o define him in
terms heretofore applicable enough to sculptors, but wholly inapplicable
to him. It failed to see that the thing to define in his work was the
man himself, his temperament, his genius. Taken by themselves and
considered as characteristics of the Institute sculptors, the obvious
traits of this work might, that is to say, be adjudged eccentric and
empty. Fancy Professor Guillaume suddenly subordinating academic
disposition of line and mass to true structural expression! One would
simply feel the loss of his accustomed style and harmony. With M. Rodin,
who deals with nature directly, through the immediate force of his own
powerful temperament, to feel the absence of the Institute training and
traditions is absurd. The question in his case is simply whether or no
he is a great artistic personality, an extraordinary and powerful
temperament, or whether he is merely a turbulent and capricious
protestant against the measure and taste of the Institute. But this is
really no longer a question, however it may have been a few years ago;
and when his Dante portal for the new Palais des Arts Decoratifs shall
have been finished, and the public had an opportunity to see what the
sculptor's friend and only serious rival, M. Dalou, calls "one of the
most, if not the most original and astonishing pieces of sculpture of
the nineteenth century," it will be recognized that M. Rodin, so far
from being amenable to the current canon, has brought the canon itself
to judgment.

How and why, people will perceive in proportion to their receptivity.
Candor and intelligence will suffice to appreciate that the secret of M.
Rodin's art is structural expression, and that it is this and not any
superficial eccentricity of execution that definitely distinguishes him
from the Institute. Just as his imagination, his temperament, his
spiritual energy and ardor individualize the positive originality of his
motive, so the expressiveness of his treatment sets him aside from all
as well as from each of the Institute sculptors in what may be broadly
called technical attitude. No sculptor has ever carried expression
further. The sculpture of the present day has certainly not occupied
itself much with it. The Institute is perhaps a little afraid of it. It
abhors the _baroque_ rightly enough, but very likely it fails to see
that the expression of such sculpture as M. Rodin's no more resembles
the contortions of the Dresden Museum giants than it does