Rodin's Own Style In The Sculpture Art - Essay Example

? Auguste Rodin's The Hand of God is one of several sculptures in one of his later series that featured lone hands. Rodin was an important sculptor of his time, as he developed his style in a way that bridged the older, classical styles of traditional sculpture and art to the newer approaches of modern art. At the same time he was developing his own style, Rodin was joined by Realists and Impressionists who brought new perspectives to painting, and thus public perception of art changed as well. In 1907, Rodin crafted The Hand of God, which he had modeled around 1896. The sculpture shows a single hand as its central subject, and it holds within it a raw stone. This stone also features the smooth figures of man and woman, who are being fashioned into organic forms from the rough material, showing God in the process of creation much as the sculptor goes through such a process. In analyzing this sculpture, it is first necessary to use one's eyes to see what it presents—the content, the subject matter, the forms and shapes. The sculpture, as mentioned, features a large, strong hand, set apart from the body so that the hand itself is the subject. The hand juts forth from a rough base, an uncut and unpolished piece of stone marble. Within the hand, we see a smaller version of the same contrast—there are two human bodies, intertwined, one man and one woman, and they are attached to a backdrop of raw marble with no deliberation alterations. Examining the sculpture from different angles reveals different contrasts, as one side shows only the fingers gripping the stone, while another angle would put the focus on the human figures within the stone and the hand. The texture of the human elements is smooth and curved, while the rest of the marble is straight, jagged, and not at all organic. The sculpture can be seen as divided into three parts—the largest part being the hand, the next mot important being the two human figures, and then the backdrop of uncut stone being the supplementary part. As a sculpture, color is not used, but form doubles its centrality by gaining a third dimension that is not quite present in any painting. The artist was able to create a center of a attention with ease by having the hand sit squarely in the center of its base and come upward, with the fingers slightly curled in order to create a cylindrical shape that also suggest motion. The lack of rigidity in the hand gives it a more lifelike appearance, just as the somewhat fetal and relaxed human forms of the man and woman give an impression that they are alive and movable, rather than striking any sort of pose that lacks life and flexibility. The artist also creates a contrast between the live and non live parts of the sculpture by having a deep groove between the body parts and the rough stone. In a way, there is a sort of trench, and this has the effect of making the body parts pop out from the stone, not specifically separated but still having a clear gap and change of depth. This is his way of establishing an aesthetic difference between the two elements, while the scale is used to develop a difference between the bodies and the hand. The texture of the body parts helps to create a beauty that is set apart from the stone as well, so the viewer clearly considers the difference between the two and realizes which is more attractive. The meaning of the sculpture is rather easy to interpret on the surface, but perhaps has deeper parts. Foremost, it shows symbolic process of creation of humanity by the more powerful and larger “hand of God”. The difference between textures shows that life comes from something raw, and God cleaves life out of what is lifeless. The lack of body for God shows that the hands are the focus, as the hand of God is the doing and creating part of him, the tools that he used to change earth into man. On top of this basic theme of creation by God from rough material into life and beauty, we also get a second meaning of creation—that of the artist or the sculptor. The symbolism about divinity is displayed in a medium that refers to the same process of creation that the sculptor uses, and therefore establishes an intimacy between God and the artist due to their similar approach to making beautiful things with meaning from that which has no original shape or significance. It is not saying that an artist is a God, but rather that God is an artist, the highest among them all, and that to create art is to know God's method. The work presents great strength in that it pulls the viewer's attention to all its aspects of life and creation. The sculpture has a very obvious center, and also invites the viewer to walk around it and inspect all its parts. The eye is drawn above all to the human figures in the hand, and one has no problem establishing that the theme comes from God's creation. Myth, faith, and belief figure into this sculpture strongly. The idea of myth is related to the creation story of the Old Testament—a story referred to in the sculpture's theme. Myth is a common subject of many sculpture's and paintings, whether it be in illustrating Christian stories and scripture or Greek and Roman myth. The creation myth is presented here in Rodin's own interpretation as an artist and sculptor. Faith and belief are also presented, as the sculpture shows the idea of belief it God's hand as the life giving force and source of all life, the reason that life exists separately from all lifeless material. Faith is present more specifically in that the sculpture shows man's faith in God as a literal creator and sculptor who designed man in his image and form. Rodin's sculpture is important in its time because it uses realistic, natural form that does not attempt to overstate the anatomy. The subject being a single hand was a fascination of Rodin's, and he did a series of sculptures that were similar to The Hand of God in order to study the form and potential of the hand to express emotion and meaning as a single body part independent of a human figure. This idea of partial figures or fragments was very influential toward the end of Rodin's career and lifetime, and many were inspired by it in the beginning of the 20th Century. After Rodin's death, others continued experimenting with fragments of figures and his hand sculptures, especially The Hand of God, remained popular with the public as well as important in influencing the development of modern sculpture. Read More