All artists must learn to see， but the imperative（命令，规则）was literal for young Auguste Rodin. He squinted（眯眼看）through five years of boarding school before realizing that the obscurities（模糊）on the blackboard were the effects of nearsightness. In stead of gazing blindly ahead， he often turned his attention out the window at a sight too commanding to overlook： the great Cathédral Saint-Pierre in Beauvais1， an ancient village in northern France.
　　To a child， it would have been a monster. Begun in 1225， the Gothic masterpiece was designed to be the tallest cathedral in Europe， with a pyramidal spire（锥体尖塔）teetering（摇摇欲坠 ）five hundred feet into the sky. But after two collapses in three centuries， architects finally abandoned the job in 1573. What they left behind was a formidable（令人敬畏的）sight： a house of cards in rock， glass and iron.
　　Many locals walked by without even noticing the cathedral， or perhaps only half-consciously registering the fact of its enormity（深远，庞大）. But for young Rodin it was an escape from the inscrutable（难以理解的）lessons in front of him and into a vision of endless curiosity. Its religious function did not interest him； it was the stories written on its walls， the mysterious darkness contained within， the lines， arches， shadow and light， all as harmoniously balanced as the human body. It had a long spinal nave（中殿）caged in by a ribbed ceiling， flying buttresses（拱壁）flung out like wings of arms， with a heart-like chamber at the center. The way its stabilizing columns swayed in the gales（大风）off the English Channel reminded Rodin of the body’s perpetual（不断的）steadying of itself for equilibrium（平衡）.
　　Although any comprehension of the building’s architectural logic was beyond the boy’s years， by the time he left boarding school in 1853， he understood that the cathedral had been his true education. He would revisit the site again and again over the years “with head raised and thrown back” in awe， studying its surfaces and imagining the secrets within. He joined the faithful in their worship at the cathedral， but not because it was a house of god. It was the form itself， he thought， that ought to drive people to their knees and pray.

羅丹（1840—1917）是举世公认的继米开朗琪罗之后最伟大的雕塑家。他出生于巴黎，父亲是一名警察，为了躲避巴黎的社会动荡和街头巷战，父母把他送往法国北部的一个城市上学。罗丹对学校的功课没有多大兴趣，却对窗外那座著名的大教堂产生了极大的兴趣。他时常站在风中仰望这座建于中世纪的哥特式教堂，仔细观察建筑的结构和细节，敬畏于它的神圣，惊叹于它的神奇和完美。这座教堂可谓是罗丹最早的“艺术启蒙老师”，对他后来的雕塑艺术具有决定性的影响。

在《你必须改变你的生活：雷纳·玛丽亚·里尔克和奥古斯特·罗丹的故事》（You Must Change Your Life： the Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin）一书中，雷切尔·科比特（Rachel Corbett）从当时捷克籍著名诗人里尔克与罗丹的结交和两人之间曲折的友情这一线索切入，讲述了罗丹的艺术观和人生观对里尔克产生的影响，并生动地穿插了他俩以及那一时期活跃在巴黎和欧洲各国的艺术界、文学界及学术界的一些著名人物之间交往的故事。这期选登的是关于罗丹的早期艺术启蒙。

　　Fran？ois Auguste René Rodin was born in Paris on November 12， 1840. It was a momentous（重要的）year for the future of French art， also marking the births of émile Zola， Odilon Redon and Claude Monet.2 But these seeds of the Belle époque（美好年代）would spring from very arid（荒芜的）， conservative soil. Shaken by both the Industrial and French revolutions， Paris under the monarchy of King Louis-Philippe was the city of depravity（堕落）of poverty depicted in Les Fleurs du Mals and Les Misérables.3 New manufacturing jobs attracted thousands of migrant workers， but the city lacked the infrastructure to support them. These newcomers piled into apartments， sharing beds， food and germs. Microbes（细菌）multiplied in the overflowing sewer system and turned the narrow medieval streets into trenches of disease. As crowds spread cholera（霍乱）and syphilis（梅毒）， a wheat shortage sent bread prices soaring and widened the gap between les pauvres（穷人）and the haute bourgeoisie（上层资产阶级）to historic proportions.
　　Auguste was not an impressive student. He skipped classes and received poor grades， particularly in math. When Auguste turned fourteen， his father withdrew him from school. The boy had always enjoyed working with his hands—perhaps trade school would suit him better.

