Still oh so excited to be in Paris, I got up early to look out at the world below. The barber across the street was cutting hair, tourists on their cell phones arrived with their noisy luggage, a woman stopped to clean the face of her toddler in a stroller. He was fussing and she slapped him. Twice. He and I were both shocked and I prayed for his sake that he wouldn’t make another sound. Disturbing.
On the way to the Musee Rodin, a French woman asked me for directions. I said “desolee je parle pas francais tres bien” and she walked away muttering to herself. I was flattered that she did not take me for a tourist, or worse, an American. Heavy police presence in front of the hotel just down the street from the Musee. Media waiting across the street. Don’t know what that was all about. Will try to find out.
I am only familiar with a handful of Rodin’s work so Musee Rodin was a real education. He worked in wood, plaster, terra cotta, bronze, enamel, he would even combine terra cotta on bronze, for instance. He was prolific not just in sculpture but in oil painting, drawing, watercolor, etc. He also collected works by VanGogh OMG(!), Monet, Renoir, among others as well as antiquities. The guy had it going on in spite of a rough start, being rejected by the school of Beaux Arts, not once, but three times. He hooked up with Camille Claudel who had as much talent as he but she never got ANY CREDIT even for the works on which they collaborated. Hello? She spent 30 years in an insane asylum and he went back to his wife.* WHAT.A.TRAVESTY.
The last room in the museum tied together breaking, the newest Olympic sport, with the dynamic quality found in much of Rodin’s work. An interesting way of making Rodin relatable to today’s youth I thought. The figures in contorted positions with their arms uncomfortably twisted together expressa lot of tension and pain. Also the female nudes with legs splayed showing their yayas for all the world to see did not go over well with the public back then. So he had his controversial moments, too.
Dined at the outdoor restaurant on the premises accompanied by a pigeon who stared at me from its perch on the chair opposite me. Afterwards I walked around the well manicured garden where Rodin’s major works are masterfully displayed. This alone is worth the price of admission. The Thinker, the Kiss, the Gates of Hell. Which are all connected. The Thinker is actually Dante Alighieri, the Kiss is actually Paolo & Francesca (from the Divine Comedy) and the Gates of Hell is from the first line of, you guessed it, The Divine Comedy. These are the names that Rodin gave them. Why have they been renamed? The garden also included The Burghers of Calais, and a few figures from mythology. The building was Rodin’s house. He actually lived there. And to think he found it through the poet Rainer Maria Rilke who worked for him. It used to be a hotel, so it’s enormous, with decorated ceilings, oval shaped rooms, floor to ceiling windows with grand vistas, hand carved wood paneling and molding around the doors. It’s a mansion. I am so jealous.
While I was walking around the garden I watched a couple, he was posing like The Thinker in front of The Thinker and she was photographing him. I had to laugh and I showed them the photos I took of them. We wound up talking for a while, she, Annette, was from NYC and he, John, had lived briefly in Laurenceville, GA. What a small world. Annette told me about her best friend who had just lost her husband. Her friend’s story paralleled mine so closely that I lost it. Right there in the garden in broad daylight. They hugged me, we talked some more. They hugged me again. They were so nice, the friends I desperately needed for 15 minutes.
Regained my composure and walked home without needing my phone to tell me how.
Correction: Auguste Rodin and Rose Beuret got married 2 weeks before she died, so technically they were not married when his affair with Carmille ended,