In
reality, of course, it is the acme of sensitive handling. The point is a
nice one. His practice is a dangerous one. It would be fatal to a less
strenuous temperament. To leave, in a manner and so far as obvious
insistence on it goes, "handling" to take care of itself, is to incur
the peril of careless, clumsy, and even brutal, modelling, which, so far
from dissembling its existence behind the prominence of the idea, really
emphasizes itself unduly because of its imperfect and undeveloped
character. Detail that is neglected really acquires a greater prominence
than detail that is carried too far, because it is sensuously
disagreeable. But when an artist like M. Rodin conceives his spiritual
subject so largely and with so much intensity that mere sensuous
agreeableness seems too insignificant to him even to be treated with
contempt, he treats his detail solely with reference to its centripetal
and organic value, which immediately becomes immensely enhanced, and the
detail itself, dropping thus into its proper place, takes on a beauty
wholly transcending the ordinary agreeable aspect of sculptural detail.
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