Collected Works (Vol. III)

RODIN I'N RIME 1907 AUTHOR’S NOTE AUGUSTE RODIN AND THE NOMENCLATURE OF HIS WORKS A STUDY IN SPITE WHEN illegitimate criticism is met with a smart swing on the point of the jaw, and has subsided into an unpleasant and unpitiful heap; when its high-well-born brother has shaken hands—not without many years of friendly sparring—with the new pugilist, all his family are very disappointed, for Society takes no notice of them in its (to them un- seemly) adulation of the rising star. Their unfraternal feeling may even lead them to employ a sandbagger and a dark night to rid them of this dreamer Joseph. In the case of the success, in the heavy weights, of the Meudon Chicken (M. Rodin will forgive us for the lengths to which we carry our analogy), envy has given up hope even of sandbags, and is now engaged in the ridiculous task of attempting to disconcert the eye of the Fancy Boy by flipping paper pellets at him across the arena. They do not reach him, it is true: but as I, who happen to be sitting in a back row, admiring the clean, scientific sequences of rib-punchers, claret-tappers, &c., &c., recently received one of these missiles in the eye, my attention was called tothe disturber. I will now do my part as a law-abiding citizen and take my boot to the offender, as a warning to him and all of his kidney. I shall not mention his name: that he would enjoy: that is perhaps what he hoped. I will merely state that he is one of those unwashen and oleagi- nous individuals who are a kind of Mérodack- Jauneau without the Mérodack, z.e., without the gleam of intention in their work which to the lay mind redeems even the most grotesque imbecility of technique, and the most fatuous ignorance of all subjects connected or un- connected with art. By philosophy he under- stands ‘‘ Science and Hflealth”: by poetry Lake Harris or Eric Mackay: he expects a painting to tell a pretty story or to upset a metaphysical position. Ilis conversation is like that of Planchette : or if William Horton were vocal-—— But Heaven forbid! What he said, though parrot-talk, caught up in some fifth-rate sculptor’s studio, no doubt, had so much truth in it, carefully concealed by the lying misinterpretation he had put on it, that, as I said, the pellet hit me. This was what it came to. Rodin’s works, it is said, meaz nothing. He makes a study: people see it in his studio: A. goes up and says to the Master: ‘* Ah, how beautiful,” &c., ad mauseam-—‘ I suppose it is ‘Earth and the Spring.’” B. follows, and suggests ‘‘ Hercules and Cacus”’; C. thinks “ The Birth ofa Flower”; D. calls it “ De- spair”; E. varies it with ‘‘ Moses breaking the ‘Tables of the Law”; F. cocks his eye warily, and asks if it is not meant for ‘“ Mary Magdalene”; G. votes for ‘The LBeetle- Crusher and his Muse,” and so on, day after day, till Z. comes round and recognises it for Balzac. odin shakes him warmly by both hands: Balzac it is for all time—and one ceases to wonder that it was rejected! Now, of course, this paper pellet is in any case very wide of its mark. Jodincan easily sculp himself a tabernacle and go in with Whistler—and even drag in Velasquez; but here am [ illustrating, however feebly, the Works, in Poetry: and poetry cannot, un- fortunately, ever be pure technique. I have long wished to write ‘*‘ A Sonnet in W. and P.” (with Whip as the keynote); a triolet in U. and K. ; an ode in S. Sh. Sw. Sp. and Str.—and so on; but people would merely say ‘‘ Nonsense Verses” (so they do now, some of them !). So that my work is liable to the most vital misinterpretation. My lest friend tells the utterly false, utterly funny story about me that I wrote one sonnet for ‘* L’Ange déchu” and another for ‘ Icare.” The real heart of the attack is, of course, against Rodin’s intention, and it is my object to show what rubbish it is, even granting the literary basis of criticism to be valid. I am 109