Auguste Rodin
(France 1840–1917)
Georges Rudier Fondeur
(France )
- Title
- The Prodigal Son
- Year
- 1885-1887
cast 1970 - Media
- Sculpture
- Medium
- bronze
- Dimensions
- 139.5 x 76.2 x 71.1cm
- Signature & date
- Signed top of base, incised "A.Rodin". Not dated.
- Credit
- William Farnsworth Bequest Fund 1979
- Accession number
- 210.1979
- Location
- 19th c European art
- Further information
Were it not for its palpable bodily presence, this moving bronze might almost seem a manifestation of pure spirit. Flame-like and quavering, the supplicant seems already to have passed beyond filial remorse to paternal absolution. Rodin's pre-emption of symbolist and expressionist imperatives is patent in the work. Unarguably the greatest sculptor of the early modern period - it is almost impossible to call him a nineteenth-century figure - Rodin was also among the most prolific. His Paris studio was large and active, and the French master himself a worker of formidable muscularity. Rodin's reputation for genius, cultivated in part by the artist himself, is justified by the extraordinary variety of his invention and the ardour he brought to even the smallest project. 'The prodigal son' characterises Rodin's quest for the life-force within the human form.
AGNSW Handbook, 1999.
- Bibliography (13)
-
Fine and decorative art (1978), David Jones' Art Gallery, Sydney (Australia, estab. 1928) (Author).
Three years on: a selection of acquisitions 1978-1981 (1981), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874) (Author), Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
L'Art et les artistes (1906-1907), P. Gsell (Author).
Art (1912), Auguste Rodin (France, b.1840, d.1917) (Author), Publisher unknown, London, England.
Catalogue of Sculpture by Rodin (1925), Victoria and Albert Museum (England) (Author), Publisher unknown, London, England.
Rodin (1939), S. Story (Author), Publisher unknown, London, England.
Twentieth century sculpture (1949), E.H. Ramsden (England) (Author), Publisher unknown, London, England.
Rodin sculpture, a critical study of the Spreckels Coll, California Palace of the Legion of Honor (1977), J. de Caso (Author), P. Sanders (Author).
Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin (1964), Athena Tacha (Author).
Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin (Autumn 1969), Athena Tacha (Author).
Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook (1999), Bruce James (Australia) (Author), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Director), Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Three years on: a selection of acquisitions 1978-1981 (1981), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874) (Author), Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Art and Australia (Vol. 22, No. 1) (Spring 1984), Elwyn Lynn (Australia, b.1917, d.1997) (Editor), Fine Arts Press Pty Limited (Australia), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
- Exhibition history (2)
-
Three years on: Acquisitions 1978-81, (15 Oct 1981–01 Dec 1981), at Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Art Gallery Rd Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 2000.
Fine and decorative art (1978), (17 Oct 1978–07 Nov 1978), at David Jones' Art Gallery, Sydney (Australia, estab. 1928), 7th Floor Elizabeth Street Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 2000.