Beethoven and Wagner he breaks the academic laws of his art, but then
he is Rodin, and where he achieves magnificently lesser men would
miserably perish. His large tumultuous music is for his chisel alone
to ring out and sing.



II

The first and still the best study of Rodin as man and thinker is to
be found in a book by Judith Cladel, the daughter of the novelist
(author of Mes Paysans). She named it Auguste Rodin, pris sur la vie,
and her pages are filled with surprisingly vital sketches of the
workaday Rodin. His conversations are recorded; altogether this little
picture has much charm and proves what Rodin asserts--that women
understand him better than men. There is a fluid, feminine, disturbing
side to his art and nature very appealing to emotional women. Mlle.
Cladel's book has also been treasure-trove for the anecdote hunters;
all have visited her pages. Camille Mauclair admits his indebtedness;
so does Frederick Lawton, whose big volume is the most complete life
(probably official) that has thus far appeared, either in French or
English. It is written on the side of Rodin, like Mauclair's more
subtle study, and like the masterly criticism of Roger Marx. Born at
Paris in 1840--the natal year of his friends Claude Monet and
Zola--and in humble circumstances, not enjoying a liberal education,
the young Rodin had to fight from the beginning, fight for bread as
well as an art schooling. He was not even sure of a vocation. An
accident determined it. He became a workman in the atelier of
Carrier-Belleuse, the sculptor, but not until he had failed at the
Beaux-Arts (which was a stroke of luck for his genius) and after he