THE ART OF AUGUST RODIN

The Hand of God, circa 1896
Marble. H. 94 cm ; W. 82.5 cm ; D. 54.9 cm. Marble, 1916-1918
Marble carved by Séraphin Soudbinine. Musée Rodin

A large right hand, itself emerging from a very roughhewn block of marble, holds a clod of earth in which two struggling emergent figures, Adam and Eve , have been modelled. The hand of the original Creator is also that of the sculptor.

Numerous features – the contrast between the highly polished areas and the rough marble, the posture of the woman reminiscent of Dawn in the Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo (Florence) – recall the work of Michelangelo. For the latter, a sculpture was buried in the marble and had to be extracted from it through the artist’s skill, but Rodin was a modeller, which implied a different approach. The Hand of God seems to be a synthesis of these two very dissimilar methods. The Hand of the Devil forms a companion piece, while its Symbolistic title links it to a whole series of works made during the 1890s, such as The Cathedral and The Secret.

Here, Rodin makes extraordinary use, both technical and allegorical, of the medium of marble. The material plays a key role in the sculpture, especially the underworked and roughly chiseled portions. A variation on the theme of birth and beginnings, the work presents Adam and Eve entwined in a fetal position and emerging from an amorphous mound of marble cradled in God’s hand. During a seminal trip to Italy in 1876, Rodin had encountered works by Michelangelo in which the figures similarly materialize out of rough stone, symbolizing the process of artistic creation itself.