Rodin – Rilke – Hofmannsthal.
Man and his genius November 17, 2017 - March 18, 2018
Alte Nationalgalerie

Since the turn of the century, the National Gallery - State Museums in Berlin has presented key works by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) such as “The Thinker”, “The Bronze Age” and “Man and His Thought”. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Rodin's death, the Alte Nationalgalerie is showing a concentrated special exhibition, the focus of which is the previously less noticed bronze statuette “Man and His Genius”. The group of figures, created around 1896, shows a man from whom a female genius with wings evades and represents the symbol of artistic inspiration.

This small sculpture is closely linked to the work of two important writers: on the one hand, Rainer Maria Rilke, who played a major role in popularizing Rodin in Germany with his writings and wrote the poem “Nike” specifically to accompany this bronze. On the other hand, with Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who discovered the plaster design in Rodin's studio on his trip to Paris in 1900 and immediately commissioned its bronze casting. “Man and His Genius” stood on Hofmannsthal’s desk in Rodaun near Vienna for 20 years to inspire him. When he found himself in financial difficulties, it was Rilke who arranged for the bronze to be sold to the Swiss collector Werner Reinhart. From there it later found its way into the collection of the National Gallery.

The unfinished and fragmentary characterize Rodin's work. The question arises about the artistic signature and openness of interpretation in art. Rilke and Hofmannsthal received great inspiration from Rodin, which is reflected in their works and in the history of small bronzes.

The special thing about the exhibition, curated by Maria Obenaus and Ralph Gleis, is that for the first time a work by Rodin from the National Gallery that has previously received less attention is examined from a variety of perspectives. This bronze provides an insight into the art world around 1900 with a few additional comparative pieces. In addition to the sculptures from the Musée Rodin in Paris and the Kunsthalle Bremen, graphics by Eugène Carrière and Max Klinger from the copper engraving cabinet and the art library of the State Museums in Berlin as well as autographs and photographs from archives in Frankfurt am Main, Marbach and Bern will be shown. On the one hand, they make Rodin's working method understandable, and on the other hand, they convey the history of the object in the context of the literature of the time - and are about the inspiration in art of Rodin and his contemporaries.