In his excellent biography of Rodin, Frederic Grunfeld talks about Benjamin Constant, a prominent painter of the day, who had been appointed by an art jury from the leading Paris art school, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, to visit Rodin and encourage him to submit work for an upcoming competition. Rodin was incensed. In his late teens he had applied three times to the Ecole and had been turned down each time for lack of talent at sculpture. In the ensuing decades the same art establishment had repeatedly rejected his work. Finally, just when he was beginning to be recognized as a master of sculpture, the powers that be wanted him to submit work for their consideration. Rodin thought their views on art were shallow and irrelevant.

Rodin: All the people who will show up with their titles, their medals, Pupil of Monsieur So-and-So, member of the institute or whatnot. Their patrons and protectors, or friends of their patrons, who are members of the committee, of the jury; the teachers at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. They can't do anything else. It's their clientele. They have the estampille (stamp of approval). I don't have it. I'll never have it. I don't want to have it.

Constant: But my dear friend, one can't be against all established institutions — life's like that, and always will be like that. Besides, I'm not the only one who invites you to participate; it's all the maîtres.

Rodin (incensed): All the maîtres? What masters? They don't even do their job properly when they're in charge of an atelier (workshop) at the Ecole. Ateliers . . . they're not even ateliers! All they do is give verbal corrections. Me, I have an atelier. Schiff is my apprentice; he sees me working, he works with me, for me.

Constant: You know very well that it's impossible to work that way at the Ecole.

Rodin: So set fire to the school and abolish the estampille.
      - Frederick Grunfeld, Rodin: A Biography 

Great artists are seldom comfortable with the art establishment, juries who would critique their work, with schools and academies. The animosity tends to be mutual.

Perhaps it is because academies, juries, the established order of things are about judging talent, and great artists are about hard work, the sensitivity to see deeply, persistence through rejection and patience with a vision. And fierceness — great artists tend to be fierce. They're usually not nice people. To them, talent is an obstacle, a hindrance. Talent inspires an arrogance that hinders artists’ efforts to dig deep into the hidden realities that significant art is all about.

Do you know what is the greatest enemy of the artist? Talent, the gift he's born with: facility, dexterity. In a word, chic (banal or empty facility) is what spoils us and ruins us. We think we've arrived at the summit of our art no sooner than we've produced something, and we look no further. . .
- Rodin

. . .

And one ought to consider that there is nothing more difficult to pull off, more chancy to succeed in, or more dangerous to manage, than the introduction of a new order of things.
   The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. In consequence, whenever those who oppose the changes can do so, they attack them vigorously, and the defense made by others is only lukewarm. We must distinguish between innovators who stand alone and those who depend on others, that is between those who to achieve their purposes can force the issue, and those who must use persuasion. In the second case they always come to grief, having accomplished nothing.
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince.

Join Heron Dancers for an exploration of subjects related to creative work each Sunday at 7pm Eastern. More here. Tonight’s Zoom link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88309235844?pwd=GhAZn4aHga0Fp8XhvaR3jjYxXFDban.1

Meeting ID: 883 0923 5844

Passcode: 882875