GENERAL DESCRIPTION
In I Am Beautiful, Auguste Rodin reused and reconfigured pieces from his previous sculptures to create new works. Derived from The Crouching Woman, the female figure, in a crouching, almost fetal, position is now embraced by a standing man who seemingly reaches to the heavens to rescue her. She appears again in The Gates of Hell (final assembly 1917, Musée Rodin, Paris), where she appears on the tympanum to the left of The Thinker. The male figure, who appears to rise from the bronze base in I Am Beautiful, is The Falling Man in The Gates of Hell; there he plunges into hell from underneath the lintel at the top left of the great bronze doors. By uniting these figures in I Am Beautiful, Rodin created a juxtaposition of opposites—female and male, closed and open, falling and rising, fetal and erect.
Rodin cast this work with a lengthy inscription from Baudelaire's poem "La Beauté" ("Beauty," in "Les Fleurs du mal"):
"Je suis belle, ô mortels! Comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où Chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poëte un amour
Eternal et muet ainsi que la matière."
(Baudelaire 1961, 20)
"I am beautiful, oh mortals, like a marble dream,
And my breast on which each sacrifices himself in turn,
Was made to inspire poets with a love
As eternal and silent as matter."
(Trans. Julie Lawrence Cochran)
For unknown reasons, Rodin changed the last line of Baudelaire's masterpiece to "Etant alors muet ainsi que la matière" (So being mute as matter), making the quatrain unclear. As is often the case, Rodin chose a literary analogue that is as ambiguous as his forms. In its commingling of violence and empathy, restless movement, and evocation of a famous poet, whose early death from syphilis in 1867 came as a shock to vanguard artists, I Am Beautiful embodies a difficult notion of beauty.
Adapted from
Richard Brettell, Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 82-83.
NOTES
Created in 1882
Richard Brettell, Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 82-83.
Just as Edgar Degas created human figures in wax, used them as models for drawings, traced the drawings to reverse them, and combined the figures with others to create groupings, so did Auguste Rodin create, reuse, and recombine figures to form new works of art through varied juxtapositions. "I Am Beautiful" is among the more brilliant of the works that result largely from internal borrowing. Each of the two figures that twist in Rodin's fictive world derives from a separate source, and each was used in various ways in other works. The female figure, in a crouching, almost fetal, position is embraced by a standing man who seemingly reaches to the heavens to rescue her. Derived from The Crouching Woman, the female figure was studied separately by Rodin and included in his most orgiastic work, The Gates of Hell (final assembly 1917, Musée Rodin, Paris), where she appears on the tympanum to the left of The Thinker. The male figure, who appears to rise from the bronze base in I Am Beautiful, is The Falling Man in The Gates of Hell; there he plunges into hell from underneath the lintel at the top left of the great bronze doors. In uniting these figures, Rodin created a juxtaposition of opposites - female and male, closed and open, falling and rising, fetal and erect. This ritual conjoining occurred in a plaster dated 1882, used in turn as the basis for the Reves bronze, which was cast in a small edition. Other examples of the bronze can be found in the Rodin Museum of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Kunstmuseum in Helsinki, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, and the Musée Rodin in Paris.
Even during Rodin's lifetime, the work has been known by several titles, the variety of which indicates that the sculpture's meanings are unclear. It seems that the work was first exhibited as "The Rape" when it was shown in 1899 and 1900 in exhibitions conceived under Rodin's direction. It was also shown as "The Cat" and "Carnal Love." The bronze version, however, was later cast with a lengthy inscription from Baudelaire's poem "La Beauté" ("Beauty," in "Les Fleurs du mal"):
"Je suis belle, ô mortels! Comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où Chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poëte un amour
Eternal et muet ainsi que la matière."
(Baudelaire 1961, 20)
"I am beautiful, oh mortals, like a marble dream,
And my breast on which each sacrifices himself in turn,
Was made to inspire poets with a love
As eternal and silent as matter."
(Trans. Julie Lawrence Cochran)
For unknown reasons, Rodin changed the last line of Baudelaire's masterpiece to "Etant alors muet ainsi que la matière" (So being mute as matter), making the quatrain unclear.
What did Rodin mean in presenting us with this powerful image? The great Rodin scholar Albert Elsen felt it was the chance coupling of figures in the artist's studio that created "this striking union," one that Rodin himself only slowly came to understand verbally (Elsen 1985, 83). As is often the case, he chose a literary analogue that is as ambiguous as his forms. The verse acts as a cipher for the mystery at the core of the sculptural enterprise as practiced by its greatest 19th-century exponent. In its commingling of violence and empathy, restless movement, and evocation of a famous poet, whose early death from syphilis in 1867 came as a shock to vanguard artists, I Am Beautiful embodies a difficult notion of beauty.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
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Place of origin: Paris (France): TGN: 7008038
Process/materials
Bronze
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RELATED OBJECTS
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WEB RESOURCES
- The Rodin Museum, Philadelphia~Learn more about the life and work of Auguste Rodin from the American Rodin Museum.
- Musée Rodin, Paris~Learn more about the life and work of Auguste Rodin from the French Musée Rodin.
- Fleursdumal.org~Read the 1857 edition of Charles Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) including the poem "La Beauté" ("Beauty").
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- During Rodin's lifetime, the work was known by several different titles, the variety of which indicates that the sculpture's meanings are unclear. It seems that the work was first exhibited as The Rape when it was shown in 1899 and 1900 in exhibitions conceived under Rodin's direction. It was also shown as The Cat and Carnal Love. The bronze version, however, was later cast with a lengthy inscription from Baudelaire's poem "La Beauté" ("Beauty," in "Les Fleurs du mal") and titled I Am Beautiful (Je suis belle).
