Corbett - You must change your life: The story of Maria Ranier Rilke and Auguste Rodin

Rachel Corbett’s book, You Must Change Your Life (2016), is a detailed biography of the shared artistic journey of Rainer Maria Rilke and August Rodin. While the biographical background of these very different artists is fascinating, the most compelling aspect of the book for me is the light it sheds on the idea of empathy. The popular use of empathy is primarily in counseling and psychology. However, according to Corbett’s analysis, “What we understand today as the capacity to feel the emotions of others is a concept that originated in the philosophy of art, to explain why certain paintings or sculptures move people.” (p. ix)

Rilke and Rodin struggled in their early artistic journeys, as many artists do. They experienced difficult childhoods, troubling times as they came of age, and disillusionment in striving for artistic fulfillment. The great thing for those who appreciate their art is that their tribulations allowed them to delve into their hearts, resulting in creative insight and genius that distinguished them from others.

Rilke began his adult years in Prague but moved to Munich, believing it was the intellectual center of Europe at the time. The Munich Secession of 1892 began five years before Gustav Klimt started the movement in Vienna. The dominant philosophical tradition in German-speaking countries was the study of how individuals functioned within broader societies – phenomenology. While phenomenology and psychoanalysis began to flourish, the study of art (aesthetics) emerged along side these disciplines. The combination of these three disciplines was used to explain what makes something a work of art, leading to the idea that a viewer was an artist as well as the creator when ‘einfuhlung’ (feeling into or empathy) allowed the viewer to literally get inside the art. Psychologists (including Freud) then turned this German art history notion into what is now recognized as empathy, or the ability to relate to or understand another person.

Rodin’s early sculptures were not well received. The first to be embraced was The Age of Bronze and it struck such a chord that the French government purchased a version of it for the city of Paris. This purchase came with a second commission to design the entrance for the new Museum of Decorative Arts; this commission would become Rodin’s life-long work, The Gates of Hell. A version of the sculpture for which Rodin is most noted, The Thinker, was incorporated into The Gates of Hell. The Gates of Hell depicts people absorbed in a “nightmare of their own passions. Love was war, desire undid reason. To him, hell had nothing to do with justice; punishment was the condition of the living.” (p. 51) Ultimately, it was Rodin’s own gallery at the 1900 Exposition Universelle (which the Eiffel Tower dominated) that brought him to unquestioned prominence as an artist, admired for his ability to portray the rough humanness of his subjects.

Rilke and Roudin were introduced by two women who were artists as well. Paula Becker, a former sculpture student of Rodin’s, and Clara Westhoff invited Rilke to join them at the German artists’ colony, Worpswede. Westhoff and Rilke became lovers and were later married, a decision that sidetracked Westhoff’s ambitions as a writer in similar ways that Rodin overshadowed Becker as her teacher/mentor. Rilke’s characterization of marriage was, “I consider this to be the highest task of the union of two people; that each one should keep watch over the solitude of the other.” (p. 72) As Rodin’s protégé and Westhoff’s dear friend, it was Becker who introduced Rilke to Rodin, eventually resulting in Rilke authoring a biography of the great sculptor. The introduction and study for the biography resulted in a period of deep connection between Rodin and Rilke, one which engendered in Rilke a belief that art emerged only through sacrifice and hard work. This was fundamental to Rilke’s literary works, which were informed by “einsehen,” a process going beneath the surface to the heart and deep emotional connection.

For those who want to more deeply understand the amazing artistic revolution of late 19^th and early 20^th century Paris, Corbett’s book is a treasure. Rodin and Rilke were associated with most of the Parisian intellectual and artistic elite of the day, many of whom congregated, or lived at, the Hotel Biron (now the Musee Rodin Museum in Paris). Corbett’s reflections also track the tempestuous relationship of the two artistic geniuses who sometimes connected deeply and at other times feuded and sought distance from each other. They lived at a time when art was representational yet mystical, providing those who view or read their work a glimpse both into themselves and others. Both men were ravaged by their own genius but it is unlikely either would have wanted it another way. Indeed, when Rilke considered psychotherapy with Freud, a colleague urged “that the risk that analysis posed to his creativity was too great. It might well chase out the angels along with the demons.” (p. 239)