And to this man, the eternal search is for beauty, which, according to his creed, exists in everything that lives, moves, or has its being. “Nothing is ugly that has life,” Rodin says. “Age has its own loveliness, as youth has its especial charm. Whatever suggests human emotion, whether of grief or pain, goodness or anger, hate or love, has its individual seal of beauty. Therefore,” he exclaims, “since I hold all existence to be beautiful, and all beauty to be truth, _on a bien le droit de choisir parmi les choses vraies_” (one has the right to choose amongst truths). And although to Rodin has been attributed mastery in all arts save that in which he is absolutely _maître_, of his drawings, his designs, his ceramics, bear the touch of genius,--he is _par excellence_ the sculptor. No critic can observe certain groups without conceding mastery to him in his art. It is claimed that there exist in antiquity no more perfect examples of the human form than “L’Age d’Airain,” “Le Printemps,” and “Le Baiser.” Had these marbles been unearthed at Samothrace or disinterred at Athens, antiquarians (if puzzled to trace the Grecian spirit) would scarcely have hesitated to assign these figures their places amongst the remnants of the dust and ashes of the Golden Age. But between Phidias and Rodin, between pure Greek and the complex modern, there is a great gulf fixed. The times demand, crave, insist upon and generate, another spirit. The ancients portrayed divinity in the mystic ideal clothed in ideal form; this modern portrays humanity, with its warring desires, its breath, span, happiness of love.