Suggestions evoked by the statues on display in the elegant rooms of the Rodin Museum in Paris slowly dissolve as you walk in the garden that surrounds it. Trees and flowers delay the impact with the frantic city, giving you time to linger on the life and work of Auguste Rodin a little longer.
In October 1908, the French sculptor rented two rooms at the first floor of this mansion and four rooms at the ground floor to be used as studio. In his last years, he used to leave Paris in the evening reaching by train the nearby village of Meudon, in the peaceful Seine valley. Here, he lived with Rose Beuret, his partner, and several animals, at Villa des Brillants, a redbrick and stone building in Louis XIII style. He was nearly seventy years old, with a long white beard and increasing health problems, a controversial artist of international fame and an avid collector of ancient sculptures and paintings.
He loved old houses, and the lyric description of this Parisian building made by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, his friend and secretary for a short period, prompted a first visit in September. Rodin was fascinated by the garden. After years of neglect, its original shape was lost under a thick carpet of ivy, brambles climbed the fruit trees, moss invaded uncertain paths where rabbits stopped for a while, and hidden birds filled the air with their songs. He put simple furniture and some of his own sculptures and drawings in the rooms, and scattered antique statues in the garden.
"Does it not seem to you," Rodin asked, "that verdure is the most appropriate setting for antique sculpture?’ This little drowsy Eros — would you not say that he is the god of the garden? His dimpled flesh is brother to this transparent and luxuriant foliage..."(1)
Nature framed sculptures in its ever changing light giving them life. Nature was his inspiration and master, especially in this overgrown and quiet garden, whose wild charm and melancholic atmosphere made it easier to indulge in dreams and meditation.
"Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit by which Nature herself is animated. … Art is the most sublime mission of man, since it is the expression of thought seeking to understand the world and to make it understood." (1)
In 1911, when the State purchased the property, Rodin took the first steps to donate his works and collections to the nation and transform the building into a museum. This opened in 1919, two years after Rodin’s death, while a new garden was inaugurated in 1927.
(1) from Art by Auguste Rodin, Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1912
"Does it not seem to you," Rodin asked, "that verdure is the most appropriate setting for antique sculpture?’ This little drowsy Eros — would you not say that he is the god of the garden? His dimpled flesh is brother to this transparent and luxuriant foliage..."(1)
Nature framed sculptures in its ever changing light giving them life. Nature was his inspiration and master, especially in this overgrown and quiet garden, whose wild charm and melancholic atmosphere made it easier to indulge in dreams and meditation. "Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit by which Nature herself is animated. … Art is the most sublime mission of man, since it is the expression of thought seeking to understand the world and to make it understood." (1)
In 1911, when the State purchased the property, Rodin took the first steps to donate his works and collections to the nation and transform the building into a museum. This opened in 1919, two years after Rodin’s death, while a new garden was inaugurated in 1927.
The garden that Rodin knew no longer exists. Today, it is a well defined space designed by conical shaped yews and trimmed linden trees, divided into long rectangular lawns, crossed by white gravelled paths and filled with trees, roses, many roses, and generous groups of shrubs and clumps of grasses. Water and rocks create secret thematic circuits and an elegant hornbeam amphitheatre, embracing a large pool, closes the view at the end of the lawn.
Today, the garden is the smell of roses, the foamy flowers of hydrangeas, the sound of water and Rodin's imposing and vibrant bronze sculptures, telling never ending stories of sorrow, love and courage in the shade of the golden dome of Les Invalides.
Photos:
TravelinaGarden, Paris, September 2016
Further reading:
Vincent Brocvielle, Rodin Museum Guide to the Garden, Editions du Musée Rodin, Paris, 2006.
Link:
Musée Rodin, 79 Rue de Varenne, Paris
http://www.musee-rodin.fr/e
