 For the course I have chosen a very particular group in Marble that has been acquired by the museum very recently. A block of marble that has been carved by one of the most important sculptors of any time, I would say, Auguste Rodin. As we say in French, I think with the American accent it will be Auguste Rodin. This piece was created in 1908 for a very important collector, a very rich industrialist called Karl Wittgenstein. He came from Vienna. But let me give you a little bit of context to this artwork that you can see here. So Auguste Rodin, as you know, was a very important sculptor active in Paris, a French artist. Let's say that when he organized a very important one-man show in 1900, in parallel to the international exhibition organized in Paris, it's how he became even more famous than before. Beforehand he had already important commissions by the French state. But you have to imagine that in 1900, thanks to the international exhibition that would bring to Paris many, many tourists, many art lovers, many strangers, foreigners and so on, his one-man show was visited by many, many people. So it's more or less from 1900 that Rodin would start to be getting many, many commissions by people from all over the world, from American art lovers, but also from different countries in Europe. And of course with all these commissions, Rodin had even a bigger atelier that he needed to have to be able to accommodate all these commissions because you know it's not only one person that would be able to craft so many marbles at once. So through this marble piece, actually it was commissioned by Karl Wittgenstein, these Viennese industrialists who visited Paris and as many he would include in his visits in Paris a visit to the atelier of the sculptor. And when he visited this atelier, he saw a marble piece that was being carved by a practitioner, a practitioner being someone who would help the master to carve the piece. And he fell in love with that commission, and he fell in love with that composition. So he asked Rodin to have exactly this marble. So let me step back a little bit. Sure. The piece that Wittgenstein, so in the process of being carved in the atelier, was a marble piece that had been commissioned to Rodin from another very rich art lover called Baron Tissen who commissioned actually five marble groups. So this is the Tissen-Bordemise collection. Exactly. So the Tissen version of this composition is right now in Madrid in the Tissen-Bordemise museum. But Tissen was very smart. He knew already that Rodin was carving many, many different versions of one same composition because of the demand of a very important clientele he earned all over the world. So Tissen, for the group of Christ and Marie Magdalene, one of the titles of this art piece, he had asked Rodin to promise that he would carve no more than two versions of this marble. So one for him, for Tissen, and possibly another one. So when Rodin accepted to carve a second one for Carl Wittgenstein, the Viennese person, he knew that would be the second and the last one. So that makes this group at the Getty even more particular because it's a very important and very particular composition. And on top of that, it does exist only in two versions, one in Madrid coming from the Tissen collection and another one here at the Getty Museum coming from the Wittgenstein commission. So this group represents, as you can see, Marie Magdalene and the Christ. He looks like he's made to a rock which shape looks like a cross. That's one of the titles. Rodin would create these compositions very quickly without thinking of a title beforehand and then the titles would come up. So sure, Christ and Marie Magdalene is usually the title we use for this composition because the secretary of Rodin, he was a poet, Reina Maria Rilke, a German poet, uses Christ and Marie Magdalene in his letters to the first patron of his group, Tissen. But Rodin, when he was interviewed by journalists later on, said that of his group, he could also use other titles like Prometheus and Anasenit or the poet or the thinker being consoled by the Petit, Genius and Petit and so on. So there's not a fixed title, there's never a fixed title for the artworks of Rodin. So how this composition was created? Well, it's always very hard for us art historians to understand the creative process of the artists because most part of that happens actually in their head. But we have at the Rodin Museum in Paris a model smaller in three different materials, plaster, fabric and cross, wooden for the cross. Right. And Rodin Museum has just reopened with a new installation of their artworks and it's now on display and it's really a fantastic artwork. So you have to imagine for that plaster model, that would be also half of the height of this group. You have to imagine that for the drapery that you see here on the legs of Marie Magdalene, this drapery was dumped in wet plaster and put on the legs of that Marie Magdalene, which is in plaster. So to create the cross behind the group, Rodin had actually used initially for the structure of his composition real wood on top of which he would have put plaster. And so that's why it's described more as a crucifixion group. Yeah, exactly. So it's so true that when you see a man named to cross, we think at least traditions, we think at Christ of Marie Magdalene. But in antiquity with mythology, you have also Prometheus being named to rock and then being rescued. So there are many, many different interpretations. So Rodin created first this plaster model and we think that actually the plaster model dates from as early as the 1880s. So a lot of time before he started to carve the marbles. Then another thing which is very interesting for the creative