Purple Magazine
— S/S 2011 issue 15

The world of sex by Auguste Rodin

THE WORLD OF SEX by AUGUSTE RODIN

photography by TERRY RICHARDSON and OLIVIER ZAHM
text by JEFF RIAN

 

The small Rodin museum is a must-see tourist stop in Paris. But within its walls, behind a façade of mythological symbolism, is a world of sex. Many of Rodin’s works express a beautiful, unrepressed, and violent sexuality, eternally frozen in cast bronze and voluptuous marble. Rodin didn’t so much make monumental sculptures as he did a massive array of deeply expressive fragments and portraits. He transformed real life in a manner inspired by Michelangelo, while freeing sculpture from the fantastic aspects of mythology and allegory. He had a genius for modeling in clay. But his sculptures were harshly criticized for the blatant psychology and sexuality of their figures, ones that reeked of life, not fantasy. Rodin preferred models he met on the street to professionals, and with the force of his large hands he imprinted his preference for naturalism and raw emotion. The material eroticism of many of Rodin’s figures disrupted bourgeois expectations. But once appreciated, he advanced sculpture, at a time when Europe was being disrupted by the machinery, violence, and erotic abandon of the modern world.

 

[Table of contents]

S/S 2011 issue 15

Table of contents

purple EDITO

purple NEWS

purple BEST of the SEASON

purple INTERVIEW

purple FASHION WOMEN

purple DOCUMENTS

purple BEAUTY

purple TRAVEL

purple NAKED

purple LOVE

purple NIGHT

purple SUMMER

purple VISUAL ESSAY

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