The Age of Bronze

The sculpture you are looking at now is called The Age of Bronze.

Before creating this sculpture, Rodin traveled to Italy.

There, he saw the works of great Renaissance sculptors such as Michelangelo and Donatello, and he was deeply inspired by their masterpieces.

After returning from his journey, Rodin created this sculpture.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the work.

You can see that the pose of the sculpture is incredibly natural.

The model for this sculpture was a young soldier named Auguste Neyt.

He was not a professional model, but an ordinary person.

Rodin intentionally chose to work with someone who was not a professional model.

Because he wanted to capture the natural appearance of a real person, rather than the fixed and artificial poses commonly used by professional models.

In fact, this was such a revolutionary pose at the time that you may not have seen a sculpture with such a natural posture even during your travels.

Because of this, the work was highly praised as a sculpture that did not have the rigid, artificial feeling often associated with sculpture, but instead seemed to have a real sense of life.

However, because the pose was so realistic, some people later accused Rodin of creating the sculpture by taking a direct cast from a real human body.

Of course, this accusation was completely untrue. But as we often see, false rumors can spread faster than the truth.

As a result, Rodin suffered a great deal of stress.

He had hoped that the French government would purchase this work, but because of these rumors, the government was hesitant to acquire the sculpture.

However, after being impressed by Rodin’s extraordinary talent, the government eventually decided to purchase the work.

Today, this sculpture belongs to the collection of the Musée d'Orsay, but it has been loaned to the Rodin Museum for a long-term exhibition, which is why you can see it here today.

Take your time appreciating the sculpture, and when you’re ready, we’ll move on to the next work.