Year 1882 (1882) Medium Bronze Created 1882 Genre Kinetic art | Type Sculpture Period Impressionism | |
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Dimensions 69.4 cm × 36 cm × 36 cm (27.3 in × 14.1 in × 14.1 in) Similar The Falling Man (Auguste Rodin), Crouching Woman, The Martyr (sculpture) Nationality French | ||
I am beautiful, also known as The kidnapping is a sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin, inspired in a fragment from Charles Baudelaire's collection of poems Les Fleurs du mal.
The sculpture appears in The Gates of Hell, specifically in the right pilaster, made from joining Crouching Woman and The Falling Man. This group shows the woman with her back to the audience, in a round-like shape, and the man holding her in a manner reminiscent of the mythological deity Atlas. In this and several other pieces, Rodin wants to express a morbid and erotic vision in which sexual satisfaction is unreachable.
I am beautiful was part of an 1886 exhibition at the Georges Petit Gallery, where it caused commotion due to its audacity: the union of the aforementioned pieces form a symbolic expression of joy and passion that could not be achieved by its component parts, showcasing both suffering— in a figure that crouches folds unto itself— and an excess of reach in an overextended figure.
