Rodin_2011

30. Nijinsky (Nijinsky)

Conceived in plaster 1912 , this version cast by Georges Rudier in a numbered edition of 12 between 1958 – 9 . Bronze with brown green patina and reddish tones Height 9 ¾ inches ( 24 . 8 cm) Signed and numbered A. Rodin no. 1 and stamped by the Musée Rodin 1958 provenance Musée Rodin, Paris; Private collection, acquired 1959 ; sold Sotheby’s London, June 27 , 2001 , lot 117 ; New York Art Market; Private Collection. literature Cécile Goldscheider, “Rodin et la danse”, Art de France , no. 3 , 19 6 3 , pp. 330 – 34 ; John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin: The Collection of the Rodin Museum, Philadelphia , Philadelphia, 197 6, p. 45 ; Jean-Michel Nectoux, L’Apres-midi d’un faune , excat, Paris, 989 , pp. 24 – 2 6; Vaslav Nijinsky, Cahiers. Le Sentiment, (unabridged edition), Paris, 1995 , p. 45 6; Martine Kahane and Erik Näslund, ed., Ninjinski , excat, Paris, 2000 , p. 45 , 98 – 99 , 232 – 45 ; U. Berger, “Three Sculptors and a Dancer: Nijinsky’s Relations with Maillol, Rodin and Kolbe,” in Apollo , vol. 15 6, no. 490 , November 2002 , pp. 42 – 9 ; Antoinette Le Normand- Romain, Rodin et le bronze: catalogue des oeuvres conservées au Musée Rodin , vol. II, Paris, 2007 , p. 550 Rodin’s fascination with the expressive power of dance and the physical abilities of dancers is documented in numerous drawings and sculptures depicting both renowned and anonymous artists of the dance. In representing these bodies in motion, Rodin often emphasized the dancers’ elasticity and control, and the bold lines and shapes that their limbs and torsos imposed on the surrounding space. Nijinsky is unique in its representation of immense physical strength, and its suggestion of powerful energies that are partly contained, partly released, in the figure’s dynamically torqued, uncoiling pose. This sketch of Nijinsky dancing is closely related to one of modernism’s greatest succès de scandale . On May 29 , 1912 , Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes presented its world premiere of Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun at the Thêatre de Châtelet in Paris, with Vaslav Nijinsky ( 1890 – 1950 ) in the title role. When the performance ended, just after the faun’s famously auto-erotic gesture, the audience was stunned into silence; just a few a few odd boos and calls of ‘encore’ could be heard after the curtain fell. Diaghilev ordered the troupe to dance the ballet again and, this time there was (mostly) applause. Rodin was in the audience that evening, and rushed onstage to congratulate Nijinsky, who had choreographed the ballet as well.

What followed in the press shortly afterward would prove far more traumatic—for Rodin. Gaston Calmette, director of Figaro , denounced the ballet in an inflammatory screed that