This weekend, Katie, Dominique, and I met at the steps of the Thomas Welton Art Gallery, hoping to see the Design Unbound exhibit. To our dismay, it was closed. After a fruitless search on the Stanford event calendar, we decided to visit Auguste Rodin’s sculpture garden instead. I focused on his sculptures of women, specifically Fallen Caryatid With Urn, Fallen Caryatid With Stone, Eve, Martyr, and two sculptures entitled Meditation. Later that day, I stopped in the Quad to take a closer look at Rodin’s Burghers of Calais, sculptures that I pass daily. To my surprise, Rodin’s style of the Burghers is quite different of that of his sculptures outside of the Cantor Center. I wondered why the sculptures had such distinct styles and what it means about Stanford University that we choose to display Rodin’s Burhgers of Calais in the center of our Quad.
Whenever I visit the Cantor Arts Center garden, I feel as though I have been picked up from Palo Alto and transported to a European garden. Stanford has the second largest collection of Rodin’s in the world—and this garden was made to display them. On a Sunday afternoon, one can find children prancing around the sculptures (as their parents attempt to give them lessons on art history), curious students, and even a woman attempting to take portraits of her dogs in front of The Gates of Hell. The sculptures are speckled with yellow pollen and decorated with spider webs. Everything appears happy and while Rodin’s sculptures of women may look beautiful on first glance, they seem to have a deeper, darker meaning.
Fallen Caryatid With Urn and Fallen Caryatid With Stone are both sculptures of women, crouched in similar positions, with an urn and stone (respectively), on their heads and shoulders. The women’s bodies are closed: their legs and arms are crossed, and their hands hide their faces. Caryatid’s are female structures that take the place of pillars or columns in architectural structures. The stone and urn weigh both women down and it appears that they are hiding in contorted stances because they have been weighted down by society.
The two sculptures entitled Meditation are also two women that are in similar stances. They are both standing with their heads titled downwards and to their side, their shoulders are oddly tilted, their legs are crossed, and their left knee is bend slightly upwards as though it is protecting them. The first Meditation appears purposely unfinished. The sculpture has no knee, no arms, and has jagged lines, reminiscent of Cubism, along its stomach.
While Rodin’s Caryatids and Meditations are presented in vulnerable positions, the woman of Martyr was vulnerable, and has been attacked. Her body lies upon the ground, her fist extends outwards and is clenched tightly, and her head has fallen backwards. Only part of her body is displayed: about a third of it looks as though it has been spliced off and the rest of her body has been wrapped around a stone pedestal. All of these sculptures of women are full of emotion. They may not look entirely natural, as they are composed of expressive textures and lines that are not natural to the human body but they are beautiful pieces of artwork that deserve to represent the Cantor Arts Center.
Rodin’s Burghers of Calais, which, as previously mentioned, are an integral component of the Stanford Quad, are very different from Rodin’s sculptures of women. They are smooth, polished, proud, and prominent. Each of the six men is represented as a powerful individual: he is not composed of unnatural textures, he is not hiding, and he does not look weighted down by society, despite the fact that he is about to die. Rather, each of the individuals is proud: his head is directed upwards, his eyes are open and confronting the world, his body takes up space, and he looks like a true man. Rodin was commissioned to create these sculptures in honor of six heroes of the One Hundred Years War. The men sacrificed their lives to save their city, Calais, and the message of piece (according to its plaque) is that “ordinary people can perform heroic deeds.”
After examining two of Rodin’s styles, I cannot arbitrarily decide which style I think is better, but rather I can now say that I understand why they are where they are on campus. Rodin’s sculptures of women are expressive, beautiful, and artistic and represent our Cantor Center. But the Burghers were chosen to be a part of the main Quad because of their individualism, outlook, and message that “ordinary people can perform heroic deeds.”
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