science of modelling was shown me by a certain Constant, who worked in the decorator's shop where I began as a sculptor. One day he saw me shaping in clay the foliage of a capital. 'Rodin,' he said, 'you handle yourself poorly. All these leaves of yours appear flat. That is why they don't seem real. Make some with their points shaped toward you, so as to give any one who looks at them the impression of depth.'

"I followed his advice and was surprised at the result. Remember well what I have told you,' continued Constant, henceforth in your sculpture never see forms spread out, flat, but always deep... Never consider a surface other than the end of a solid, as a point more or less large aimed at you. That is how you will acquire the science of modelling.'

"This principle proved itself wonderfully fruitful to me. I made use of it in shaping my figures. Instead of regarding the different parts of the body as so many planes I represented them as so many juttings of masses beyond. I forced myself to let feel in every bulging of the torso or the limbs the cropping out of a muscle or bone that continued as depth beneath the skin. That is why the truth of my figures instead of being superficial seems to expand from within. outward like life itself.

"Then I discovered that the ancients used exactly the same science of modelling. And it is certainly to this principle of technique that their works owe at once their strength and their quivering suppleness."

Rodin then suggests that light and shade effects are possible in sculpture as well as in painting.

"In your opinion, Gsell, is color a quality of painting or of sculpture?

"Of painting, naturally."

"Well, look at this statue." Saying this, he held the lamp so that its light fell on the torso from above. "Do you see these strong lights on the breasts, these strong shadows in the folds of the flesh, and then the whitenesses, the vaporous and trembling halflights on the most delicate parts of this divine body; these parts so delicately drawn that they seem to dissolve into thin air? What do you say to them? Isn't it all a wonderful symphony in black and white?" 66 I had to admit it."

"Paradox as it may seem, the great sculptors have been great colorists, and the best painters have been excellent engravers.

"They play so skilfully all the resources of relief, they fuse so well the boldness of light and the modesty of shadow that their sculptures have all the relish of the richest etching. Color then-and that is what I wish to come to-is like the flower and bloom of good modelling. These qualities go together, and it is they that give to the masterpieces of sculpture the radiant aspect of living flesh."

Rodin also considers the problem of movement in sculpture. He himself makes use of movement in order to bring out sharply the muscular expressiveness of the body; here his suggestive theory of movement in sculpture may be said to begin. It is the sculptor's aim to express feelings and passions; and this he must do largely through the muscles; they in turn can be rendered effectively only on

condition that the figure whose mood is to be given is lifelike. This lifelikeness depends on two things: good modelling and movement; and they are the "blood" and "breath" of sculpture. Defining movement as "the changing of one posture into another," Rodin develops the principle of progressive movement. The sculptor, he argues, combines in one moment of presentation two successive positions, and thus makes the spectator take part in the development of a movement, follow it with the eye, and get the stimulus of active change. John the Baptist is shown walking, and yet flatfooted as one standing. In the Age of Bronze, one of Rodin's earlier works, the awakening of primitive man is symbolized. There the lower part of the body still has something of the softness and deep unconsciousness of sleep, but as the eye follows the body upward, the first dawn of consciousness shows itself in head, shoulder, and arm. Rodin further suggests that in complex groups a skilful grading of moments or a varying of the tempo will allow the sculptor by his own technique to render movement quite as effectively as the poet. As examples he cites Rude's La Marseillaise and his own Burghers of Calais.

Rodin's thoughts on modelling, light and shade, and movement are thoughts on technique and are offered as new observations on very old principles of all masterly sculpture. Rodin himself again and again turns to Greek art and professes to find all his

principles there; he refers to the modelling of the Venus dei Medici and the rush and sweep of the Victory of Samothrace. Still there is hardly anything at all like his principle of progressive movement in Greek sculpture; and Greek modelling seems much less given to uneven, jagged or furrowed surfaces. The truth must lie deeper; in certain thoroughly modern artistic demands and ideals expressed in Rodin's art and shadowed forth imperfectly in his reflection. No one would deny extreme individuality to his work. And no one with the vagaries of our younger painters and poets in mind would deny that the demand for individuality is very strong in our latter-day art. It dominates conception and technique. In sculpture individuality of technique is so difficult a matter that artists of the stature of Canova and Thorvaldsen failed to achieve it. Rodin seeks to gain it by the breaking up of surfaces, by projections and indentations, by accentuating and deepening; and, in spite of what he says, he is not a disciple of the Greeks in this. Letting the light of a lamp glide over the surface of the Venus dei Medici is hardly a fair test, for the headlights of an automobile will make the smoothest asphalt road appear as badly dented as a battered piece of tin. Rather is it the modern demand for a perfectly individualized surface and a modern restive technique that make themselves felt. Again, such a principle as that of progressive movement in sculpture is simply one instance more

of the psychological factor in modern art. The essentially unstable, fluid, transforming character of processes of attention and perception is recognized here as well as in impressionistic painting and in the incessant transmutations of Wagnerian music.

Rodin's emphasis on movement touches still another demand; a demand that goes beyond questions of technique to the fundamental question: "What is sculpture to portray?" Life as movement, Rodin answers. Of the artist he says that for him "life is an infinite enjoyment, a constant ecstasy, a distracted intoxication." This breaks at once with the traditional view of sculpture as a self-contained, placid art, creator of gleaming marbles at rest, and asks for a dynamic and restless sculpture to parallel life in its restlessness and energy. In this sense Rodin's art is thoroughly modern. Everywhere, from the most surprising quarters, and in various forms, comes the demand for an interpretation of life as movement. Philosophy and art alike show this drift of the modern consciousness. It is seen in Bergson's élan vital; in the Futurist's stress on youth and the Futurist ideal of an art out of breath. It appears, at once more vigorous and saner, in the artistic ideals of Rodin.

This demand for an art which is to reflect movement and cosmic struggle carries us into the very heart of Rodin's artistic beliefs. It implies the rejection of beauty, in the sense of the regular, the harmonious,