　　Rodin， having just returned to Paris unclear of his interests or ambitions， enrolled at the Petite école in 1854. He did not yet consider himself an artist， and he certainly did not share the exalted（高尚的）views espoused（信奉，赞成）by the Grande école professors， who compared art to religion， language and law. Sculpture was then， and would always be， first and foremost a vocation for Rodin.
　　Like most of his classmates， Rodin entered with the hopes of studying painting. But because it was cheaper to buy paper and pencils than paint and canvases， he settled on drawing classes instead. It was a hardship that had the fortunate outcome， however， of laying Rodin in the capable hands of Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran4， the professor who would first correct， and then truly open， Rodin’s eyes.
　　Lecoq was a squat， soft-faced man， who liked to begin each session with a copying exercise. He believed that keen observation was the indispensable secret all great artists possessed. To master it properly， one had to figure out the essential nature of an object by breaking it down into parts： Copy a straight line from point A to point B， then add in the diagonals（對角线）， the arcs（弧线）， and so on until the components take form. 　　One morning， Lecoq placed an object in front of the class， instructing students to copy it onto paper. As he paced the aisles between desks observing their work， he noticed Rodin sketching only its crude outline and then making up the details on his own. Rodin did not strike Lecoq as a lazy student， so he couldn’t understand why he wasn’t completing the task correctly. That’s when it occurred to him that perhaps he boy simply could not see. And so it was in a single exercise that Lecoq identified basic myopia（近视）as the mysterious ailment that had plagued Rodin for more than a decade.
　　The other transformative revelation from Lecoq’s class took Rodin longer to grasp. The professor often sent students to the Louvre to practice observing the paintings. They were told not to sketch them， but to truly memorize their proportions， patterns and colors. The young Rodin passed his adolescence there on benches seated before works by Titian， Rembrandt and Rubens.5 They were visions that opened up and expanded inside him like music. He rehearsed every brushstroke in his mind so that he could return home at night， still exalted（欣喜的）， and reproduce them from memory.
　　To some， Lecoq’s emphasis on copying seemed to train students only in the reproduction of other people’s art. It was in many ways a traditional， mathematical approach to form and dimension that was in line with the curriculum at the Grande école. But Lecoq had a different goal in mind. He believed young artists ought to master the fundamentals of form only so that they might one day break them. “Art is essentially individual，” he said. The purpose of the memorization exercises was actually to allow the artists time to acknowledge their reactions to a picture as its properties unfolded to them. Did a gently arched line produce feelings of serenity（平靜）？ Did a densely wound shadow evoke（唤起）anxiety？ Did certain colors trigger memories？ Once artists could name these associations they could then begin to harden their own pooling sensations into external forms of their making. Ultimately， Lecoq’s modern method encouraged artists to draw things not strictly as they appeared， but as they felt and seemed. Emotion and substance became one.
　　Rodin’s individual style started to emerge at around sixteen. His notebooks from the time reveal an artist already preoccupied with formal continuity and silhouette（侧影，轮廓）. In what would become a trademark tendency， he began conjoining the figures in his sketches， linking their bodies together into harmonious groupings that would later evolve into the ring-shaped masterworks of The Burghers of Calais6 and The Kiss. 　　Lecoq’s lessons remained with Rodin long after he graduated and had established his reputation over the years as a sculptor of impressions rather than replications（复制）. He recalled Lecoq’s training decades later， when tasked with modeling a bust（半身像）of Victor Hugo， who refused to pose for an prolonged period of time. Rodin seized glimpses of the man as he passed by in the hall or read in another room， and then sculpted the images later from memory. One looks with the eyes， Lecoq had taught him， but one sees with the heart.
　　It wasn’t long before Rodin had mastered the curriculum offered at the Petite école. He finished lessons so quickly that the teachers eventually ran out of assignments. He did not care to socialize with his classmates； he wanted only to work. The once exception was his uncommonly supportive friend Léon Fourquet， with whom Rodin shared a love of ponderous（严肃的，沉闷的）debates about the meaning of life and the artist’s role in society.
　　The teenagers would stroll through the Luxemburg Gardens wondering whether Michelangelo and Raphal ever despaired for recognition as they did.7 They fantasized about fame， but Fourquet realized early on that this would be Rodin’s fate alone. While Fourquet would go on to master the art of carving marble—a skill Rodin never learned—he always saw an aura（光環）of destiny surrounding Rodin and would later spend several years working for his friend. “You were born for art， while I was born to cut in marble what is germinating（发芽）in your head—that’s why we shall always be together，”Fourquet once wrote him.

