Right hand 

Auguste Rodin created this bronze sculpture, titled "Right Hand," using the lost wax casting method. Rodin was part of a generation of sculptors that expanded the medium’s possibilities, in part through an obsessive focus on surface texture. Look closely, and you will notice the rough, unfinished character of the form. Its very incompleteness seems to emphasize the hand as a site of creative potential. Of course, hands are also the instruments by which most physical work gets done. Rodin was deeply engaged with questions of labor. His sculptures often show the effort involved in their own making. The hand stands alone, not attached to a body. It becomes a metaphor for the artist's own hand, a tool to create beauty and meaning, but also a testament to the labor involved in bringing art into being. Rodin was adamant that sculptors should be regarded as workers, not as members of some elite, rarified social sphere. With this sculpture, he invites us to value not only the finished artwork, but the process of its creation.