Beyond The Thinker: Auguste Rodin’s Horticultural Haven

November 12, 1840

On this day, Auguste Rodin (oh-GOOST roh-DAN), the great French sculptor, was born.

A man who found the divine in both marble and flowers - Auguste Rodin would ultimately earn the title of the father of modern sculpture.

Today, we gardeners might better remember him as a kindred spirit who understood that true beauty grows wild and free.

Picture, if you will, a young artist walking through the gardens of the Hôtel Biron (oh-TEL bee-RON) in Paris, his eyes taking in not just the roses and rhythms of the formal gardens but seeing deeper - seeing the very soul of each flower.

This was Rodin, who would later write words that make every gardener's heart leap with recognition:

"The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms. Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him."

In 1908, when Rodin moved into the Hôtel Biron, he didn't just find a studio - he found a garden that would become his living muse. While others might have seen just another Parisian garden, Rodin saw a canvas where art and nature could dance together. He began placing his sculptures thoughtfully among the plantings, creating conversations between bronze and bloom, between stone and stem. 

When Rodin began purposefully placing his sculptures in the garden at Hôtel Biron, he created an intentional dialogue between art and nature. He included pieces from his personal collection of antiquities, positioning male and female torsos among the plantings. This practice of integrating sculpture with landscape design was revolutionary for its time and continues to influence garden design today.

The garden became his outdoor studio, a place where he would often sit for hours, studying how morning light caught the dewdrops on rose petals or how evening shadows played across the face of a marble figure. He saw profound connections between human and botanical forms, noting:

Beauty is everywhere.

It is not that she is lacking to our eye, but our eyes which fail to perceive her.

Beauty is character and expression.

Well, there is nothing in nature which has more character than the human body.

In its strength and its grace it evokes the most varied images.

One moment it resembles a flower: the bending torso is the stalk; the breasts, the head, and the splendor of the hair answer to the blossoming of the corolla.

What makes this especially touching for us gardeners is how Rodin understood something we all know in our hearts - that there's a profound connection between the art we create in our gardens and the natural world that inspires us. He saw the delicate droop of flower petals and compared them to "the eyelid of a child," reminding us that nature's gentlest gestures often echo our own humanity.

Today, the Musée Rodin (mew-ZAY roh-DAN) gardens in Paris remain a living testimony to this artist's vision. Divided into a formal rose garden, an ornamental garden, and relaxation areas framed by hornbeam hedges, it offers visitors what many consider a more intimate alternative to Versailles. While smaller in scale at just under two acres (compared to Versailles' 1,900 acres), the Rodin garden achieves something remarkable: it creates a perfect harmony between sculptural art and horticultural design. Here, Rodin's sculptures don't just sit in the garden - they emerge from it, as if they've grown there as naturally as the roses and ivy that surround them.

For modern visitors, especially us gardeners, the Rodin Garden offers something precious - a reminder that gardens are not just places of beauty but spaces where art and nature can heal our spirits. As you work in your own garden today, remember Rodin's words about beauty being everywhere - not lacking in our world, but simply waiting for eyes that know how to perceive it.