As part of his reimmersion, Rodin took classes with Antoine-Louis Barye (1795–1875), an animalier known as the “Michelangelo of the menagerie.” Barye was particularly fond of depicting big cats—lions, tigers, jaguars—with a focus on musculature that would greatly influence the younger artist. Rodin also started working for another sculptor, Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (1824–1887), a purveyor of commercial objets d’art and architectural embellishments.
Throughout, Rodin continued to make art, and in 1864 he created what he considered his first serious effort: Head of the Man with the Broken Nose. The sitter was a local handyman whose countenance included the eponymous feature. Rodin’s studio was unheated, and during a cold spell the clay froze, causing the back of the head to crack off, leaving just the face. In Rodin’s mind, this only enhanced the work, so he left it as it was, renaming it Mask of the Man with the Broken Nose. Thanks to Rodin’s warts-and-all approach, however, the piece was denied entry into the Salons of 1863 and 1864, though a reworked version was ultimately accepted for the Salon of 1875.
The 1870s proved to be a turning point in Rodin’s career. He briefly joined the army during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), mustering out to find that the conflict had interrupted the redevelopment of Paris, leaving few avenues for employment. Encountering the same problem, Belleuse had already decamped for greener pastures in Brussels, and he invited Rodin to join him there. Rodin stayed in the Belgian capital for six years, realizing various projects alongside Belleuse until the two had a falling out over Rodin’s insistence on signing his work. Belleuse refused to allow it, whereupon Rodin struck out on his own as a full-time artist.
In 1876 Rodin traveled to Rome, Florence, and Naples, where he took in the accomplishments of Michelangelo and Donatello. That same year, he exhibited eight sculptures at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia as part of the Belgian pavilion. Though his work received no awards or critical mentions, Rodin would become hugely popular in America.
In 1877 Rodin took another run at the Salon with a plaster model for a standing male nude titled The Age of Bronze, originally shown in Brussels as The Vanquished. Its reception was the direct opposite of Mask’s and its rough appearance. Instead, it elicited accusations that it was too flawless to be anything but a life cast of a model. Rodin, of course, vigorously denied the charges, though the controversy raised his profile. To forestall such criticism going forward, his next piece, a portrayal of Saint John the Baptist, was larger than life, but it, too, prompted a backlash for rendering its subject without clothes.
