Rodin himself. "Isn't there danger,"
I said, "of getting too fond of nature, of dissecting with so much
enthusiasm that the pleasure of discovery may obscure one's feeling for
pure beauty, of losing the artistic in the purely scientific interest,
of becoming pedantic, of imitating rather than constructing, of missing
art in avoiding the artificial?" I had some difficulty in making myself
understood; this perpetual see-saw of nature and art which enshrouds
aesthetic dialectics as in a Scotch mist seems curiously factitious to
the truly imaginative mind. But I shall always remember his reply, when
he finally made me out, as one of the finest severings conceivable of a
Gordian knot of this kind. "Oh, yes," said he; "there is, no doubt, such
a danger for a mediocre artist."
M. Rodin is, whatever one may think of him, certainly not a mediocre
artist. The instinct of self-preservation may incline the Institute to
assert that he obtrudes his anatomy. But prejudice itself can blind no
one of intelligence to his immense imaginative power, to his poetic
"possession.
Pages:
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253