["Intelligence draws, but it's the heart that shapes" - Rodin: maternal haptephobia in the service of art].

According to French clinicians, Auguste Rodin's mother suffered from haptephobia: her phobia concluded in avoiding to touch her son. This physical and emotional deprivation was a traumatic experience for the young Rodin, and both facilitated his artistic formation and lead to the birth of several artworks. 'Body' and 'touch' emerged to a central motif of his art, and into a sublimation process what we tend to interpret as the result of the maternal coldness. This psychobiographic study aims to examine the imprints of this development in the oeuvre, leaning on parallel analysis of artworks and biographical details.