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General Description
In I Am Beautiful, Auguste Rodin reused and reconfigured pieces from his previous sculptures to create new works. Derived from The Crouching Woman, the female figure, in a crouching, almost fetal, position is now embraced by a standing man who seemingly reaches to the heavens to rescue her. She appears again in The Gates of Hell (final assembly 1917, Musée Rodin, Paris), where she appears on the tympanum to the left of The Thinker. The male figure, who appears to rise from the bronze base in I Am Beautiful, is The Falling Man in The Gates of Hell; there he plunges into hell from underneath the lintel at the top left of the great bronze doors. By uniting these figures in I Am Beautiful, Rodin created a juxtaposition of opposites—female and male, closed and open, falling and rising, fetal and erect.
Rodin cast this work with a lengthy inscription from Baudelaire's poem "La Beauté" ("Beauty," in "Les Fleurs du mal"):
"Je suis belle, ô mortels! Comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où Chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poëte un amour
Eternal et muet ainsi que la matière."
(Baudelaire 1961, 20)
"I am beautiful, oh mortals, like a marble dream,
And my breast on which each sacrifices himself in turn,
Was made to inspire poets with a love
As eternal and silent as matter."
(Trans. Julie Lawrence Cochran)
For unknown reasons, Rodin changed the last line of Baudelaire's masterpiece to "Etant alors muet ainsi que la matière" (So being mute as matter), making the quatrain unclear. As is often the case, Rodin chose a literary analogue that is as ambiguous as his forms. In its commingling of violence and empathy, restless movement, and evocation of a famous poet, whose early death from syphilis in 1867 came as a shock to vanguard artists, I Am Beautiful embodies a difficult notion of beauty.
Adapted from
Richard Brettell, Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 82-83.
Fun Facts
- During Rodin's lifetime, the work was known by several different titles, the variety of which indicates that the sculpture's meanings are unclear. It seems that the work was first exhibited as The Rape when it was shown in 1899 and 1900 in exhibitions conceived under Rodin's direction. It was also shown as The Cat and Carnal Love. The bronze version, however, was later cast with a lengthy inscription from Baudelaire's poem "La Beauté" ("Beauty," in "Les Fleurs du mal") and titled I Am Beautiful (Je suis belle).
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- The Rodin Museum, Philadelphia~Learn more about the life and work of Auguste Rodin from the American Rodin Museum.
- Musée Rodin, Paris~Learn more about the life and work of Auguste Rodin from the French Musée Rodin.
- Fleursdumal.org~Read the 1857 edition of Charles Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) including the poem "La Beauté" ("Beauty").
Notes
Created in 1882
Richard Brettell, Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 82-83.
Just as Edgar Degas created human figures in wax, used them as models for drawings, traced the drawings to reverse them, and combined the figures with others to create groupings, so did Auguste Rodin create, reuse, and recombine figures to form new works of art through varied juxtapositions. "I Am Beautiful" is among the more brilliant of the works that result largely from internal borrowing. Each of the two figures that twist in Rodin's fictive world derives from a separate source, and each was used in various ways in other works. The female figure, in a crouching, almost fetal, position is embraced by a standing man who seemingly reaches to the heavens to rescue her. Derived from The Crouching Woman, the female figure was studied separately by Rodin and included in his most orgiastic work, The Gates of Hell (final assembly 1917, Musée Rodin, Paris), where she appears on the tympanum to the left of The Thinker. The male figure, who appears to rise from the bronze base in I Am Beautiful, is The Falling Man in The Gates of Hell; there he plunges into hell from underneath the lintel at the top left of the great bronze doors. In uniting these figures, Rodin created a juxtaposition of opposites - female and male, closed and open, falling and rising, fetal and erect. This ritual conjoining occurred in a plaster dated 1882, used in turn as the basis for the Reves bronze, which was cast in a small edition. Other examples of the bronze can be found in the Rodin Museum of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Kunstmuseum in Helsinki, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, and the Musée Rodin in Paris.
Even during Rodin's lifetime, the work has been known by several titles, the variety of which indicates that the sculpture's meanings are unclear. It seems that the work was first exhibited as "The Rape" when it was shown in 1899 and 1900 in exhibitions conceived under Rodin's direction. It was also shown as "The Cat" and "Carnal Love." The bronze version, however, was later cast with a lengthy inscription from Baudelaire's poem "La Beauté" ("Beauty," in "Les Fleurs du mal"):
"Je suis belle, ô mortels! Comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où Chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poëte un amour
Eternal et muet ainsi que la matière."
(Baudelaire 1961, 20)
"I am beautiful, oh mortals, like a marble dream,
And my breast on which each sacrifices himself in turn,
Was made to inspire poets with a love
As eternal and silent as matter."
(Trans. Julie Lawrence Cochran)
For unknown reasons, Rodin changed the last line of Baudelaire's masterpiece to "Etant alors muet ainsi que la matière" (So being mute as matter), making the quatrain unclear.
What did Rodin mean in presenting us with this powerful image? The great Rodin scholar Albert Elsen felt it was the chance coupling of figures in the artist's studio that created "this striking union," one that Rodin himself only slowly came to understand verbally (Elsen 1985, 83). As is often the case, he chose a literary analogue that is as ambiguous as his forms. The verse acts as a cipher for the mystery at the core of the sculptural enterprise as practiced by its greatest 19th-century exponent. In its commingling of violence and empathy, restless movement, and evocation of a famous poet, whose early death from syphilis in 1867 came as a shock to vanguard artists, I Am Beautiful embodies a difficult notion of beauty.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin: Paris (France): TGN: 7008038
Process/materials
Bronze
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
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