Rodin in Pastels

I lived in Normandy for six weeks last summer. My last two days in France were in Paris with one of the girls I had been working with. We crammed as much as we could into that short amount of time and made it through my list of things to see with some extra wandering-and-getting-lost time. Four museums (Rodin, Pompidou, Orsay, Orangerie), the Arc de Triomphe, Avenue de Champs-Elysees, the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, the Pere Lachaise cemetery (aka the final resting place of Jim Morrison, among others), the Palais Garnier opera house (original setting of Phantom of the Opera)...am I forgetting anything? Probably, it's all a blur now.

One of my favorite places (a close second behind the Eiffel Tower, obviously) was the Rodin Museum.

The Gates of Hell, Rodin, 1880-1890, bronze

Auguste Rodin was a sculptor, so the museum is made up of a garden filled with statues, as well as a building with more of his work and other exhibits inside (almost 300 pieces total).

The Kiss, Rodin, 1882, originally in marble

Inside the museum are works by Rodin as well as pieces by other artists from his personal collection. The sculpture below is called Misery by Jules Desbois. It's a little creepy, yes, but still interesting.

Misery, Jules Desbois, 1894, terracotta

I have a picture of it from the other side which I've sketched a couple times this week. I've never been great at faces, so I conveniently made this one too big for the page to avoid the head and face.

Crouching Woman is a sculpture by Rodin of a woman in a similar pose. Do we see a theme here?

I'm still working through all my photos, so stay tuned for more from France!

xo