　　By 1857， Rodin had won the school’s top drawing prizes. It seemed he had excelled at every subject except one， and it was the gold standard of artistic achievement： to render（以艺术形式呈现）the human body. To Rodin， the human form was a “walking temple.” To model it in clay would be the closest he would ever come to building a cathedral. The human figure had fascinated Rodin for as long as he could remember.
　　But since statue commissions went only to the“real” fine artists， trade schools had no reason to offer life drawing classes. If Rodin wanted to study the human form， he would have to transfer to the Grande école. So， in 1857， at the end of his third year at the Petite école， Rodin decided to embark upon the rigorous application.
　　At the six-day entrance exam， Rodin joined a semicircle of painters and sculptors before a live model each afternoon. According to some accounts， he waved his arms so wildly as he worked that the other students gathered around to watch. Because he was already producing the disproportionate， heavy-limbed figures for which he would become famous， his art proved as unconventional as his gesticulating（打手势）and it was， in the end， too much for the admissions committee. He passed the drawing exam but failed in sculpture and his application was denied. 　　Rodin reapplied the following semester， and the semester after that， and was turned away two more times. The rejections sent Rodin into such despair that his father grew worried. He wrote the boy a letter urging him to toughen up. “The day will come when one can say of you as of truly great men—the artist Auguste Rodin is dead， but lives for posterity（子孙，后代）， for the future.”Jean-Baptiste（罗丹的父亲）knew nothing about art， except that it paid poorly， but he understood the power of perseverance（坚持不懈）： “Think about words such as： energy， will， determination. Then you will be victorious.”
　　Rodin eventually coped by turning against the pretentious academy， which he decided was filled with nepotists（任人唯亲的人）and guarded by elites who“hold the keys of the Heaven of Arts and close the door to all original talent！” He suspected that his exclusion had to do with his inability to supply letters of recommendation from renowned artists， which other boys had been able to obtain through family connections.
　　Rodin gave up on art school for good. He continued making his own work， but， denied his “heaven，” he stopped copying the idyllic（田園诗般的）Greek and Roman statues and adopted a kind of aesthetic of survival. From then on， his art was to be grounded in life， in all its unexceptional misery. He began to accentuate（强调）forms that clung desperately to their existence， and those that had been grotesquely（奇异地，荒诞地）defeated by it.
　　1. 博韦皮埃尔大教堂，位于法国北部城镇博韦，建筑始于13世纪，为哥特式风格的罗马天主教堂。
　　2. 句中提到的依次为埃米尔·左拉（1840—1902），法国小说家，自然主义文学的代表；奥迪隆·雷东（1840—1916），法国象征主义画家，超现实主义的先驱；克劳德·莫奈（1840—1926），法国印象派画家的创始人。
　　3. 句中提到的作品依次是《恶之花》，法国诗人及作家波德莱尔的著名抒情诗；《悲惨世界》，法国著名作家雨果的长篇小说。
　　4. 霍勒斯·勒科克·布瓦博德朗（1802—1897），法国艺术家和教师。
　　5. 句中提到的依次为提香（1490—1576），文艺复兴时期的意大利画家，威尼斯画派代表人物；伦勃朗（1606—1669），欧洲17世纪最伟大的画家之一，也是荷兰历史上最伟大的画家；鲁本斯（1577—1640），弗兰德斯画家，巴洛克绘画艺术的杰出代表，以画肖像画和神话题材著称。
　　6. 《加来市民》，罗丹著名雕塑之一。
　　7. 句中提到的两人分别是：米开朗琪罗（1475—1564），意大利文艺复兴时期伟大的绘画家、雕塑家、建筑师和诗人，文艺复兴时期雕塑艺术最高峰的代表，与拉斐尔和达·芬奇并称为“文艺复兴后三杰”；拉斐尔（1483—1520），意大利文艺复兴时期著名画家和建筑师。