No, I’m not the one with the broken nose – that honor belongs to the subject of one of Auguste Rodin’s bronze sculptures that I saw at the Legion of Honor art museum in San Francisco this month. I was visiting some friends and was glad to spend an afternoon sketching this piece by my favorite sculptor. There are plenty of different pieces to choose from but this guy seemed like a good fit for the amount of time I had available to study it.
Pick a Side!
So many choices! Any of the angles of this piece would have worked out well but I opted for a direct head-on portrait piece for a classic practice session. I also didn’t want to get in the way of other museum visitors 🙂
This piece is very much an exercise in shadow – applying dark tones with some gradual highlights to show the shiny regions alongside the other portions. The beard provides some other textures for a little variety.
Progress
I generally start pretty light with my sketches and work my way into the shadowy areas. However, with a piece like this one where the overall tone is so dark, I went straight in with the softer pencils in the 6B-12B range.
I haven’t had as much time this year to draw from a subject in person so it was quite the treat to spend so much time doing so. It took about 4 hours to get to the end with some breaks in-between. Slow and steady certainly won this race!
The Finished Drawing
I’m pretty happy with how it turned out! The challenge is really with the nose and getting that broken portion represented. Drawing bronze statues like this one remind me of others I’ve had the privilege to draw from the Legion of Honor like El Cid or the Three Shades — the latter being another of Rodin’s masterpieces.
Man with the Broken Nose captures the honesty of the subject and is something I can really appreciate. It’s about showing the true nature of someone, even if it’s not popular or “in style.” This was certainly the case in the 1860’s when it was first created.
Wrapping Up
There is so much to see and enjoy at the various museums of San Francisco; I can highly recommend visiting any of them. There are lots of classically beautiful pieces that draw big crowds but also others that deserve just as much attention.
Keep telling stories,
Jeremy