Nude statue, seen from behind 1897 - 1907

This woodcut, Nude Statue, Seen from Behind, was made by Auguste-Louis Lepère. It's a work made after Rodin's sculpture, and it really speaks to the art-making process. Lepère plays with light and shadow using these incised lines, it's all about the push and pull, the give and take. It's a dance between what's there and what isn't. Look at the way the lines build up, especially around the back and shoulders, giving the figure weight, volume and presence. You can almost feel the texture of the statue, the coolness of the stone. The lines across the back, they're not just describing form, they're creating a kind of rhythm, a visual music. Like the way Rodin himself worked the clay, Lepère is digging into the block. There's something really beautiful about that translation. It reminds me a little of how Dürer used hatching to create tonality. It shows how art is all one big conversation, artists riffing off each other across time. And it's never really fixed, always open to interpretation.