Week 5: Musée Rodin

Between 1727 and 1732, in Paris’s 7th arrondissement, a beautiful big house was built for a wigmaker who happened to be more or less the only person to emerge  from the Law crisis (one of the worst times in history for France’s economy) with any money. Unfortunately for him the mansion – called the Hotel Biron - was only completed a year before his death, after which it was sold on and on, from person to person until 1820, when somebody had the sensible idea to place it in the capable hands of the nuns of Sacré-Cœur who turned it into a school for girls.

The school was closed in 1905 (when the French government legally separated the Church from the State) and the building split up into lodgings. The nuns’ loss became the house’s gain when the sculptor Rodin rented out some of the rooms and turned the hotel into his studio. Towards the end of his life he donated all of his sculpture to the State of France under the condition that it would turn the hotel into a museum dedicated to his work. This it did and now the hotel is one of the two sites which make up the Musée Rodin and this is where we did this week’s shoot.

Born in 1840, Auguste Rodin is widely recognised as the father  of modern sculpture. As is the fate of many great artists, fame and acclaim took their time to reach him and, although he dearly wanted academic recognition, he was never accepted into Paris’ foremost art school. Many of his most interesting works were criticised during his lifetime because they didn’t follow the generally-accepted sculptural rules; they weren’t mythological  or allegorical and lots of them didn’t even have subjects. Rodin was more interested in individual character and physicality  and he would often get his models to walk around his studio (stark-naked) rather than pose, so he could get a better idea of how they moved.

This sculpture - "The Age of Bronze" - was Rodin's first full-scale piece.
It is so realistically-proportioned that Rodin was accused of cheating
 by taking a cast of a real human body.

To pay homage to Rodin’s love of physicality, I wanted the look this week to be structured and simple, and to allow for as much freedom of movement as is possible in a floor-length ball dress... As well as its practical cut, I chose this dress because it is the perfect colour to mimic  the aged, weathered bronze out of which so many of the sculptures around the Musée and gardens are made.

The Thinker

I decided to carry on this theme with various pieces of bronze or copper jewellery which led to another home-made fashion project. When compiling the outfit, I realised I didn’t own the bronze/copper necklace which was really needed to complete it, but that I did own enough Kirby grips to make a scale model of the Eiffel Tower. SO, the necklace you can see in this shoot is a golden bird necklace from Accessorize, worn back to front with a fan shape at the front made of Kirby grips... Easy peasy!

Dress- second-hand, originally from Ghost

Earrings - Turkish shop in Edinburgh Grassmarket

As for the shoot itself, I am beginning to notice that it gets a little less scary, and a little less nerve-wracking every week. As soon as the coat was off this time, I just decided to enjoy making the bizarre shapes Josie directed me into. I think the tourists enjoyed it too, they certainly took an awful lot of photos... What’s more, we got our first sunshine in weeks, which is just as well since nothing less could have done justice to the beauty of the garden and surroundings.

This is probably Rodin's most famous statue, The Kiss.
 I hope you're all appreciating the picture, I got told off about 30 seconds after taking
this because I hadn't noticed the "No Photos" sign...