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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

Auguste Rodin, Burghers of Calais, monumental sculpture

College

Fine Arts and Communications

Department

Art

Abstract

In 1889, a French 19th century sculptor, Auguste Rodin, created a monument that marked the historical heroism of six men who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of their town in Calais, France in 1347. The Burghers of Calais (see fig. 1), cast in bronze, has twelve copies in existence today, but was originally intended to be placed in Calais and now rests in front of the town hall. In the piece, each of these men, dressed in sackcloth, used their lives as payment for the town that was captured by King Edward the III of England. What is remarkable about this piece is the artist’s approach of depicting six men defeated, and walking toward their own deaths. Rodin’s piece didn’t follow the mold for most 19th century monuments (that of depicting heroes at their greatest, elevated above the viewer), but exhibits the sorrow and pain from being overcome by a foreign conqueror. “Rodin was also able to give a universal character to the group: by making the Burghers of Calais men like us, placed in a situation that we might experience, he produced on of the masterpieces of an era which placed man and his internal world at the center of its preoccupations.”

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