Auguste Rodin Quotes

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

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

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!

Nobody does good to men with impunity.

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.

The work of art is already within the block of marble. I just chop off whatever isn't needed.

Even with all the documents, you can never forge nature

The more simple we are, the more complete we become.

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

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

There should be no argument in regard to morality in art. There is no morality in nature.

The artist has only to trust his eyes.

The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.

Mere exactitude, of which photography and moulage [life casting] are the lowest forms, does not inspire feelings.

The only principle in art is to copy what you see. Dealers in aesthetics to the contrary, every other method is fatal.

The delicate droop of the petals standing out in relief, is like the eyelid of a child.

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

One must work, nothing
but work, and one must have patience ...

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.

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.

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

True artists are almost the only men who do their work for pleasure.

There are unknown forces in nature; when we give ourselves wholly to her, without reserve, she lends them to us; she shows us these forms, which our watching eyes do not see, which our intelligence does not understand or suspect.

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.

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.

What is commonly called ugliness in nature can in art become full of beauty.

Black is the queen of colours.

Patience is also a form of action.

The dazzling splendour revealed to the artist by the model that divests herself of her clothes has the effect of the sun piercing the clouds. Venus, Eve, these are feeble terms to express the beauty
of women.

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.

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.

The nude alone is well dressed

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

Recently I have taken to isolating limbs, the torso. Why am I blamed for it? Why is the head allowed and not portions of the body? Every part of the human figure is expressive.

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

Where shall we begin? There is no beginning. Start where you arrive. Stop before what entices you. And work! You will enter little by little into the entirety. Method will be born in proportion to your interest.

Nothing is wasted of time if you use the xperience wisely.

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

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

To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth.

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.

You must always work.

The human body is first and foremost a mirror to the soul and its greatest beauty comes from that.

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.

People say I think too much about women, yet, after all what is there more important to think about?