{"id":88155,"date":"2017-02-06T05:10:36","date_gmt":"2017-02-06T10:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=88155"},"modified":"2017-02-06T05:10:36","modified_gmt":"2017-02-06T10:10:36","slug":"rodin-museum-fetes-sculptor-with-passion-themed-installation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/02\/06\/rodin-museum-fetes-sculptor-with-passion-themed-installation\/","title":{"rendered":"Rodin Museum fetes sculptor with passion themed installation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u201cThe<\/a>
\u201cThe Kiss,\u201d in marble, portrays a couple forever locked in an amorous embrace. (Photo: Mus\u00e9e Rodin<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PHILADELPHIA\u2014Auguste Rodin’s sensuous piece \u201cThe Kiss\u201d will, fittingly, form the core of an installation at Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum centred on the theme of passion to mark the 100th anniversary of the French sculptor’s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Kiss,\u201d in marble, portrays a couple forever locked in an amorous embrace. The new installation’s marble, bronze and plaster casts feature pairings including men and women, mothers and children, a woman clutching a dead lover \u2014 and others that are playful, animalistic and one considered too shocking for even Rodin to exhibit during his lifetime. He died in November 1917.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe explores the idea of a couple … through desire, attraction, repulsion and shame,\u201d said curator Jennifer Thompson. \u201cThis is what passion looks like at the hands of Rodin.\u201d<\/p>\n

The installation is part of a yearlong series of celebrations looking at the groundbreaking artist’s life being held at a host of art museums large and small around the world, with the Musee Rodin in Paris at the centre. The public programs and exhibitions \u2014 unified under #Rodin100 \u2014 are bringing together new information about the man considered the father of modern sculpture.<\/p>\n

Among the Philadelphia installation’s 16 works is the plaster \u201cYoung Mother in the Grotto,\u201d an ode to maternal love featuring a young woman and chubby baby, and \u201cThe Minotaur,\u201d which depicts the mythological creature with a human face said to be a self-portrait, groping and leering at a woman who seems torn between desire and revulsion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Damned\u201d is a plaster cast that even Rodin thought was too racy to exhibit, with its two women in a lusty embrace, buttocks aloft.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia’s version of \u201cThe Kiss\u201d is a copy commissioned in 1926 by theatre magnate Jules Mastbaum. The museum, which opened in 1929, was a gift to the city from Mastbaum, who was introduced to Rodin’s work during a 1923 trip to Paris.<\/p>\n

Mastbaum hired two French-born architects living in Philadelphia, Paul Cret and Jacques Greber, to create the limestone museum, modeled on a 17th-century chateau Rodin preserved at his home in Meudon. Its holdings include more than 140 bronze, marble and plaster sculptures, plus drawings, prints, letters and books.<\/p>\n

He and his architects wanted a great marble sculpture as the museum’s centerpiece. They got permission from the Musee Rodin in Paris to re-create \u201cThe Kiss,\u201d and sculptor Henri Greber \u2014 Jacques Greber’s father \u2014 was selected and given a full-size plaster model to work from. It’s one of four copies of sculpture considered by some as his masterpiece.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all of these works, he’s sharing with us a catalogue of passion,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n

It will be on view until 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA\u2014Auguste Rodin’s sensuous piece \u201cThe Kiss\u201d will, fittingly, form the core of an installation at Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum centred on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":88156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art-and-culture","mauthors-kristen-de-groot","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}