- Museum number
- 1931,0721.5
- Description
-
Nude female; whole-length (head and feet truncated), reclining on hands with knees raised
Graphite with watercolour
- Production date
- 1900-1917 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 199 millimetres
-
Width: 294 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Label text from 2016-18, Sep-Jan touring exhibition, 'Lines of Thought'
A key method for Rodin was to draw from a model who moved around the studio, usually only a few feet in front of him. Not taking his eyes from them, nor looking at the page, he would draw - in the words of his contemporary critic, Roger Marx, 'tracing them lightly, with only his brain to guide it' [Marx, 'Carton d'Artistes', L'Image, no. 10 (September, 1897), cited and trans. Catherine Lampert, 'Rodin: Sculpture & Drawing's, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery (London, 1986), p. 160]. This is one of over ten thousand drawings made by Rodin, who towards the end of his life reputedly produced scores per day. They were seldom direct studies for a monument or sculpture, but rather parallel investigations into the nature of the human body. Contrary to the traditional use of wash for threedimensional modelling, Rodin instead used colour to differentiate the figure from the ground of the paper, and indeed often cut around the figures to combine them in new ways. As Rodin himself claimed: 'It's very simple. My drawings are the key to my work.' [René Benjamin, 'Les Dessins d'Auguste Rodin' [The Drawings of Auguste Rodin], Salle des Fêtes du Gil Blas: Programme Quotidien, exh. cat. (Paris: Gil Blas, 1910), p. 16.]
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited
2007 Jan-Mar, Cambridge, Kettle's Yard, 'We the moderns:...'
2007 Mar-Jun, Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, 'We the moderns:...'
2016 3 Sep - 6 Nov, Poole Museum, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 12
2017 1 Jan - 25 Feb, The Brynmor Jones Library Art Gallery, University of Hull, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 12
2017 12 Mar - 5 May, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 12
2017 May - Sep, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 12
2017-2018 Oct - Jan, RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 12
- Acquisition date
- 1931
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1931,0721.5
