In his sculptural work,Auguste Rodin broke with almost every tradi-tion that had existed in the genre since Michelangelo.But his decisivestep towards modernism was taken in another genre-and out ot thepublic eve.Rodin's erotic nude studies,created during the final twodecades of his life,bear witness to a completely new approach to art,one that freed itself from contemporary style,from every previously accepted ideal of beauty,and from all existing concepts of morality.The swiltness of the line,with the snapshot effect,and the peermissive-ness of the motifs indicate the intimate quality of the pages-Pencilsketches with watercolor that,sometimes years later,Rodin cut out insilhouette to combine with one another.

In his sculptural work,Auguste Rodin broke with almost every tradi-tion that had existed in the genre since Michelangelo.But his decisivestep towards modernism was taken in another genre-and out ot thepublic eve.Rodin's erotic nude studies,created during the final twodecades of his life,bear witness to a completely new approach to art,one that freed itself from contemporary style,from every previously accepted ideal of beauty,and from all existing concepts of morality.The swiltness of the line,with the snapshot effect,and the peermissive-ness of the motifs indicate the intimate quality of the pages-Pencilsketches with watercolor that,sometimes years later,Rodin cut out insilhouette to combine with one another.

"Never taking his eyes away from the model,"Rilke enthused as earlyas 1902,"and with his swift,experienced hand entirely abandoned to thepaper,he drew countless gestures that had never been seen before-andit turned out that the expressive power emanating Dom tnem wasimmense.Sequences of movement that had never befbre been graspedand recognized as a whole appeared,and they had all the immediacy,force and warmth of a life that had an almost animal quality.

 But few others recognized the revolutionary artistic quality otRodin's drawings.The general opinion was that they were indecent and"a threat to morality,"and only selected examples were shown in Public.In 1906 Harrv Craf Kessler,the director of the Grand-Ducal Museumin Weimar,was immediately dismissed when he dared to exhibit a smallselection of the drawings.

 The watercolors and cut-outs reproduced in this volume,includingthe notorious Weimar drawings,are brought together here for the firsttime from museums and private collections all over the world；PreviousPublications have only included those held by the Musée Rodin in Paris.In the context of contemporary accounts and reactions,the art histo-rian Anne-Marie Bonnet describes in her introductory essay the con-ditions in which these intimate masterpieces were created,and rinds'nthem surprising affinities with the work of twentieth-century avant-garde artists,notably Duchamp and Yves Klein.

Anne-Marie Bonnet Rodin's Late Drawings Towards a Culture of Desire

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