The Cathedral after 1908

Here we have Rodin's The Cathedral, a bronze sculpture, somewhere between realism and abstraction, where the artist's hand is evident in every mark. I love how the surface of this piece isn't smoothed out, or overly polished. Instead, you can see the marks of the artist’s tools; you can sense the push and pull of Rodin’s hands as he worked the clay. The bronze is dark, almost black, but there are hints of a warmer brown underneath. It gives the sculpture a sense of depth and richness. The tips of the fingers from each hand meet to form an arch – that’s the cathedral, I guess? I’m reminded of Medardo Rosso, who also worked with wax to create these ghostly, impressionistic figures. Like Rosso, Rodin invites us to look closely, to question what we see, and to find meaning in the incomplete and the ambiguous. It’s not just a sculpture, it’s an open question.