Event Item: 00050

The Age of Rodin at MAP

Exhibition: 9th Sep 2007 to 28th Oct 2007

Source: http://www.museoarteponce.org

Museo de Arte de Ponce (MAP), in collaboration with Museo Soumaya in Mexico, presents a new exhibition 'The Age of Rodin: Sculpture in France from Romanticism to Modernism'. This includes 74 objects made of bronze, marble, plaster, terracotta and porcelain, and presents Auguste Rodin's (París 1796 - Meudon 1840) vision of art, which brought sculpture into the modern era through freer and more expressive forms.

The Age of Rodin also presents the creative context in which Rodin worked with a selection of 30 objects from his contemporaries, including his student and assistant, Camille Claudel (1864 - 1943); Emile - Antoine Bourdelle (1861 - 1929); Jean Baptiste - Carpeaux (1827 - 1875); and Albert - Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (1824 - 1887). Also included in the show are works by Louis - Ernest Barrias (1841 - 1905); Charles Cordier (1827 - 1905); Jean Alexandre - Falguière (1831 - 1900); Jean Lèon Gerôme (1824 - 1904); Henri Peinte (1845 - 1912); James Pradier (1790 - 1852); Hiram Powers (1805 - 1873); Príncipe Paolo Troubetzkoy (1866 - 1938); and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). The sculptures in the show represent elements that are present at one point or another in our lives: abundance, metamorphosis, suffering, silence, communion, nature and love, among others.

One of the sculptures included in the exhibit is The Age of Bronze (1877). This work is well known due to the controversy caused by its extreme realism. When it was first exhibited at the Paris Salon, Rodin was accused of casting the sculpture from life. In 1880, the debate was settled when six sculptors confirmed that it came only from Rodin's hands.

The Kiss and The Thinker, two of the most emblematic sculptures by Rodin, will also be included into the exhibition, as well as independent works that came from his monumental project The Gates of Hell (1880). It is worth mentioning that this project portrayed the central theme of the chapter that described hell in Dante Alighieri's (1265 - 1321) transcendental masterpiece: The Divine Comedy. In The Gates of Hell, Rodin represents scenes taken from the book, depicting Dante as the central figure: The Thinker, whom watches the sinners below. It can be understood, also, as the artist as a judge and prisoner of society.

Other sculptures that can be seen in The Age of Rodin are Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse's Venus and Cupid and Ernest Barrias's Nature Unveiling Herself before Science, which belong to MAP's permanent collection. MAP will be the first venue to present this traveling exhibit, which will then travel to other institutions in Latin America beginning with Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogota, Columbia. The Age of Rodin will close at the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City.

The relationship between MAP and Rodin began in 1962, when Don Luis A. Ferré, the museum's founder, purchased Apollo Crushing the Serpent Python for the institution's permanent collection. In 1965, Don Luis acquired Portrait of Claude Lorrain to strengthen the museum's sculpture collection.

Museo de Arte de Ponce, 2325 Ave. Las Américas, Ponce, Puerto Rico.