Rodin_2011

appeared the next day (May 30 ) on the front page of the newspaper. Rodin was among several artists who were angered by Calmette’s rhetoric on the “overly suggestive pantomime from the body of a misshapen beast, hideous of face and even more hideous in profile”, and the sculptor responded with a warm defense of Nijinsky on the front page of Le Matin . Though actually composed by Roger Marx, the article carried the authority of the world’s greatest sculptor: “You would think Nijinsky were a statue when he lies full length on the rock, with one leg bent and his flute at his lips” ( Le Matin , May 31 , 1912 , p. 1 ). Calmette immediately published a rejoinder that attacked Rodin personally: he questioned the sculptor’s “artistic morality” and, more seriously, reignited a controversy concerning Rodin’s right to the Hôtel Biron, which had previously been a convent with a consecrated chapel. Rodin was persuaded by friends to publically disown the Le Matin article. Before this retraction appeared, however, Nijinsky went personally to Meudon to thank Rodin, who asked the dancer to pose. He wished to make drawings from the nude, with a marble sculpture in mind. It is not known how many sessions transpired. The drawings have disappeared, but two photographs of the recto and verso of a single sheet have recently been identified. These show Nijnsky assuming the poses of the faun from the ballet. Why did the drawings disappear, and why didn’t Rodin execute the marble sculpture? According to legend, as recounted by Jacques-Emile Blanche in a monograph of 1947 , Diaghilev ended the posing sessions in a jealous rage when he discovered his protégé and lover nude, exhausted, and asleep at Rodin’s feet one hot summer afternoon in Meudon. But according to Nijinsky’s own journal: “[Rodin] looked at my naked body and found it badly made, that’s why he crossed out his sketches. I understood that he did not like me, and left.” 1 It was only in 19 6 3 that this work was published, by Cécile Golscheider, as representing Nijinsky. This identification was contested by the dancer Serge Lifar, on the grounds that the movement depicted was unrelated to those of the faun in the ballet. But it has been convincingly argued and widely accepted that the figure’s physiognomy and physique correspond perfectly to Nijinsky’s early 20 th century iconography. Further, Jean-Michel Nectoux has aptly noted that the mixture of human and animal features in the face capture the exact impression that Nijinsky and Léon Baskt, the costume designer, had aimed to convey in the ballet. Only 13 authorized bronze casts exist, all made by George Rudier’s foundry under the direction of the Musée Rodin in 1958 – 59 . Our example is number 1 .The work proved immediately popular, selling to collectors such as the famous art historian Sir Kenneth Clarke. Other bronze casts are in the Museum of Modern Art, New York (no. 3 ); and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

1. Vaslav Nijinsky, Cahier. Le Sentiment , Paris. Unabrdiged edition, 1995 , p. 45 6.