Rodin himself said that he wanted to "render inner feelings through muscular movement," and in doing so he led the way to the expressionism of the twentieth century. His pieces, some so true to life that he was accused of casting the form from a live model, attracted both praise and critical debate. Often rough and jagged on the exterior, seemingly unfinished, his studies let the human body express not only its inner dimension, but also utilized the human form to symbolize larger themes. Rodin confronted moral weakness and distress as well as passion and beauty. "The sculptor must learn to reproduce the surface, which means all that vibrates on the surface, soul, love, passion, life," Rodin once said, as quoted in Albert Elsen's Rodin. "Sculpture is thus the art of hollows and mounds, not of smoothness, or even polished planes."
"Rodin looked carefully at the sculpture of Michelangelo and Puget, learning from them to appreciate the unique possibilities of the human body for emotional expression," according to Richard G. Tansey and Fred S. Kleiner, writing in Gardner's Art through the Ages.
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