LA MEIJE BY AUGUSTE RODIN

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AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917)  

La Meije (3,984m- 13, 071ft)

France (Isère)

In Le Glacier, crayon au graphite, estompe, watercolor, n° 4225, Musée Rodin, Paris 

(La Meije view from the Col du Lautaret) 

The mountain 

La Meije (3,984m- 13, 071ft) is a mountain in the Massif des Écrins range, located at the border of the Hautes-Alpes and Isère départements. It overlooks the nearby village of La Grave, a mountaineering centre and ski resort, well known for its off-piste and extreme skiing possibilities, and also dominates the view west of the Col du Lautaret. It is the second highest mountain of the Écrins after Barre des Écrins. The central and second highest summit has five teeth, the highest of which is known as Le Doigt de Dieu (The Finger of God). This summit was reached from the northeast on June 28, 1870, by Christian and Ulrich Almer and Christian Gertsch, guiding Meta Brevoort and W.A.B. Coolidge. The ridge from the central to the main, Western peak, which is 13 meters higher, was considered an insurmountable obstacle for the next 15 years.
The Western true summit of La Meije, the Grand Pic, is notorious in that there is no "easy" path to its top and it was the last major peak in the Alps to be summited. The first ascent was eventually made from the southwest on 16 August 1877 by father and son Pierre Gaspard and their client Emmanuel Boileau de Castelnau. Their approach, over the south buttress Arête du Promontoire and further over the Glacier Carré and the southwest face of the Grand Pic is now the normal route.
On July 26, 1885, Ludwig Purtscheller and the brothers Otto and Emil Zsigmondy made the first traverse from the central to the main summit, via the "insurmountable" gap that is now known as the Brèche Zsigmondy, in what is still considered a classic route though thoroughly modified by a may 1964 rockfall. The traverse in the opposite direction was accomplished 6 years later by Ulrich Almer, Fritz Boss and J.H. Gibson.
The south face is widely considered to be the most difficult of La Meije. Within two weeks after their successful traverse, the Zsigmondy brothers, together with Karl Schulz, tried to reach the Brèche Zsigmondy over the south face, but Emil died in the attempt. The first successful attempt was not until twenty-seven years later, in 1912 by Angelo Dibona, Luigi Rizzi, and the brothers Guido and Max Mayer, while a direct route over the south face to the Grand Pic was only climbed in 1935 and that to the Central Pic in 1951.
For mountaineering, La Meije can be approached from two mountain refuges:
- The refuge du Promontoire at 3,082 metres, situated at the bottom of the steep south buttress of the peak, and allows access to routes on the south face of the mountain.
- The refuge de l'Aigle at 3,450 metres, situated at the top of the Tabuchet glacier, and allows access to the north face.

The artist

François Auguste René Rodin known as Auguste Rodin was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past. He was schooled traditionally, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition, although he was never accepted into Paris's foremost school of art.

When Rodin does not sculpt, he draws. Auguste Rodin has created some 10,000 drawings among which more than 7,000 are preserved in the Rodin Museum. It is very rare that the drawing serves as a study, a project for a sculpture or a monument. The work of the draftsman is developed in parallel with that of the sculptor. If, for reasons of conservation, the works on paper can only be shown very punctually, they are not a minor part of the art of Rodin, who affirms at the end of his life in his notebooks : « My drawings are the key to my work, my sculpture is only drawing in all dimensions ».  Beyond the simple preparatory work, drawing is for Rodin another practice, another field of artistic reflection that he discovers even before sculpture, at the age of ten.  Inventor of the first draft, Rodin takes the habit of letting the model evolve in front of him without indicating artificial pose, so as to capture on the sheet the natural movement.

Rodin also practiced the engraving which allowed him to diffuse his drawings and his sculptures. These engravings are gathered in an album.  He produced about 1,000 engravings. Auguste-Hilaire Léveillé is one of the engravers who reproduced a number of his statues.

Rodin practiced  also photography and used it abundantly. He had a team of photographers, such as Gaudanzio Marconi, Karl Bodmer, Victor Pannelier and Freuler who photograph the models, sculptures finalized or in the course of work. These photographs serve as blanks, but also for corrections, Rodin underlining or retouching some part with pencil, pen, brush or wash, on the photographic prints of his sculptures. They serve to dialogue with the practitioners as can be read in the correspondence with Bourdelle or to correct the drawings.

2017 - A Still Life Collection 
Un blog de Francis Rousseau