My Favorite Artworks in La maison de Balzac, Paris

Honoré de Balzac was the first French author I encountered via his immortal Le Père Goriot, when I was still in elementary school, therefore I had a great affection for this great novelist and societal historian.

In 2008, when I returned to Paris, I made my way to his former residence, La maison de Balzac, in the western edge of the city, near Musée Marmottan Monet and Jardins du Ranelag in its vicinity. Balzac rented the top floor of that rather modest house, from 1840-1847 under his housekeeper's name (Mr. de Breugnol), evading his creditors from the city.

I loved Balzac's keen and cutting observation of the colorful characters populated the brutal society in Paris and provinces, and was delighted to see a roomful print blocks of main characters from his enormous, though unfortunately unfinished, La Comédie humaine.  Amongst those characters, my favorite had always been Eugène de Rastignac, a charming and innocent lad from province to a roguish and cynic though not without redeeming qualities, featured in several of his novels in this series.


Print blocks of characters from La Comédie humaine by Honoré Balzac

In the block below, Rastignac, after having buried the self-sacrificing Père Goriot, swore to fight with the corrupted city and its high society, before he jumped into the battle headlong, by joining his mistress, the younger daughter of Père Goriot, Delphine, Baroness de Nucingen.  It was the moment of truth and resolution, a moment of leaping from innocence to corruption.  The image was an utterly bleak and most biting assessment of the glittering Paris and its dazzling society.


Eugène de Rastignac dans le cimetière du Père-Lachaise dans Le Père Goriot

My second favorite artwork there was a definitive study of a head sculpture of the novelist by Auguste Rodin, made around 1897 - Étude définitive pour la tête de Balzac.  Behind exuberant air of the novelist, Rodin captured his sharp gaze and presented him as simultaneously sagely and clownish, embodying the broad spectrum of his oeuvre and his epoch. 


Étude définitive pour la tête de Balzac, vers 1897, Auguste Rondin

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My Favorite Sculptures at Musée Rodin, Paris

Living in San Francisco Bay Area, one could easily see many sculptures by the great French artist Auguste Rodin.  But seeing his works in the place where he pursued his career as an artist had additional emotional punch.

Musée Rodin boasted not only many sculptures by Rodin, more readily celebrated or less so, but also his many drawings, sketches and works he collected during his lifetime.

My favorite there were more conventional this time; however, I don't believe that I need to apologize - convention often had reasons.

My first choice was Le penseur (The Thinker), 1903.  This sitting figure, with a height of 180 cm, was originally conceived in 1880, in smaller scale, as the crowning element of The Gates of Hell, and had the title of The Poet (Dante).

While remaining on top of the Gates of Hell, Le penseur was exhibited separately eight years later and became an independent work. It was enlarged in 1904 to current colossal scale and become an icon as easily recognized as that of Michelangelo's David.

This powerful man, sitting on top of a really tall pedestal, though pensive, was charged with tension.  His exposed muscles all tensed up, his head bent purposefully forward, and his hands, in unnaturally poses, were wonderfully evocative and full of readiness to spring into action.

Most wonderful thing about seeing it in situ was to see how it setting off the lush ground of the villa, in shifting angles.

Le penseur, 1903, H. 180cm.jpg

My second favorite was also situated in the trees on the villa ground - Monument à Balzac, 1898.  The sculpture itself, with the height of 270cm, was taller than the Le penseur; however, since it sat on the ground level, it was much more intimate and approachable, and precisely because of that, we had a glimpse of the humility of the great writer Rodin tried to emphasize.

This bronze Balzac, casually clothed in a shapeless robe with roughly suggested surface, stood solidly like an aged oak tree, full of ancient wisdom and understanding.  He had been reduced to the bare essence and only his facial features were modeled with recognizable details, and his hands were not visible.

It was said that after Rodin had completed his work, people marveled at and praised lavishly the hands he had given Balzac.  Feeling that the details had upstaged the work itself, Rodin decisively chopped off Balzac's hand(s).

