Monument to Balzac

The monument standing before you represents one of the most significant artistic scandals in French history. When Auguste Rodin unveiled his plaster model of the writer Honoré de Balzac in eighteen ninety-eight, the public and critics reacted with open hostility. Many mocked the towering figure as a snowman, a sack of coal, or a lumpy seal because Rodin prioritized a raw, psychological representation of genius over a conventional, realistic portrait. The commission that originally requested the statue was so offended by this departure from traditional sculpture that they flatly rejected the work. Rodin, deeply wounded by the public humiliation, withdrew the sculpture from sight and refused to allow it to be cast in bronze for the rest of his life.