Reopening of the Rodin Museum in Paris

The Musee Rodin in Paris has had a major three-year overhaul, and reopened to the public on November 12, 2015. There are no more plexi-glass domes and poorly-lit display cases.

The 18^th century building housing the Rodin Museum (Musee Rodin) remains the same as it was in 1909 when French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) lived there. He wanted to turn it into a museum that would show the entire process of his works. Although this did not happen in his lifetime, it was the aim of architect Richard Duplat, who coordinated the Euro 16 million renovation, to recreate Rodin’s vision.

I visited in 2010, and the queue was an hour long, but this time the short queue was only five minutes. Immediately I noticed new additions to the museum that have not been exhibited before. The renovation and new exhibition cases and displays show Rodin’s initial test pieces (sculpture casts) and the genesis of his ideas, called Assemblage, Fragmentation, and Enlargement. Rodin was also a collector of art, photographs, sculptures, and antiques – and these are also displayed as his ‘inspirations’ in the Cabinet de Curiosites. The flow of the exhibits has been meticulously designed to deliberately give glimpses of pieces in adjacent rooms, and to enable visitors to encircle most sculptures to get a good look. In each room is a dominant feature, without distracting from the many other works.

There is also a new room on the first floor of almost 8,000 Rodin sketches and drawings, 1,000 engravings, 11,000 photographs, and 60,000 archive documents. For the reopening there is a special exhibition of drawings, sculptures, photographs, and manuscripts that the museum acquired from 2006-2015.

The lighting is modern and clear, with variable intensities, which also reduce shadows. There is also maximum natural light. But there are still the traditional icons of his works, such as The Kiss – which is still impressive in any light.

The sculpture garden seems to be as I remembered – the rose garden, the ornamental gardens, the terrace and trellis, and the rockery – with one major exception: this time the garden was wintry brown (which matched the colours of Rodin’s works).

The first statue is the The Thinker – the 1903 large version – in the middle of conical fir trees. Then the bronze Balzac (1898) of French novelist Honore de Balzac (1799-1850).

I like the Fallen Caryatid with Urn (1918) – even though it represents despondency and disillusion, sadness and despair – because it was first called Destiny and it shows a model bent with the weight of an urn.

The monument to Claude Lorrain (1892) is of the painter, and the Spirit of Eternal Repose (1899-1902) was originally intended for the painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) but it wasn’t finished, and later remodelled.

Meditation, or the Inner Voice, with Arm (after 1900) is the figure of a condemned woman.

Ugolino and His Children (1902-1909) sits in the middle of a pond and represents Count Ugolino devouring his dead children, sentencing himself to eternal damnation.

There is also Adam (1881) and The Shade (1904) which are both very similar; the monument to poet and politician Victor Hugo, known as The Palais Royal Monument (after 1900); and two monuments to the Burghers of Calais, one known as Monumental Nude (1887) and the other known as Monumental Figure (1888).

I also like Cybel (1905). She was created initially as a small plaster version, called Seated Woman. This large version is incomplete.

Near Cybel is the monument to th painter James McNeil Whistler (1834-1903), called Large Nude Model, Without Arms (1908). Rodin died before it was finished, but now it is considered to be one of his best works.

Another of Rodin’s great works in the Monument to the Burghers of Calais (1889) which was commissioned to commemorate the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) that shows six dignitaries who sacrificed themselves by surrendering to the King of England. They wear the tunics of condemned prisoners and nooses around their necks It is supposed to represent misery and sacrifice.