Wonderful story.  True or false, it did reveal the innovative approach Rodin adopted towards this national figure and perhaps it partially explained why the commission was rejected and the sad fact that Rodin never saw his monument cast in bronze.

Today, one of the most satisfying memorial monuments ever created stood quietly in the tranquil woods, surveying La Comédie humaine.

Monument à Balzac, 1898, H. 270cm.jpg

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Rodin and Richard Serra in Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University

Two weeks ago, before I went to Palo Alto for the opening of "Scapes" juried exhibit at Pacific Art League, which included my painting "Lake", I stopped by the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University briefly.

I had visited the museum many times, including accompanying my visiting parents from China, and saw many wonderful permanent collections and special exhibit.  This time, since I had little time, I was really only skipping along the surface; even so, I still managed to record many amazing pieces.





The special exhibit was "Rodin and America: Influence and Adaptation" (through 1 Jan 2012), which juxtaposed many sculptures, sketches and works in other media by Auguste Rodin and other American artists under his influences.  The work I admire most was Lorado Taft's extremely dramatic "The Blind", which predated Jose Saramago's Blindness (The City of Blind):





After that, I did see some of its famous Rodin collections:



I was mostly enchanted by the "Spirit of Eternal Repose", a 1898 Plaster work:






Other sculptures stood out are:


Horse, bronze, Deborah Butterfield


Untitled, 1989, Welded and rusted steel and rubber, Mark Lere


Granite Circle, Richard Long (on the balcony)

I didn't have much time therefore only looked permanent painting collections very quickly and these are Admirable paintings inside the museums are:


Front: Pink Companion, 1991, Cedar and graphite, Ursula von Rydingsvard; Left: Angel, 1983, Oil on Canvas, Sean Scully; Right: Untitled #14, 1969, John McLaughlin


Rodin and the Dancing Body: Tracing a Lineage


Man with Hand to Face #2, 1960, Oil on canvas, Nathan Oliveira


Window, 1967, Oil on Canvas, Richard Diebenkorn

Then, there would always be the meditative "Stone River" by Andy Goldsworthy:





And the last, the new temporary addition to Cantor Art Center, the rusty steel sculpture "Sequence" by Richard Serra.  It was amazingly large, rustic yet sensual, almost echoed the Diebenkorn's "Window" (above):

linda cicero / stanford university news dept.

Richard Serra's 2006 "Sequence"
at Stanford University's Cantor Arts Center
will move to S.F.

Image source: SFGate.com

Then, yesterday, SFGate.com reported that Richard Serra's immense sculpture "Sequence", "the interlocking steel spirals - which are 13 feet tall and together weigh a whopping 235 tons - will reside come 2016 in the Howard Street gallery of SFMOMA's new wing [Fischer Collection]. And since the addition's ground floor will be clad in glass, the much-praised "Sequence" should be visible even when the museum is closed.

As for 'Sequence,' it's not far away if you want a peek before 2016: This summer it was installed outdoors at the Cantor Arts Center on the Stanford campus."

My time at Stanford this time was too short for me to enter into the swirls.  I definitely would get inside them before it moved to San Francisco.  It looked amazing on Stanford campus and it is intriguing to see how it looks in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).


Related article: Second Thoughts on the Sculpture "The Blind" by Lorado Taft

Auguste Rodin at Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University

The richness of Stanford University enables it to assemble a large collection of sculptures by Auguste Rodin, the generally recognized progenitor of modern sculpture.

In the sculpture garden, I saw a large collection of his works, including the Gate to Hell:





Inside the museum, I was able to study the small version of the three figures on top of the gate and realized for the first time that the figure on the left had no right hand, despite the fact that I'd visited Rodin Museum in Paris twice.



His initially controversial Age of Bronze has always commended viewer's attention. Even a smaller version did not fail to do so:







I really loved the way Rodin tried to portrait the great writer Balzec, from comic to austere:









His smaller studies for large works are wonderful masterpieces on their own rights:





After the museum, I went to the "temple" plaza and walked inside the group of the sad Burghers of Calais, as intended by the great artist: