Twas a great day for lunch with my colleague Dottie and to visit my friends sculpted by Auguste Rodin that grace the grounds outside the Norton Simon Museum.
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| Auguste Rodin, the French sculptor, lived from 1840 to 1917, 77years. One of his most famous bronzes is "The Thinker," created in 1880 when he was 40 years old. Pasadena's "Thinker" is Cast No. 11 of 12 in the world and sits outside the Norton Simon overlooking Colorado Blvd. and the annual Rose Parade that passes by. It is wonderful to walk around the aloft sculpture and admire the artist's creation of a meditative man in creative thought. Rodin wrote: "What makes my Thinker think is that he things not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back and legs, with his clenched fists and gripping toes." |
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| "The Burghers of Calais," 1884-95 Cast No. 10 of 12, depicts a time in the Hundred Years' War in 1347, when the city of Calais had been under siege for 11 months. Calais is on the coast of France and just across the English Chanel from England. Six prominent citizens offered their lives to the English King, Edward III, if he would spare the city. The sculpture was commissioned by the city leaders to honor these leaders and Rodin shows them in attitudes showing their preparation to die. Fortunately, the English Queen Phillips interceded because she was about to give birth and believed it would be a bad omen for her baby. The Burghers and the town was set free. The expressions on the faces of these leaders show them as "troubled and isolated individuals brought together by their anguish and common purpose....dressed in tattered sackcloth...showing fear, indecision, anguish, and nobility." Their presence provides a powerful message on the approach to the entrance to the museum. Their size dwarfs even big guys like me. |
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