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Words of Wisdom

Jean de la Fontaine on Passion

“Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.” – Jean de la Fontaine
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“Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.” – Jean de la Fontaine

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The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

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While looking at Jean-Antoine Houdon’s portrait bust of Voltaire in the Louvre, sculptor Auguste Rodin remarked, “To tell the truth, there is no artistic work that requires as much penetrating insight as the bust and the portrait. … Such a work is the equivalent of a biography.” On a separate occasion, Rodin stated, “The resemblance that [the artist] should achieve is that of the soul. Only this matters.” A new, full-scale reinstallation at the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, focuses on Rodin putting those words into practice in his own portrait busts. Known for his large-scale, full-bodied works such as The Kiss, Rodin imbued an equal amount of passion into his symbolic, soulful portraits of friends, lovers, and the famous.

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