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Lot Essay
Conceived around 1881-1882, Auguste Rodin’s Méditation first appeared among the Damned Women positioned at the far right of the tympanum of The Gates of Hell. Curled inward in a sinuous arabesque, the figure combines delicacy and strength: the softness of her contours is counterbalanced by the striking tension of her pose.
Rodin returned to Méditation throughout his career, making it one of the most revealing compositions through which to trace the evolution of his sculptural language. He produced several variants, altering the figure and casting it both with and without arms. It subsequently appeared in some of his most significant projects, from The Gates of Hell to the Monument to Victor Hugo, as well as in Christ and Mary Magdalene and Constellation. His attachment to the sculpture was profound, as he indicated in a letter to Prince Eugen of Sweden in 1897.
At the heart of the work is the extraordinary torsion of the body. The woman bends inward, concealing her face in the crook of her arm as her weight settles onto one hip. Her unstable-looking equilibrium recalls Rodin’s deep admiration for Michelangelo, particularly the red-wax model of A Slave in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Rodin reportedly revered the sculpture to such a degree that he requested a kneeling prayer bench in front of its display case.
“Instead of imagining the various surfaces of the body as more or less flat planes”, he explained in reference to his sculpture, “I represented them as projections of interior shapes. I forced myself to depict, through each curve of the torso or limbs, the emergence of a muscle or bone far beneath the skin's surface. In doing so, the truth of my figures, instead of being simply superficial, seems to burst outward from the inside like life itself...” (L. Nochlin, ‘Impressionism and Post- Impressionism, 1874-1904’, in Sources and Documents, Englewood Cliffs, 1966, p. 72-73). Rodin paid such close attention to the surface of his sculptures that he began to use light and shadow to sculpt his figures. As a result, he deliberately abandoned academic tradition in favour of the freedom provided by expressive deformation.
This conception of form transformed light and shadow into essential sculptural tools. Instead of pursuing the smooth finish and idealised coherence associated with academic sculpture, Rodin allowed irregularity, fragmentation and expressive deformation to intensify the emotional presence of the body. Few works demonstrate this principle as eloquently as Méditation.
The composition ultimately evolved into the larger, armless figure incorporated into the Monument to Victor Hugo. Exhibited in Dresden and Stockholm in 1897, this version became known as The Inner Voice, referring to Hugo’s 1837 poetry collection Les Voix intérieures. Although its fragmentary, unfinished appearance initially troubled contemporary audiences, the absence of the arms was deliberate. By reducing the body to its essential expressive forms, Rodin transformed physical incompleteness into a powerful image of introspection.
Rodin returned to Méditation throughout his career, making it one of the most revealing compositions through which to trace the evolution of his sculptural language. He produced several variants, altering the figure and casting it both with and without arms. It subsequently appeared in some of his most significant projects, from The Gates of Hell to the Monument to Victor Hugo, as well as in Christ and Mary Magdalene and Constellation. His attachment to the sculpture was profound, as he indicated in a letter to Prince Eugen of Sweden in 1897.
At the heart of the work is the extraordinary torsion of the body. The woman bends inward, concealing her face in the crook of her arm as her weight settles onto one hip. Her unstable-looking equilibrium recalls Rodin’s deep admiration for Michelangelo, particularly the red-wax model of A Slave in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Rodin reportedly revered the sculpture to such a degree that he requested a kneeling prayer bench in front of its display case.
“Instead of imagining the various surfaces of the body as more or less flat planes”, he explained in reference to his sculpture, “I represented them as projections of interior shapes. I forced myself to depict, through each curve of the torso or limbs, the emergence of a muscle or bone far beneath the skin's surface. In doing so, the truth of my figures, instead of being simply superficial, seems to burst outward from the inside like life itself...” (L. Nochlin, ‘Impressionism and Post- Impressionism, 1874-1904’, in Sources and Documents, Englewood Cliffs, 1966, p. 72-73). Rodin paid such close attention to the surface of his sculptures that he began to use light and shadow to sculpt his figures. As a result, he deliberately abandoned academic tradition in favour of the freedom provided by expressive deformation.
This conception of form transformed light and shadow into essential sculptural tools. Instead of pursuing the smooth finish and idealised coherence associated with academic sculpture, Rodin allowed irregularity, fragmentation and expressive deformation to intensify the emotional presence of the body. Few works demonstrate this principle as eloquently as Méditation.
The composition ultimately evolved into the larger, armless figure incorporated into the Monument to Victor Hugo. Exhibited in Dresden and Stockholm in 1897, this version became known as The Inner Voice, referring to Hugo’s 1837 poetry collection Les Voix intérieures. Although its fragmentary, unfinished appearance initially troubled contemporary audiences, the absence of the arms was deliberate. By reducing the body to its essential expressive forms, Rodin transformed physical incompleteness into a powerful image of introspection.