Rodin was born into a poor Christian family. His father, Jean-Baptiste Rodin, was a police courier, and his mother, Marie Schaefer, was a poor civilian woman. Rodin's birth made his father ecstatic. This farmer who came to Paris from Normandy to make a living never dreamed that he would be able to hold his son when he was 38 years old. Rodin and her two sisters, Clotilde and Marie, all had red hair, and "Rodin" means "red" in Normandy.

Jean-Baptiste invited his wife’s sister, Aunt Therese, to go to the district to fill out Rodin’s birth registration form, because neither he nor his 34-year-old wife could write. He said: "Let's call him Fran?ois Auguste." So his aunt wrote: "Fran?ois Auguste Rodin, born on November 12, 1840, in Paris, Paris. No. 3, Rue Barrett."

France in the 19th century was experiencing political turmoil and frequent wars. This was a great era of surging revolutionary movements and dramatic social changes. In June 1848, under the banner of the "democratic and social republic", the French launched a bourgeois democratic revolution that spread throughout Europe. Although it failed, "at least it was a world-historic revolution worthy of being carried out." Not only France, but the whole of Europe was shocked by the earthquake in June, "the glorious but failed great struggle", which prepared and cleared the ground for the establishment of a bourgeois republic. Since then, the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat have continued one after another. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War led to the demise of the Second French Empire. In 1871, Paris workers staged an armed uprising, overthrew the bourgeois government, and established the Paris Commune, the first new type of proletarian dictatorship in human history. After the failure of the Paris Commune, France began its transition from "liberal" capitalism to the imperialist stage. By the end of the 1970s, the French labor movement had made new developments. In this booming era, philosophy and natural science became increasingly prosperous, and a large number of outstanding writers and artists such as Hugo, Balzac, and Delacroix emerged. Rodin lived in such a turbulent era.