NARRATOR: In this sculpture, the artist Rodin stages a permanent play between a highly finished and a non-finito surface. How does this choice impact our response? Research Associate, Eva Reifert.

EVA REIFERT: What we see is a roughly-hewn base of marble, and out of it rises a hand that is clearly not of human scale, so that already tells us that something sublime and very noble is going on here. We could think of the hand as the hand of the creator, as the hand of God, that rises out of the clouds or out of fog. That's an image that we know from medieval manuscripts, and even way earlier.

NARRATOR: The hand clasps two figures, a man and a woman—possibly Adam and Eve at the moment of their creation. But the sculpture might also have another meaning.

EVA REIFERT: Free of any Biblical context, we could also think of it as the sculptor’s hand that creates art out of unformed matter. Maybe one could even think of this image that Rodin gives us as a reflection on his own creative process.

NARRATOR: The original title of the piece, “The creation,” captures both meanings - the hand of God, and the hand of the sculptor. Rodin masterfully balances different surface qualities: rough, unformed matter contrasts with the smooth skin of the hand and bodies. The same highly evocative contrast appears in the work of the Renaissance sculptor, Michelangelo. Rodin saw some of his incomplete sculptures during his trip to Italy in 1876 and they made a huge impression on him.

EVA REIFERT: So something that was an unintentional trait in Michelangelo’s sculptures, here in the 19th century is being picked up by this great French sculptor, Rodin, to express a transitional process; really the process of becoming.