Rodin at eye level

Karen C. Tully Arizona Daily Wildcat Naked Balzac, one of the many Balzac studies by Rodin, showing at the UA Museum of Art.

Auguste Rodin, "The Thinker."

Rodin is one of those immensely famous artists whose presence is known and revered worldwide, but ask anyone on the street if they know why and they'll just shrug.

But ask any student of art history and they'll tell you all about "autonomy of fragments" and the intense passion Rodin expressed in his art. They'll tell you about the Hellenistic influences and the purity of the emotions. Simplicity and grandeur, bronze reflections of a time when art was rebelling against the binds of classicism and losing inhibition.

Walking up to the University of Arizona Museum of Art's newest temporary exhibition, "Rodin: Sculpture from the Iris and Gerald B. Cantor Collection," is a bit nerve-wracking. Inside there are actual Rodin pieces: "Age of Bronze" and "St. John the Baptist." Knowing you're going to contribute to the weathering of these pieces by breathing on them is enough to make any art scholar's heart skip a beat.

When I was in New York this summer, I spent a wonderful day wandering through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most of Rodin's studies on dancers are encased in mahogany wood displays in a little room on the second floor. I stood in there, surrounded by these studies of movement, every one something I could easily spend hours analyzing the workmanship and brilliance of.

I had that feeling again this weekend. Scattered all over the ground floor of the UA Art Museum are sketches, models and finished works by Rodin. It's nothing short of overwhelming.

Even though the exhibit contains mostly sketches, it should not be overlooked that this is exactly what made Rodin so different in the first place: