RODIN

Auguste Rodin, the greatest sculptor of the nineteenth century, is also widely considered to be the greatest since Michelangelo, whose genius was a lifelong inspiration to him. Though the astonishingly lifelike quality of his sculpture was in total defiance of current academic conventions, Rodin did not have to face the prolonged and bitter hostility meted out to the Impressionist painters who were his contemporaries, and in later life he became a famous and revered figure. This important and authoritative monograph combines a searching reappraisal of Rodin's achievement--his emotional expressiveness, his power of characterization and the subtlety of his modeling--with a revealing account of his troubled private life.