There are two statues by Rodin at the Musée du Luxembourg which especially attract and hold me; _l’Age d’Airain_ (the Iron Age) and _Saint-Jean-Baptiste_. They seem even more full of life than the others, if that is possible. The other works of the Master which bear them company are certainly all quivering with truth; they all produce the impression of real flesh, they all breathe, but these move. One day in the Master’s atelier at Meudon I told him my especial fondness for these two figures. “They are certainly among those in which I have carried imitative art farthest,” he replied. “Though I have produced others whose animation is not less striking; for example, my _Bourgeois de Calais_, my _Balzac_, my _Homme qui marche_ (Man walking). “And even in those of my works in which action is less pronounced, I have always sought to give some indication of movement. I have very rarely represented complete repose. I have always endeavored to express the inner feelings by the mobility of the muscles. “This is so even in my busts, to which I have often given a certain slant, a certain obliquity, a certain expressive direction, which would emphasize the meaning of the physiognomy. “Art cannot exist without life. If a sculptor wishes to interpret joy, sorrow, any passion whatsoever, he will not be able to move us unless he first knows how to make the beings live which he evokes. For how could the joy or the sorrow of an inert object—of a block of stone—affect us? Now, the illusion of life is obtained in our art by good modelling and by movement. These two qualities are like the blood and the breath of all good work.” [Illustration: MAN WALKING By Rodin ] “Master,” I said, “you have already talked to me of modelling, and I have noticed that since then I am better able to appreciate the masterpieces of sculpture. I should like to ask a few questions about movement, which, I feel, is not less important. “When I look at your figure of the _Iron Age_, who awakes, fills his lungs and raises high his arms; or at your _Saint John_, who seems to long to leave his pedestal to carry abroad his words of faith, my admiration is mixed with amazement. It seems to me that there is sorcery in this science which lends movement to bronze. I have also studied other _chefs-d’œuvre_ of your great predecessors; for example, _Maréchal Ney_ and the _Marseillaise_ by Rude, the _Dance_ by Carpeaux, as well as Barye’s wild animals, and I confess that I have never found any satisfactory explanation for the effect which these sculptures produce upon me. I continue to ask myself how such masses of stone and iron can possibly seem to move, how figures so evidently motionless can yet appear to act and even to lend themselves to violent effort.” “As you take me for a sorcerer,” Rodin answered, “I shall try to do justice to my reputation by accomplishing a task much more difficult for me than animating bronze—that of explaining how I do it.