His Burghers of Calais is among his
famous artworks. The sculpture
commemorates an event from the city of Calais' medieval past. Six men came to the King of England (Edward
III) in 1341 to offer their own lives to save their French city from
destruction against the English invaders.
They came with nooses around their necks, knowing that they would be
executed. Although their deaths would
save Calais, these burghers aren't pictured here as stalwart heroes but rather
as ordinary people, vexed with understandably profound emotion at the prospect
of dying.
They each have differing emotions
on their impending doom. One buries his
head in his hands while another looks sad.
One tries to keep a bold face on but meanwhile clenches his fists
tightly in unconcealable anxiety. Their
act of bravery was superhuman, but their emotions at the event are pictured
here as completely human. This is an end
to the artistic depiction of the steadfast appearance of heroes within the face
of adversity, as we've seen since, like, the beginning. Now the artist wants to show us the real,
honest side to human emotion. And these
brave men were not figures of nobility or rank; they were humble burghers who
volunteered out of duty, not because they necessarily felt very strong in that moment.
Their emotion-ridden faces and gestures here create a powerful image of
profound realism. Rodin also placed his
life-size figures on an open slab of bronze that was intended to be put at
ground level. The work was meant to be
viewed up close (for viewers to walk up to it and around it) to remind people
of the boundless capacity for love and self-sacrifice.
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