“What is so poignant about Rodin’s figures is that we find ourselves in them; we see our disenchantments reflected there; according to Stéphane Mallarmé’s fine expression, ‘they are our fellow sufferers’.”
Depicted by Rodin as a young woman, naked and crouching forward on the ground, her long tresses cascading over her face, Danaïd is one of the artist’s most touching figures. Onlookers will indeed strongly empathize with a pose conveying such abandonment and despair. In an essay that combines analysis of the myth with a history of form and aesthetics, Aline Magnien brings a fresh take on this marble sculpture that breaks away from traditional iconography. With luminous modelling and devoid of shadowy hollows, Danaïd recalls the words of Gaston Bachelard: “The spring is an irresistible birth, a continuous birth.”