Auguste Rodin

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About the Book This book examines the life and works of Auguste Rodin, a great French sculptor. Written by Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet who served for years as Rodin's secretary, it explains the often elusive connection between the creative forces that drive timeless literature and great art. It also discovers in Rodin a man who was utterly committed to the materiality of the artistic vocation, Rodin himself paid Rilke the ultimate tribute, declaring these meditations the supreme interpretation of his work.

About the Author René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke, better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist. Widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets, he is most known for his contributions to German literature. His writings include one novel, several collections of poetry, and several volumes of correspondence. His best-known works include the poetry collections Duino Elegies (Duineser Elegien) and to Orpheus (Die Sonette an Orpheus), the semi-autobiographical novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge), and a collection of ten letters that was published after his death under the title Letters to a Young Poet (Briefe an einen jungen Dichter).

Preface RODIN has pronounced Rilke's essay the supreme in- terpretation of his work. A few years ago the sculptor expressed to the translators the wish that some day the book might be placed before the English-speaking pub- lic. The appreciation was published originally as one of a series of Art Monographs under the editorship of the late Richard Muther.

To estimate and interpret the work of an artist is to be creatively just to him. For this reason there are fewer critics than there are artists, and criticism with but few exceptions is almost invariably negligible and futile.

The strongest and most procreant contact is that which takes place between two creative minds. This book of Rilke on Rodin is the fruit of such a contact. It ripened on the tree of a great friendship for the master. For a number of years Rilke lived close to Rodin at 77 rue de Varenne, in the old mansion sur- rounded by a beautiful park which was subsequently dedicated to France by the artist and is now the Musée de Rodin. Here the young poet shared the life of the aged sculptor and his most silent hours.

Rodin felt that Rilke approached his sculptures from the same imaginative sphere whence his own creative impulse sprang; he knew that in the pellucid and illuminating realm of the poetic his works found their spiritual home as their material manifestation partook of the atmosphere when placed under the open sky, given wholly to the sun and wind and rain.

**Contents and Sample Pages**