Best 55 quotes of Auguste Rodin on MyQuotes

A mediocre man copying nature will never produce a work of art, because he really looks without seeing, and though he may have noted each detail minutely, the result will be flat and without character... the artist on the contrary, sees; that is to say, his eye, grafted on his heart, reads deeply into the bosom of nature.

An artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth.

Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which nature herself is animated.

Art is the pleasure of a spirit that enters nature and discovers that it too has a soul.

As paradoxical as it may seem a great sculptor is as much a colourist as the best painter, or rather the best engraver. He plays so skillfully with all the resources of relief, he blends so well the boldness of light with the modesty of shadow, that his sculptures please one, as much as the most charming etchings.

Black is the queen of colours.

He who is discouraged after a failure is not a real artist.

How painful it is to find that my figure can be of no help to my future... how painful to see it rejected on account of a slanderous suspicion!

I am like a moon that shines on an immense, unknown sea where ships never pass

I believe that photography can create great works of art, but hitherto it has been extraordinarily bourgeois and babbling. (1908)

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.

If the artist succeeds in producing the impression of a movement which takes several moments for accomplishment, his work is certainly much less conventional than the scientific image, where time is abruptly suspended.

If the artist only reproduces superficial features as photography does, if he copies the lineaments of a face exactly, without reference to character, he deserves no admiration. The resemblance which he ought to obtain is that of the soul.

If we now seek the spiritual significance of the technique of Michelangelo we shall find that his sculpture expressed restless energy.

I grant you that the artist does not see Nature as she appears to the vulgar, because his emotion reveals to him the hidden truths beneath appearances.

I know very well that one must fight, for one is often in contradiction to the spirit of the age.

I have unbounded admiration for the nude. I worship it like a god.

I invent nothing, I rediscover.

In art, immorality cannot exist. Art is always sacred.

In front of the model I work with the same will to reproduce truth as if I were making a portrait. I do not correct nature, I incorporate myself into it; it directs me. I can only work with a model. The sight of human forms nourishes and comforts me.

In short, Beauty is everywhere. It is not that she is lacking to our eye, but our eyes which fail to perceive her. Beauty is character and expression. Well, there is nothing in nature which has more character than the human body. In its strength and its grace it evokes the most varied images. One moment it resembles a flower: the bending torso is the stalk; the breasts, the head, and the splendor of the hair answer to the blossoming of the corolla. The next moment it recalls the pliant creeper, or the proud and upright sapling.

Inside you there's an artist you don't know about. He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight.

It is the artist who is truthful and it is photography which lies, for in reality time does not stop

Love your calling with passion, it is the meaning of your life.

Man enjoys living on the edge of his dreams and neglects the real things of the world which are so beautiful. The ignorant and indifferent destroy beautiful things merely by looking at the marble. Things that remake the soul of him who understands them.

Man's naked form belongs to no particular moment in history; it is eternal, and can be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages.

Mere exactitude, of which photography and moulage [life casting] are the lowest forms, does not inspire feelings.

My drawings are the result of my sculpture.

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.

Patience is also a form of action.

Recently I have taken to isolating limbs, the torso. Why am I blamed for it? Why is the head allowed and not portions of the body? Every part of the human figure is expressive.

Sculpture is the art of the hole and the lump.

The artist enriches the soul of humanity. The artist delights people with a thousand different shades of feeling.

The artist has only to trust his eyes.

The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms, Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him.

The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.

The body always expresses the spirit whose envelope it is. And for him who can see, the nude offers the richest meaning.

The delicate droop of the petals standing out in relief, is like the eyelid of a child.

The human body is first and foremost a mirror to the soul and its greatest beauty comes from that.

The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist!

The modes of expression of men of genius differ as much as their souls, and it is impossible to say that in some among them, drawing and color are better or worse than in others.

The only principle in art is to copy what you see. Dealers in aesthetics to the contrary, every other method is fatal.

The realities of nature surpass our most ambitious dreams.

There are unknown forces in nature; when we give ourselves wholly to her, without reserve, she lends them to us; she shows us these forms, which our watching eyes do not see, which our intelligence does not understand or suspect.

There is a continual exchange of ideas between all minds of a generation. Journalists, popular novelists, illustrators, and cartoonists adapt the truths discovered by the powerful intellects for the multitude. It is like a spiritual flood, like a gush that pours into multiple cascades until it forms the great moving sheet of water that stands for the mentality of a period.

There is no need to create. Genius comes only to those who know how to use their eyes and their intelligence.

There is nothing ugly in art except that which is without character, that is to say, that which offers no outer or inner truth.

There should be no argument in regard to morality in art. There is no morality in nature.

The work of art is already within the block of marble. I just chop off whatever isn't needed.

To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth.