Radical Sculpture: Rodin and Nietzschean Criticism at the Dawn and Dusk of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This essay aims to be the first diachronic reconstruction, philological investigation, and comparative analysis of the criticism of art and culture addressing the groundbreaking sculpture of Auguste Rodin in the wake of the revolutionary philosophical concepts of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzschean ideas stimulated not only Rodin literature but also the sculptor’s personal environment in the first decade of the twentieth century, and re-emerged in later studies of his art. They serve as a powerful tool to acclaim Rodin’s transdisciplinary significance as a modernising leader promoting the emancipation of the individual from restrictive conventions.

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