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    "segs": [ {
      "utf8": "A figure perches, hunched in reflection."
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      "utf8": "But this canonical sculpture\nisn't just contemplation incarnate."
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    "segs": [ {
      "utf8": "French sculptor Auguste Rodin intended it\nto represent a specific person—"
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    "segs": [ {
      "utf8": "and fit into a much larger piece\nfeaturing the fiery pits of Hell—"
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      "utf8": "a project that obsessed him\nduring the last decades of his life."
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    "segs": [ {
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      "utf8": "Rodin's path to renown was rocky."
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      "utf8": "After several years working\nas a craftsman,"
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      "utf8": "he submitted his first sculpture\nto Paris’ Salon— and was denied."
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      "utf8": "that Rodin completed his first major work."
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      "utf8": "However, critics accused him of casting\nthe lifelike sculpture"
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      "utf8": "but Rodin argued that artistic renderings,\nthough less precise,"
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      "utf8": "Like artists helming the burgeoning\nmovements of Cubism,"
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      "utf8": "Abstraction, and Impressionism,"
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      "utf8": "Rodin was poised to modernize sculpture,\nlending new life to classical forms."
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      "utf8": "And in 1880, he received his\nlife-defining commission:"
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    "segs": [ {
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    "segs": [ {
      "utf8": "Rodin proposed its antithesis:\n\"The Gates of Hell,”"
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      "utf8": "Complex compositions were cast\nin sections and soldered together."
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