|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rodin’s sculptures were so well made, so beautifully formed and expressive throughout, that parts of his work can hold up as being complete in themselves such as his damaged sculpture of The Thinker, says B. N. Goswamy
I came upon this article with the intriguing title, On Hanging, in the New York Review of Books the other day, and started reading it, just because of the title. It turned out to be a long review of a recent, and apparently provocative, book on the issues of displaying — in the case of paintings, ‘hanging’ — works of art in museums and art galleries: the dilemmas of the curators, the difficulties of deciding between what works best for the viewer or for the work, some spectacular successes and some equally spectacular failures. And suddenly my mind went back to one of the most difficult choices that any director or curator of a museum must have had to make — some 35 years ago — about a justly celebrated work of art in their collection. The museum was the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio; the work in question was that great figure in bronze, The Thinker by Auguste Rodin; and the Director of the Museum was the highly respected Sherman Lee. Everyone, at least in the western world, knows something about Rodin, the great French master (1840-1917), a titan of art, a modern-day Michelangelo as it were, who brought western sculpture back to what always had been its essential strength, a knowledge and sumptuous rendering of the human body. Everyone also knows, from among his erotically charged or tormented and defeated sculptures, at least one work: Le Penseur or The Thinker — a muscularly built man seated on a rock, wearing no clothes, leaning forward, head bowed, chin resting on a hand, completely lost in thought. It is a deeply moving work. The first version of the figure that Rodin made was relatively small, and it was placed directly above his monumental Gates of Hell, inspired by one of the greatest works of European literature, Dante’s Inferno. Subsequently, however, enlarged versions of the thinking man were made in bronze, and more than one were cast under Rodin’s own supervision or with his approval. It was one of these enlarged versions — a magnificent, towering figure — that the Cleveland Museum of Art acquired in 1917. For some time the bronze was placed in one of the galleries of the museum, but then, realising that its subtleties were somewhat lost in that space and that light, a decision was taken to shift it outdoors, close to its majestic entrance. There The Thinker sat in his pristine condition for years, greeting all visitors to the museum. Some 50 years later, however, something quite dramatic happened. In the dead of the night of March 24, 1970, some members of a radical political group, possibly in protest against the Vietnam War, placed dynamite between the legs of The Thinker, and blew it up. The results were devastating. The base and the lower part of the legs were annihilated, and the remaining sculpture was knocked off its pedestal. The Thinker lay face down; some pieces of bronze went flying to a point as far as 20 yards away. The explosion caused much of the lower half of the sculpture to expand and to be twisted and contorted; there was, in addition, some abrasion and scraping of the metal where the head and shoulders hit the pavement. The horror of the event had barely died down, and the law authorities had just started their investigations, when questions started being asked about the severely damaged art object. The Director of the Museum, Sherman Lee, began an intensive process of consultation with restorers, artists and art historians. Essentially, three options were considered: take moulds from other original Thinkers and make a replacement cast; make a cast from moulds and cut the newly cast sculpture up to replace damaged areas of the Cleveland sculpture; or mount the damaged sculpture and essentially do no restoration. It was not easy, however, to take a decision. The event had naturally attracted nationwide attention, and all eyes were on the museum. A question that Sherman Lee was interested in asking was: what would Rodin have done or advised in this situation, had he been alive? Albert Elsen, professor at Stanford University, a reputed scholar of Rodin’s work, was approached. Sherman Lee wrote to him saying, "the considered wish of the museum, considering everything, was to maintain the figure in its present damaged state as a historical document and in accordance with what we believe Rodin’s thinking would have been on this problem." But he wanted the professor’s views. Promptly, the professor wrote back, saying that possibly Rodin would have consented to restoration, but it needed to be remembered that "Rodin was the first sculptor in history to take seriously the partial figure as a complete work of art and to accept, court and even welcome chance and accident" in the making of art. In Rodin’s view, his sculptures were so well made, so beautifully formed and expressive throughout, that like classical fragments, parts of his work could hold up as being complete in themselves. The professor’s advice therefore was: let the sculpture be, severely damaged as it is. "Even in its present, ruined state, your Thinker is still an impressive sculpture and supports Rodin’s view. Only Rodin’s work by its history and the way it was made can withstand such a tragedy, with any degree of dignity." This more or less settled the matter. The sculpture was mounted on a bronze armature and placed on a tall granite pedestal in front of the entrance, with the inscription: The Thinker by Auguste Rodin. Gift of Ralph King. Damaged, 24th of March 1970. This is the way the great sculpture stands there today: "a monument to an insane act".
|
|||
|
|
|||
