Hanako, Rodin, and the Close-up

Abstract

Between 1906 and 1911, Auguste Rodin sculpted more than fifty heads, masks, and busts of the Japanese actress Hanako. It was the largest number of portraits that he did with a single model. This essay explores the question why Rodin was so attracted to Hanako and, in particular, to her face. At the time Rodin was creating sculptures of Hanako’s head, the technique of the close-up was being adopted dramatically in filmmaking. Critics were shocked by the excessiveness of the close-up and tried to understand it in terms of ‘new realism’: the close-up modifies reality without eliminating the realness. This essay connects the theory of the close-up to the discourse of Japonisme.