Dance Movement "G" 1905 - 1955

Rodin made this bronze sculpture, Dance Movement "G", and in it, it feels like he's not just sculpting a body, but also the very act of dancing, of pushing against limits. Look at the surface, it’s rough, almost agitated. You can practically feel the artist's hand at work, pinching and prodding the clay, building up the form with this directness. The bronze then captures all that energy, that immediacy. I find myself focusing on the dancer’s arm, fused with the raised leg, the hand disappearing into the foot itself. This creates a loop, an impossible geometry of the body. It's reminiscent of Degas’s ballerinas, but Rodin is less concerned with grace and more with the raw physicality, the effort, the strain. And this connects to the bronze itself, a material that bears the marks of its making so openly, so honestly. For me, this piece is about the dialogue between form and force, both within the dancer and the artist who created her.