Auguste Rodin

Hello! My name is Auguste Rodin, and I was a sculptor. That means I made art out of clay, stone, and metal. I was born in a beautiful city called Paris, France, way back on November 12th, 1840. When I was a boy, I wasn't the best at subjects like reading and math, but I absolutely loved to draw. I would draw everything I saw. Soon, I discovered that I loved making shapes with my hands even more, and that's when my big adventure in art began.

When I was 14 years old, I went to a special art school where I learned to be a craftsman. I tried to get into the big, famous art school in Paris, but they didn't accept me. I didn't let that stop me. For many years, I worked hard making decorations for buildings. Then, in 1875, I took a trip to Italy and saw the amazing sculptures of an artist named Michelangelo. His statues looked so strong and full of feeling. They made me want to create sculptures that felt just as real and alive. It was a very important trip for me.

I wanted my sculptures to look like they could move and breathe and feel things, just like real people. I didn't always make them perfectly smooth. Sometimes I left the marks from my tools to show how I had shaped them. My most famous sculpture is called 'The Thinker'. It's a statue of a man sitting and thinking very, very hard. You can almost see the thoughts swirling in his head. Another one you might know is called 'The Kiss,' which shows two people sharing a happy, loving moment. I wanted my art to tell stories without using any words at all.

As I got older, many people came to love my art. I wanted to share my work with everyone, so before the end of my life, I gave all of my sculptures and drawings to my country, France. I asked that they be kept in a special place where everyone could come and see them. I lived to be 77 years old. Today, if you visit Paris, you can go to a museum called the Musée Rodin, which is filled with the art I created. People visit from all over the world to see how I used stone and metal to show what it feels like to be human.