IT IS true, some of the sculptures are very nude, '' said Mr Jacques Vilain, curator of the Rodin Museum in Paris. ''Some of the people in Beijing were astonished. To show nudes now, even in 1992 is not usual there.'' For the first time, the Rodin Museum is taking some of Auguste Rodin's better-known sculptures on a tour of the three Chinas.
In May, works such as The Thinker, The Kiss and the Burghers of Calais will come to Hongkong after a visit to Beijing and Shanghai, and before heading for Taiwan.
Mr Vilain said the response in Beijing had been enthusiastic. The government had made no attempt to censor the exhibition, he said. The museum was given a free hand to bring to bring whatever pieces it deemed representative of the powerful and controversial artist's work.
Rumour has it that Josef Stalin was one of Rodin's admirers - something China's communist leadership might have appreciated. What was undeniable was the exhibition's success, Mr Vilain said.
''There is the political position, and then there is the exhibition,'' he said.
In Beijing, this meant 120,000 paying visitors in the space of one month.