process of Rodin. From the 1890s, Rodin created compositions using figures that he had already used for other artworks. So this female figure, if you look closely at the upper part of the gate of hell, you will find this figure in the middle of all the souls. Then he really loved that figure that he put. It's quite small actually in the gate of hell. It's in the upper compartment. Then he reused it big scale as a figure called meditation. Then when he created the very important monuments to the French poet Victor Hugo, he put that figure behind the poet and that figure was called the inner voice. As if she was the one whispering in the ears of the poet all his writings. And then eventually we see her here as the embodiment of Marie Magdalena. So you have really to take into consideration that the art of Rodin is constantly in evolution, but also using things that he had created prior to a new composition. That's really fantastic the way in which you would completely change the use of a figure that already existed in previous works. As I said, Rodin from 1900 got many, many commissions. Of course, he wouldn't have been able to carve himself all the marbles. And he started to have a very productive atelier workshop in which he would entrust the carving of his compositions in marble to practitioners. We say in French, I'm assuming practitioners. It's hard to translate. Sort of like a journeyman in the guild system or a high level assistant. Students, pupils wanted also to get a better training to understand the working process. But it's higher than apprentice level I'm assuming. And so actually one of the people that Rodin truly loved and appreciated for his skills was an artist called Victor Péter. He had his own career as an artist. He had earned medals at the Exposition Universal, the International Exhibition in 1900. And he was a teacher of art at the École des Beaux-Arts. So a very important artist by himself. But in parallel, he loved anyway to carve in marble for Rodin. And he would always follow the instructions of the master without interpreting differently what the master wanted. Because Rodin, although at one point he didn't put much of his energy on actually touching the marbles, would always follow step by step the work of the people he would hire to work on his marbles. So he had always control on his compositions all the time. In different ways, of course, he would be sometimes with them in the atelier when he wasn't busy welcoming new clients or being also organizing exhibitions of his artworks with other artists. So he would follow, of course, the work of these people in his atelier. He would also, and we have that in certain archives, he would also correct or give indications actually marking some photographs. So he would have photographs taken of his artworks in the... and then he would correct and say, no, I want actually the directory to be more deep here. You should insist on this diagonal. We have that really with a pen and you would really correct as the kind of sketchy lines on the photograph. That's fantastic. And we have photographs in the archives of the Musée Rodin precisely for this group. Well, I think it is for the marble carved by Tissen. And what I think is truly fantastic is that Victor Petter, as an artist, would do compositions that big for medals. He was fantastic to carve, let's say, a group of five dogs for a medal that big. While in parallel, he would carve these big blocks of marble for Rodin. This must have been very freeing for a kid right away. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, possibly. And his work was even more important than just carving following the instructions of the master. He would also sometimes prompt the master to carve in marble some compositions that the master had never thought to create in marble and would have left in plaster. So perhaps you're familiar with an artwork called Foote. It's a portrait of Camille Claudel, a lover of Rodin. You know, it's this head emerging out of a squared block of marble. Isn't that in Philly, isn't it? Well, I think more than one version. I have a version in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. But you know, you have this head emerging out of a block of marble with portraits, a lovely portrait of this, a female head. Yeah, very lovely. Well, it's thanks to Victor Petter that this composition was carved in marble. He also prompted Rodin to carve in marble a very complex composition in terms of carving the stone, which is a group, a figure actually with many long hair and a very aging body. It was called, in French, the Belle-Holmière and turned into a figure of winter. But so Victor Petter had a very critical role. So sure, it's still, you know, the master Rodin decides on compositions and on how the block should be carved at every step. But he really, let's say, respected and trusted many of his practitioners and Victor Petter is a very good example. There is a nice collaboration between the two and a nice, let's say exchange of skills and thoughts around the compositions. So for this piece, as you can see right away, there is a lot of contrast between several areas of the artwork because you can see that most part of the stone all around has been kept rough. While you have the bodies and in particular the female body highly polished. So of course, Rodin was someone who truly appreciated all the possibilities that the material stone and in particular marble would give him to enhance the more of his compositions. But there's also something very important to take into consideration. In the 1870s, Rodin traveled to Italy. And we know thanks to the letters he sent to his wife that he is truly completely amazed by the art of Michelangelo. And the