Auguste Rodin

AUGUSTE RODIN (Paris, 1840 - 1917).
"Right hand".
Patinated bronze, copy 3/7.
With signature of the artist and the caster, Bechini.
Numbered.
On wooden base.
Measurements: 6 x 18,5 x 19 cm (sculpture); 2,5 x 21 x 21 cm (base).

The hands were a primordial anatomical part in Rodin's sculpture, with which he carried out pieces such as "The Cathedral". In the one shown here, the curled fingers and the rough surface of the bronze communicate an inimitable expressive forcefulness.

Rodin is currently considered "the first modern", since he was the figure who put an end to more than two centuries in search of mimesis in the three-dimensional arts. He began his training at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris, and was particularly interested in anatomy, mastering it to the point of arousing the envy of sculptors trained at the Academy of Fine Arts. In fact, the scandal surrounding his sculpture "The Age of Bronze" (1877) was famous, of which it was said that, for its perfection, the molds had to have been taken directly from the body of the model and not from a clay model made by the artist. Rodin emerged victorious from the dispute, as well as with a fame that immediately placed him among the most important artists in Paris. After this scandal, his sculpture was divided into two distinct lines. The first, which he called "alimentary", was the decorative sculpture from which he lived. The second, more popular and transgressive, is known as his pure work, transcendent in the history of Western art. Belonging to this last line of work are his most important monuments and commissions, such as "The Burghers of Calais" and the "Monument to Balzac", which represented a revolution in sculpture in public space. For Rodin, the artist was not to be a slave to the model, on the contrary: it was the artist who chose, with his own eye and sensibility, the object to be represented, and through his imagination was able to modify it to create a totally new image. Thus, the proportions and forms are given by the demands of the feeling that one wants to capture, and not by the logical laws of reality. These ideas are reflected in his most important work, "The Gates of Hell" (1880-1917), for which the figure of "The Thinker" was originally conceived. The theme of these doors is the Inferno of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy". The central figure, the Thinker, is a portrait of Dante, who is affected by what he is seeing (friezes with the sinful figures below him), and influenced by the divine forces that announce misfortune over his head (three shadows or triple portrait of Adam). Scholars assimilate this figure also to Rodin himself: a man terrified of the world in which he lives, in which technology is unstoppable, and is right in the middle, where he must choose whether to remain faithful to tradition or jump into the void and break all the canons established so far. Rodin is represented in the most important museums in the world, such as the one that bears his name in Paris, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg or the Metropolitan in New York.

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