Aurora and Tithonus c. 1905 - 1906

Auguste Rodin made this sculpture, Aurora and Tithonus, and the way he's worked the plaster, it feels like he's wrestling with the material, trying to coax a story out of it. The surface is really something; it's all nicks and scrapes, like he's been at it with a knife, building up and taking away in equal measure. Look at the way the light catches those marks. There's a real sense of urgency in the way he’s handled the medium, like he's in a race against time. The texture reminds me of the way some painters build up layers of paint, scraping back to reveal what's underneath. You can see echoes of Michelangelo in Rodin's work, that same sense of human struggle and the weight of history. And like all great art, it’s not about easy answers but about opening up questions and possibilities.