The Age of Bronze

Artist François-Auguste-René Rodin (1840 - 1917)

Datec. 1876-1877

MediumBronze

Dimensions180 x 60 x 50 cm

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Lane Gift, 1912.

Object number96

DescriptionAuguste Rodin, the most celebrated French sculptor of his time, was turned down on three occasions for entrance to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Instead he began his career as a commercial sculptor in the studio of A.E. Carrier-Belleuse. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, public commissions became scarce and Rodin went to Brussels for several years. There, Rodin received his first public recognition with this life-size nude, which he exhibited in 1877. The model for this work was a Belgian soldier, named Auguste Neyt, and the work was first exhibited as Le Vaincu (the Conquered Man), possibly a reference to the French defeat in 1871. Originally, the figure was holding a spear, which Rodin later removed. With Rodin, there is no attempt to idealise the figure and this uncompromising naturalism led to controversy when the work was exhibited at the Paris Salon under a new title, The Age of Bronze, a representation of one of the five ages of man as described by the ancient Greek writer Hesiod. Rodin had visited Italy in the winter of 1875, where he had sketched the works of Renaissance masters, Donatello and Michelangelo. This influence is much in evidence in the pose of the figure, which recalls Michelangelo's Dying Slave.

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