Leaving the Earth 1900 - 1905

Auguste Rodin made "Leaving the Earth" with watercolor and graphite. It's the kind of drawing that whispers rather than shouts. I can imagine Rodin making the piece, quickly and intuitively. The figure emerges, seemingly weightless, on this pale ground. It's got that raw, unfinished quality I love. You can almost see his hand moving across the page. It seems the paint is thin, like breath on a mirror, suggesting a fleeting moment. There’s a kind of yearning here, a sense of something beyond the physical. It's like the figure is in the process of becoming, of transcending. Maybe Rodin was thinking about bodies and souls and the way they occupy space? He invites us to consider the endless possibilities of human existence, the potential for transformation, and the ephemeral nature of our being. And that's what art does, right? It lets us dream, lets us imagine, lets us feel things we didn't even know we could.