art of Michelangelo truly had an important impact on Rodin from that period on. And there is one thing among others that really got the attention of Rodin. It's what we call in Italian, the non finito. In Italian it means in English, the unfinished. You all have in mind the slaves by Michelangelo and you see how they emerge out of the blocks of marble that are still not finished and roughly carved out. Some of the Pieta... Some of the Pieta, you can see some unfinished parts and that is called non finito in Italian. But most of these artworks in the case of Michelangelo they were truly unfinished for different issues during the history of the commission for a problem of a little defection in the stone. Michelangelo didn't do that on purpose. Although you may have seen that it created a nice effect. Rodin will take that and use it as something he will do on purpose. So it becomes part of his overall aesthetic. Exactly. So when you see parts here that I would call non finito it's not that it's a non-finished artwork. It's Rodin truly thinking through his composition and trying to understand how to use these unfinished aspects to enhance some other parts of his compositions because of course if you leave some of the areas unfinished you can enhance even more all the parts that are highly polished. Well and it seems also to sort of go hand in hand with the aesthetic of some of his bronzes because something about the additive nature of them and that rough surface texture that seems to sort of glory in some of his work. Exactly. But then what you need to also take into account is that this kind of unfinished texture was actually highly cleared about like meaning it's not unfinished by chance. So if you see these little holes here they are the marks of a very important and strong... How do you say? Like a hammer with a... Yeah, like a hammer. It's a very strong kick that you would do in your tool to do that. It's not that it's unfinished. So this area, although we would call it non finito has been actually worked through to create this kind of... So the roughness is enhanced. Exactly. The roughness is differs from an area to another. You can see here it's mostly holes like that. Well here it's more kind of different waves I would say. Here you can see that instead it's different stripes like that. So all the unfinished parts or how we would call them they have been actually worked through in a very cautious way to create different patterns and why. Because depending on how you create these surfaces the light is caught differently on the surface, on the marble and so it's how it really animates your composition. And even in areas that are highly polished what I love is that you can also at one point discover little details that are really... So look at that how you have these kind of waves of all the folds of the drapery and look at this little... That's just the extremity with this fantastic little comma. I don't know how to define that. It almost looks like something you would see on the veil of a Madonna. Exactly. From far away you think that this drapery is quite thick and then you discover a detail that shows you actually how light this fabric may have been on the legs of a Magdalene. And of course what is also astonishing is the way in which you would carve the hair, the very long hair of Marie Magdalene that she uses to cover the body of the Christ in pain and you can see that they are also mixed with her hands here. Well and that recalls the washing of his feet. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So it really becomes her chief attribute here. Yes indeed. While instead there are some other parts that are quite I would say schematic and it's not negative when I say that. If you look at the head of Christ, it's also because Rodin was very much influenced by medieval Corpus Christi and he had some in his collection. There was even one coming from Burgos, so Spanish crucifix in his bedroom and we know we truly love medieval art. So you know this kind of very geometrical face a little bit recalls this medieval art. Well by the time the students see this they will have seen some of the English alabasters with the very stylized Christ. So you have all these unfinished aspects all over the group also on the sides and on the back and then you can also catch on the top. That's very interesting because actually you can see an area that's most likely was actually the edge of the block of Marble like it's the trace of a saw. So that's why it's highly polished and then it may have been decided not to carry on this kind of pointing marks effect on this part. But it's truly interesting to see all the different transitions between the textures and you can get that very well for instance here between these kind of unfinished texture than these other tool marks here and then here you arrive at highly polished areas. I also noticed on the other side the interplay of the two bodies and the space between them is so beautiful. It's really and that's quite typical of Rodin he would always conceive his compositions to be viewed from many angle points. So yeah it's truly fantastic the way in which at one point you discover that the two bodies are not touching but there is this gap between them. That almost makes it more sensual in a way. Of course. Yeah exactly. And Rodin is truly interested into the effect of his composition because as you can see of course you know this body for real wouldn't work it's so elongating, so curved but actually because Rodin was very much influenced by the artist's art and this figure was already curved a lot in the Gate of Hell as I said and same thing when he uses this figure as a figure of meditation. Well even Michelangelo distorts body. Exactly.