Rodin Works: Kneeling Fauness, Toilette of Venus, Awakening |
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We find the 'Kneeling Fauness' in the left half of the tympanum of 'The Gates of Hell', underneath other female figures - the most prominent of them later known as 'The Martyr'. The superimposition of these women had evolved from the sculptor's concept to populate his monumental portal with a great number of characters, closely flocked together in the chaotic turmoil of the Inferno; in later years, Rodin preserved this accidental combination under the title 'Orpheus and the Furies' - changing the gender of the kneeling figure by decorating it with a miniature penis and amputating the breasts. Around 1889, the somewhat awkward assemblage was eternalized in marble; one example is exhibited at the Musée Rodin. Grappe dated the origin of 'The Kneeling Fauness' back to 1882-83; a plaster called 'Condemned Fauness' owned by a collector named Stenesco was dated 1884, but Grappe, referring to the modeling, places it among the very first projects for 'The Gates'. Already during his years in the porcelain manufactury in Sèvres, Rodin had decorated his 'Vase de Saigon' with a kneeling woman, her elbows raised, hands meeting behind her head. Although the body of the 'Fauness' is pleasing, the young woman lifting her buttocks like in 'The Spinx', the face is rudely modeled, the mouth distorted, the head pressed forward, rendering an expression of guilt and tense anxiety - quite appropriate for the setting among the other 'damned women' presented in the tympanum. Apart from this animalistic trait, we find no attributes that would identify the character as a fauness or satyress. In 1889, a 'Kneeling Fauness' was exhibited at the Rodin-Monet exhibition. In a second version, the head of 'The Fauness' is leaning back and facing to the right - this is the figure Rodin used to illustrate the poem 'le Guignon' by Charles Baudelaire in 'Les Fleurs du Mal', between 1886-88.
In
this posture, the work became known as 'Toilette of Venus', or 'Awakening',
as seen on the photographs by Haweis and Coles. The subject of the Goddess of Love and Beauty, arranging her hair or glancing into a mirror, often accompanied by her little son Amor, had been a popular subject throughout Renaissance and Baroque painting; the very same title had been used for the works by François Boucher (oil on canvas, 1751, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri "Il Guercino" in 1621, for example. Rodin's 'Venus' became so popular, that his friend and colleague Eugene Carrière (1849-1906) selected it as the motif for the poster announcing Rodin's private retrospective in the pavillon at the Place d'Alma in 1900. The model for both the 'Kneeling Fauness' and 'Toilette of Venus' may have been the dark-haired Italian Carmen Visconti of Fiesole, who had modeled for Rodin during a period of 13 years, including the early 1880's. In several press interviews, Carmen Visconti had recollected her model sessions for 'Eve', 'The Kiss' and 'The Wave'; according to Lynne Ambrosini, the latter denomination was another title for 'Toilette of Venus'. Although I found no direct confirmation for this equation, the plaster assemblage 'The Crest and the Wave' also shows a figure streching her arms upward; moreover, a marble version of 'The Sirens' (1888)- on the left side featuring a kneeling woman very similar to 'The Sphinx' (1886) and 'Venus' - in Montreal is also known as 'The Wave'. |
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