_Rodin,_ by Léon Riotor: a pamphlet, reproducing in French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, and Russian, a study that appeared in the _Revue populaire des Beaux Arts,_ April 8th, 1899. _Rodin, the Sculptor,_ a volume of criticism, illustrated; by Léon Maillard (Floury); 1899. _The Sculptor Rodin, drawn from life._ A volume by Mlle. Judith Cladel (_La Plume_ office, 1903). _Rodin,_ a study by L. Brieger-Wasser (Vogel. Strassburg; 1903). _Rodin,_ by George Treu (_Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst._ Berlin, Marstersteig, 1903). _Rodin,_ by R. M. Rilke (Berlin, Bard, 1903). "Rodin." Articles upon, by W. E. Henley, 1890; D. S. MacColl, 1902; Henri Duhem, 1890; Karel B. Made (Prague); Vittorio Pica (Rome). Of these various writings devoted to Rodin, those of Roger Marx should be particularly noted, on account of their technical understanding; Léon Maillard's volume is a sincere, well-informed, well-illustrated book, produced by a man who comprehends. The book by Mlle. Judith Cladel, daughter of the distinguished novelist, is an originally conceived volume, the only one that relates certain conversations, and attempts, with charming acuteness, to present Rodin in his private character. It is a work that deserves to be much better known and appreciated, and of which Rodin's first panegyrists, jealous of being the only "inventors" of the artist, have been very careful not to speak. The article by the graceful painter, Henri Duhem, is likewise excellent; and I consider Mr. MacColl's very remarkable, on account of its elevation and precision of judgment. The others have such value as belongs to admiring articles written hurriedly in newspapers: they express sympathetic feelings, or comment in a poetical way upon the subjects, but their critical value is négligeable, and there is nothing to be quoted from them for the information of my readers. The _Balzac_ gave rise to a shoal of newspaper articles. Georges, Rodenbach, and France, on that occasion, said the acute and witty thing's about Rodin that they say about all manifestations of thought, and M. Mirbeau made Rodin the theme of some of those polemical variations, conjoining hyperbolical praise with abuse of his adversaries, which he is accustomed to offer as art-criticisms, and which have gained him a reputation of a certain kind. There is nothing to note in these pamphlets mixed with eulogistic effusions, the whole of which do not contain the substance of twenty lines by Henley or of Eugène Carrière's admirable Preface, which I am desirous of reproducing here because it is a masterpiece of synthetic divination.[1] [1] Preface to the Catalogue of the Rodin exhibition in the Pavillon de l'Alma, 1900. (The work mentioned above; other prefaces by Claude Monet, A. Besnard, and J. P. Laurens.) "THE ART OF RODIN "Rodin's art comes from the earth and returns to it, like those giant blocks--rocks or dolmens--which mark deserts, and in the heroic grandeur of which man recognises himself.