Auguste Rodin

France·1840-1917

Auguste Rodin founded modern sculpture by refusing to follow the rules. Born in Paris in 1840 to a working-class family, he was rejected three times by the École des Beaux-Arts and spent decades as a craftsman and decorator, largely teaching himself. After a transformative 1875 trip to Italy, where he encountered Donatello and Michelangelo, Rodin began making naturalistic sculptures that scandalized the art world—his *Age of Bronze* was so lifelike that critics accused him of casting from live models. From 1880 onward, he devoted himself to *The Gates of Hell*, an monumental unfinished portal inspired by Dante, from which emerged his most iconic works including *The Thinker* and *The Kiss*. His sculptures celebrate individual character and the turbulent human form rather than mythology or allegory, departing radically from academic tradition. By 1900, Rodin was world-renowned, his reputation only solidifying after his death in 1917.