Cast authorized by Musée Rodin, Paris
Galerie Georges Bernier, Paris
Private collection, since 1977
Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Auguste Rodin - Camille Claudel, 7 July - 22 September 1996, no. 14, p. 163, ill. p. 77
Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Glancing at the Century, 28 June - 20 September 1998, pp. 24-25, ill. p. 25
Albert Edward Elsen, In Rodin’s Studio: A Photographic Record of Sculpture in the Making, Phaidon, Oxford and Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1980
Rodin Rediscovered, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1981
Alain Beausire, Quand Rodin exposait, Musée Rodin, Paris, 1988
In September 1889, Auguste Rodin received a state order to build a monument in honour of Victor Hugo. The tribute to the sculptor was great, given that the work was intended to be placed at the Pantheon. Contrary to the official directives demanding that he had to sculpt a standing Hugo, dressed in clothes of that time, Rodin represent him naked, seated on a rock at the place of his self-exile, having the control over the waves with his raised arm. Around him, three Muses seem to breathe inspiration into him, joining him in his solitude as a thoughtful poet. The preliminary sketches he submitted were rejected by the committee in charge.
In June 1891, he was asked to carry out a statue based on the inspiration of his first proposal, that is to say Hugo surrounded by Muses. Therefore, Rodin slightly modified the poet’s posture, whose left arm was then straighter, as if he would master an invincible force; as for the Muses, they were reduced to two: the Tragic Muse and the Meditation, also called the Inner Voice. When the work was placed in a public place in 1909, the marble represented Hugo alone. The sculptor had chosen to offer his two Muses their own destiny, considering them as two independent sculptures. The Head of the Tragic Muse, presented here, is the fruit of this rebirth.
The sculpture caused a fierce controversy between the defenders and opponents of Rodin’s work. Undoubtedly, creating this tortured form, Rodin did not opt for the easy route of trivial aesthetics. Nevertheless, the Tragic Museis more disturbing than any other work due to its distorted expression caused by pain and distress. In Rodin’s hands, the Muse puts on again that unpleasant and disfigured face in order to demonstrate the difficulty of the poet, the writer, the artist, in transfiguring through his art all the plights of mankind. It is there to remind to any artist imbued with the ideal of truth that any compromise is thus impossible, if he wishes to remain truthful throughout his work. And, in this case, the Tragic Museis a part of a totally modern vision, which ceases to seek what is aesthetically beautiful as the sole purpose of Art.
The Head of the Tragic Muse was conceived at the same time as the Tragic Muse in 1895. During the 20th century, several copies of bronze casts were released.
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