Like the great sculpture Auguste Rodin, dance and movement inspire me. Throughout his career, Rodin produced several interpretations full of sensuality or eroticism, seeking to express emotion through muscular movement and saying, “The sculptor must learn to reproduce the surface, which means all that vibrates on the surface: soul, love, passion, life.”
The passionate love of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta portrayed in Dante’s Divine Comedy was the theme behind Rodin’s The Kiss, a blend of eroticism and idealism in the form of two lovers emerging from the highlights and shadows. Because he adored nature, Rodin turned to women as his main subject of observation. Depending on the young women who posed for him, he chose postures likely to give her body the most expression. I love that Rodin’s approach to sculpting women was a tribute to bodies, not just submissive to men but as full partners in ardor. My photography pays homage to his quote:
I do not create. I see.
And it is because I see that I am capable of making.
My favorite piece in the Musee Rodin in Paris is this small but eloquent La Valse (The Waltz) by Camille Claudel, Rodin’s much younger student, muse and then mistress. When he left her, she destroyed many of her works and eventually died alone in a psychiatric hospital.
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share one good reason why a (talented) woman should lose her head over a man? Sigh!
© Sharon Birke
201 697 1947
Glamour Portraits of the Goddess in Every Wife & Mother
xoxox
Powerful Goddess Portraits 
May 17, 2013 @ 08:54:10
Rodin, I knew the name but not the art or the person. I enjoy learning something new. Thank you, Sharky for sharing his art and its meaning and the art that is in all of your photographs, I love what you see.
My answer…Why not? Isn’t that what life/love/passion is, taking a chance that can begin with a dance or a kiss and hopefully not ending at the gates of hell? 😉
Mountain
May 21, 2013 @ 10:54:43
A kiss to you, Mountain!