Rodin_2011

I had to show Balzac laboring in his study. His hair in disorder, his eyes lost in dream, a genius, who, in his small room reconstructs piece by piece a whole society to make it vibrate tumultuously in front of his contemporaries and of generations to come, a really heroic Balzac who does not take one moment of rest, who works day and night, who makes vain efforts to fill the hole hollowed out by his debts, who above all is set upon the building of an immortal monument, who boils over with passion, who frenetically maltreats his body and takes no notice of the warnings of the heart disease from which he was shortly to die. It seems to me that such a Balzac, even, seen in a public place would be greater and more worthy of admiration than just any writer who sits in a chair or who proudly poses for the enthusiastic crowd. 1

1 . Paul Gsell, “Chez Rodin,” L’art et les artistes , February 4 , 1907 , pp. 410 – 11 , author’s translation.