AUGUSTE RODIN

Sculptor Auguste Rodin once wrote that "one has only to look at a human face to find a soul, no feature deceives: hypocrisy is as transparent as sincerity. The inclining of the brow, the least furrowing of a look may reveal the secrets of the heart." Rodin was fortunate to have as his secretary Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the most sensitive poets of our time. These two essays discussing Rodin's work and development as an artist are as revealing of Rilke as they are of his subject. Written in 1903 and 1907, these essays mark the entry of the poet into the world of letters. Rilke's description of Rodin as "a worker whose only desire was to penetrate with all his forces into the humble and difficult meaning of his tools" sheds light on the profound psychic connection between the two great artists, both masters of giving life to the invisible within the visible, concerned with "the unnoticed, the small, the concealed...with the profound and surprising unrest of living things." Twenty original photographs by Michael Eastman will accompany the essays.