Rodin Works: The Burghers of Calais |
|
Rodin won the commission for the monument of the town Calais in January 1885 after his first maquette, distinguishing itself from the more conventional designs presented by his five competitors, had been approved by the Committee in November 1884. Propelled by his ambition to win this public commission, the sculptor promised to deliver "six sculptures for the price of one". Rodin described his intentions as follows: "It is the subject itself which (...) imposes a heroic vision of all six figures being sacrificed to one single communicative expression and feeling. The pedestal is triumphal, it has the rudiments of an arch of triumph intended to uphold, not a quadriga, but human patriotism, self-abnegation and virtue."
Instead of focussing on the first of the citizens who
had volunteered, Eustache de Saint-Pierre, Rodin decided to portray six
individuals. Instead of idealising the dignity of their heroic sacrifice,
he revealed their misery and inner doubt and showed them in rough
sack-like clothes. Instead of setting up a traditional pyramidal
composition, he placed the six men on the same level, each of them
occupied by his own personal conflict: 'Pierre de Wissant', To reach a maximum of individuality, Rodin studied each
of the six personalities seperately in different poses, dressed and
undressed. Being convinced of his artistic conception, Since 1885 he mainly worked on 'The Burghers of Calais' In 1892, the committee decided to finance the monument finally by a national subscription and a lottery. Only in the year 1895, more than ten years after Rodin had presented the first maquette, 'The Burghers of Calais' were inaugurated at the entrance of the Jardin du Front Sud, on a pedestal designed by the city architect Decroix, with an octagonal iron gate around it. Rodin resented this installation and returned to his previous proposal as worded in his letter of 8 December 1893 to the Mayor of Calais, Omer Dewavrin, his Burghers could be mounted on a very low, "but impressive" basis on the Place d´Armes in the centre of Calais: "..... very low to enable the spectators to penetrate the heart of the subject, like entombments in churches, where the group is almost at ground level. (...) In this way, the group becomes more familiar and plunges the viewers deeper into the tragedy and sacrifice of the drama." In his later conversations with Gsell, Rodin even complained the "ugly and superfluous" pedestal of Decroix had been forced upon him, although he would have preferred the six Burghers to be anchored into the pavement directly – this way it would look as if the six men would walk between the inhabitants of the city.
As Thomas Appels demonstrates, it would be wrong to
conclude, though, that Rodin would reject the idea of a pedestal
altogether – his main concern was to reach an installation that would
allow for the highest aesthetic effect. Whereas a low placement would
bring the suffering of 'The Burghers' closer to the
The Burghers were also cast and distributed as single figures. It should be noted that the names of the characters as we know and use them today, were only attached by George Grappe, Curator of the Musée Rodin. During Rodin's life, they were referred to as 'The Man with the Key', etc. Between 1895 and 1905, LeBossé produced reduced versions of five of the six 'Burghers'; the figure of Pierre de Wiessant was never reduced, although Rodin intended to reproduce the entire group in this smaller format. The first examples of these small 'Burghers' were ordered by the banker Joanny Peytel; subsequently, this edition was in great demand among collectors, who now were able to purchase the famous 'Burghers' for an affordable price, in a size that fitted their private housing. [Anna Tahinci, Ph. D. thesis on Rodin's Collectors, p. 39] A selection of these small 'Burghers' was represented in an exhibition of the Glaskastenmuseum in Marl, Germany. BIBLIOGRAPHY (supplied by The National Gallery of Art, Washington): Bartlett, Truman H. "Auguste
Rodin, Sculptor." American Architect and Building News (19 January-15
June 1889): 250.
|
Rodin's
direct literary source is the chronological receit of historian Jean
Froissart (ca. 1333-1410), describing how King Edward demanded the six
citizens to appear bareheaded, only dressed with a shirt, with a rope
around their necks and the keys for the town in their hands.
In
fact, the sculptor's grudge was mainly caused by the refusal of the Calais
City Council to position his Monument either in front of the Town Hall or
along the Route Nationale in the neighbourhood of the Pont
Richelieu – an alternative location he had suggested. He felt the
location in front of the public gardens was too much offside, as if the
City was ashamed to present its brave citizens in their state of
humiliation and despair – a suspicion he shared with Sir Schomberg
McDonnel, Secretary of the London Office of Works, who had come to view
the group in Calais and mocked Rodin's work had been installed before the
background of a public urinal and a washing room.
spectator and invite to direct identification, a higher position would
produce a good contrast between the lively contours and the sky.
Accordingly, the Copenhagen cast of the Burgers was put on a 1.40 meter
high base, the London version in the Victoria Towers Garden even became a
five meter high pedestal, like the Gattamelata statue by Donatello
in Padua. Before, Rodin had raised a wooden platform on his Meudon
property, to test the effect of such a high position. His
revolutionary idea of a very low placement was only realised in Calais in
1924, after the sculptor had died and the exceptional quality of his
disquieting - but meanwhile widely celebrated - monument was better
understood.
Thomas Appel, Die Bürger von Calais, Auguste Rodins Intentionen zu
Aufstellung und Sockel, p. 70ff.
Altogether,
four life-size bronze casts were produced and erected during Rodin's
lifetime: Calais, Copenhagen, London and Mariemont in Belgium. The Ca'
Pesaro Museum in Venice owns a rare over-life-size plaster group. As
a separate project, The 'Head of Pierre de Wiessant' was enlarged to
monumental dimensions; the hand of the same figure was re-employed in 'The
Hand of God'. 
