Sculpture has rarely taken center stage as an art form. Often overshadowed by the painted canvas, sculpture has often been relegated to being little more than building drapery. But this has not always been so. A mere century ago, the tables were turned as the result of a single man Auguste Rodin. In his works, Rodin managed to give sculpture a level of prominence it had not seen since the Renaissance. And in turn, his name would come to bear the same prominence as Da Vinci or Van Gogh in the world of fine art.

Now for the first time, Rodin’s finest works can be seen on display in Norfolk’s Chrysler Museum. Most recently in Raleigh, this collection has been met with critical praise and mobs of art goers yearning to spy such masterpieces as The Thinker and The Kiss. On display at the Chrysler since September, the exhibit has done exceedingly well, despite being displayed in a city cutting back its support of the arts.

We are nothing less than ecstatic as to how the Rodin exhibit has worked for [the museum] so far, says chief curator Jack Harrison. We have never before in my time as curator had the opportunity to put on such large scale sculpture exhibition as this. The fact that we had the opportunity is blind luck really. They had a slot open up and we jumped at the chance of getting it. But so far, it has proven a boon for us as we have most assuredly seen increases in traffic through our hallowed halls.

For those unfamiliar with Rodin, his artistic life was borne of controversial beginnings. A student of noted French artist Antoine Louis Barye, Rodin saw himself as the continuation of such renowned sculptors as Donatello and Michaelangelo. He became obsessed by paradoxical nature of unflinching realism and artificial other-worldliness that the medium held. And it was in this obsession that he made his mark on the art world with The Age of Bronze in 1877.

However, the meticulous attention to detail Rodin gave to the work brought many Parisian critics to cry foul. Many of them contended that Rodin had not borne this piece by his own hand but rather used plaster casts of live models to create it. But such controversy stoked the fires of interest in the art-going public and soon Rodin was major star in the art world. More notably, it stoked the fires of patrons willing to commission numerous works from this once struggling artist.

Among the most noted of the commissions that Rodin was to undertake was for the Musee des Arts Decoratif in Paris. From them he was commissioned to build a sculpted door. Using Dante’s Inferno as his inspiration, Rodin spent the next twenty years creating his most critically-acclaimed work, The Gates of Hell. A laborious undertaking, Rodin’s work on the door also helped inspire many of his most remembered works, including both The Thinker and The Kiss. It also inspired him to create sculptures of solitary body parts, a radical concept at the time which would prove a major influence on the modern and post-modern art movements to come.

To say Rodin made impression on art would be an understatement, says Harrison. In his time, Rodin managed to bring to life an all but dead art form. And even though sculpture’s prominence has since waned, it is still hard not to see the themes of the real and the artificial Rodin played with being reiterated in many of modern art’s most noted works. Such themes certainly managed to intrigue the eye of the late B. Gerald Cantor, from whose foundation these works at the Chrysler are on loan. Following a chance viewing of Rodin’s The Hands of God while in Europe in the late 1940s, Cantor was soon either acquiring or commissioning casts of Rodin’s most noted sculptures at a exceptionally fast pace.

Cantor quickly became connected with a Stanford professor by the name of Albert Elsen, who was a noted Rodin expert, says Harrison. Elsen did a lot to inspire Bernie Cantor’s drive in collecting Rodin’s art. And because of this relationship, Cantor managed to re-establish in America an interest in the sculptor that had all but disappeared following World War I. By the time of his death in 1996, Cantor had amassed the largest private Rodin collection in the world. Among these works is a bronze casting of The Gates of Hell, which has been thus far the jewel in this exhibition’s crown for the Chrysler. Interestingly enough, this piece might not have been on display at all if they had not managed to find a way to actually bring it into the museum.

I love the piece personally, but I can’t say I was anything but concerned by how we could possibly get this massive thing inside, says Harrison. We had to hire some outside people to bring this thing through doors. They took exact measures and everything, and managed to find a way bring it on in. How they did it, I’m not quite sure, but I am very glad they did.

Moving into its final month, this exhibit is still receiving a massive promotional push by the Chrysler Museum to bring in as many to see his art as possible. Such concurrent events as the Rodin Film Serieswhich concludes with a screening of Cousin Bette on December 9are keeping interest in the exhibit alive while highlighting the artist himself and the themes which inspired him. But for such an artist as Rodin, those at the Chrysler feel nothing short of a consistent push until the day of its closing is acceptable.

This is a truly important exhibit and for this one we have been giving nothing but our best effort in getting the word on, says Harrison. To view this collection is to come away with a whole new perspective on how art can be. The more people we can coax into coming to see it, the better both they and we are when all is said and done.