Auguste Rodin Quotes

“A mediocre man copying nature will never produce a work of art, because he really looks without seeing, and though he may have noted each detail minutely, the result will be flat and without character. The artist on the contrary, sees; that is to say, his eye, grafted on his heart, reads deeply into the bosom of nature.”

“An artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth.”

“Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which nature herself is animated.”

“Art is the pleasure of a spirit that enters nature and discovers that it too has a soul.”

“As paradoxical as it may seem a great sculptor is as much a colourist as the best painter, or rather the best engraver. He plays so skillfully with all the resources of relief, he blends so well the boldness of light with the modesty of shadow, that his sculptures please one, as much as the most charming etchings.”

“Black is the queen of colours.”

“He who is discouraged after a failure is not a real artist.”

“How painful it is to find that my figure can be of no help to my future... How painful to see it rejected on account of a slanderous suspicion!”

“I am like a moon that shines on an immense, unknown sea where ships never pass.”

“I believe that photography can create great works of art, but hitherto it has been extraordinarily bourgeois and babbling.”

“I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.”

“I grant you that the artist does not see Nature as she appears to the vulgar, because his emotion reveals to him the hidden truths beneath appearances.”

“I have unbounded admiration for the nude. I worship it like a god.”

“I invent nothing, I rediscover.”

“I know very well that one must fight, for one is often in contradiction to the spirit of the age.”

“I would have to talk for a year to repeat a single one of my works with words.”

“If the artist only reproduces superficial features as photography does, if he copies the lineaments of a face exactly, without reference to character, he deserves no admiration. The resemblance which he ought to obtain is that of the soul.”

“If the artist succeeds in producing the impression of a movement which takes several moments for accomplishment, his work is certainly much less conventional than the scientific image, where time is abruptly suspended.”

“If we now seek the spiritual significance of the technique of Michelangelo we shall find that his sculpture expressed restless energy.”

“In art, immorality cannot exist. Art is always sacred.”

“In front of the model I work with the same will to reproduce truth as if I were making a portrait. I do not correct nature, I incorporate myself into it; it directs me. I can only work with a model. The sight of human forms nourishes and comforts me.”

“In short, Beauty is everywhere. It is not that she is lacking to our eye, but our eyes which fail to perceive her. Beauty is character and expression. Well, there is nothing in nature which has more character than the human body. In its strength and its grace it evokes the most varied images. One moment it resembles a flower: the bending torso is the stalk; the breasts, the head, and the splendor of the hair answer to the blossoming of the corolla. The next moment it recalls the pliant creeper, or the proud and upright sapling.”

“Inside you there's an artist you don't know about. He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight.”

“It is the artist who is truthful and it is photography which lies, for in reality time does not stop”

“Love your calling with passion, it is the meaning of your life.”

“Man enjoys living on the edge of his dreams and neglects the real things of the world which are so beautiful. The ignorant and indifferent destroy beautiful things merely by looking at the marble. Things that remake the soul of him who understands them.”

“Man's naked form belongs to no particular moment in history; it is eternal, and can be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages.”

“My drawings are the result of my sculpture.”

“Mystery is like a kind of atmosphere which bathes the greatest works of the masters.”

“Nobody does good to men with impunity.”