to evoke the alluring aesthetic of the female body, as he had already learned to achieve in drawing a few years before.

Rodin’s work, Crouching Woman, was also designed for the Gate of Hell, where it is recognizable to the left of the Thinker. Rodin uses Adèle Abruzzesi as a model. It is said that she crouched down on the ground with a movement that immediately struck Rodin, attentive to the poses that his models took spontaneously. In February 1896, the sculptor gave the Rath Museum in Geneva a copy of the work, but the director refused to exhibit it because it was considered indecent. The following year, Camille Claudel, Puvis de Chavannes, Hodler and other artists published a letter condemning this refusal.

The link between the two artists

The metamorphosis is the link between the work of Rodin and Arp: highlighted not only by the sculptures but also by the abundant graphic corpus, it concerns techniques, subjects, shapes, colors, as well as the exhibition itself.

Written by Antonella Zadotti
©Speed Arting. Reproduction forbidden.