Sculpture "The Hand of God" (1917), bronze version
Sculpture "The Hand of God" (1917), bronze version
Quick info
museum replica | bronze | handmade | signed | size 24 x 15 x 12 cm | weight approx. 1.5 kg
Detailed description
Sculpture "The Hand of God" (1917), bronze version
The female torso in Rodin's hand symbolises in a haunting way what drove him throughout his life: the indomitable will to give final form and life to clay. Rodin still sculpted the female torso, Amédé Bertault took the cast of the hand on Rodin's deathbed.
Original: Bronze, Musée Rodin, Paris / Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Made in 1917.
ars mundi museum replica, cast by hand. Version in precious bronze, cast using the Lost-Mould-Process. Size 24 x 15 x 12 cm. Signed in the casting. Weight approx. 1.5 kg.
Producer: ars mundi Edition Max Büchner GmbH, Bödekerstraße 13, 30161 Hanover, Germany Email: info@arsmundi.de
About Auguste Rodin
1840-1917 - the most important sculptor of the transitional period between the 19th to the 20th-century.
François-Auguste-René Rodin is considered a brilliant innovator of sculpture and ranks alongside Praxiteles, Michelangelo, Cellini and Canova as one of the greatest sculptors of all time. His sculptural oeuvre is so extensive that no complete catalogue of his works has yet appeared. It would certainly cover several hundred pages.
Because he had been rejected three times by the Paris School of Art, Rodin studied at the School of Applied Arts.
Rodin was an ardent admirer of beauty. He was mesmerised by the human body, which he immortalised again and again in his "vérité fugitive", the fleeting moment: lively, vibrant beauty that took shape under his creative hands. Whatever Rodin created with his hands radiated tremendous vitality and untamed power.
His sculptures, with their multiply broken surfaces, ushered in a new era of sculpture. His sculptures, with their multiply broken surfaces, ushered in a new era in sculpture. The genius of Rodin's modern stylistic idiom, which was expressed using elements of Impressionism, abandoned the monument-like pose of the academic sculpture and brought emotional states in dynamic surfaces to life, had yet to be recognised. "Boldness of light - modesty of the shadow" - Rodin composed a dialogue of rises and falls onto the "skin" of his sculptures. Flickering highlights and mysterious shadows animate his figures and bring them to life: "Sculpture is the art of representing forms through the shift of light and shadow."
An alloy of copper with other metals (especially with tin) used since ancient times. It is an ideal metal for high-quality artistic castings, capable of enduring for millennia.
When casting bronze, the artist usually applies the lost-wax technique which is dating back more than 5000 years. This is the best, but also the most complex method of producing sculptures.
First, the artist forms a model of their work. This model is embedded in a liquid silicone rubber mass. Once the material has solidified, the model is cut out, leaving a negative mould. Liquid wax is then poured into the negative mould. After cooling down, the wax cast is removed from the mould, provided with sprues and dipped into ceramic mass. The ceramic mass is hardened in a kiln, where the wax melts away (lost mould).
Finally, the negative mould is ready, into which the 1400° C hot molten bronze is poured. After the bronze had cooled down, the ceramic shell is broken apart, reavoling the sculpture.
Next, the sprues are removed, the surfaces are polished, patinated and numbered by the artist or by a specialist, following their instructions. Thus, each casting is an original work.
For lower-quality bronze castings, the sand casting method is often used, which, however, does not achieve the results of a more elaborate lost-wax technique in terms of surface characteristics and quality.
The style of Impressionism, which emerged in French painting around 1870, owes its name to Claude Monet's landscape 'Impression, Soleil Levant'. After initial rejection, it began a veritable triumphal procession.
Painters such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir and others created motifs from everyday life, urban and landscape scenes in bright, natural light.
Impressionism can be seen as a reaction to academic painting. Rather than emphasizing content with a structured composition, it focused on the subject as it appears in the moment, often in a seemingly random snapshot. The reality was seen in all its variety of colours in natural lighting. Outdoor painting replaced studio painting.
Through the brightening of the palette and the dissolution of firm contours, a new approach to colour emerged. In many cases, the colours were no longer mixed on the palette but placed side by side on the canvas, so that the final impression emerged in the eye of the viewer with a certain distance. In "Pointillism", (with painters such as Georges Seurat or Paul Signac), this principle was taken to the extreme.
Outside France, Impressionism was taken up by painters such as Max Slevogt, Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth in Germany, and by James A. M. Whistler in the United States.
However, Impressionism was only expressed to a limited extent in the art of sculpture. In the works of Auguste Rodin, who is considered one of the main representatives, a dissolution of surfaces is evident, in which the play of light and shadow is included in the artistic expression. Degas and Renoir created sculptures as well.
A true-to-the-original reproduction of an artwork in the same size and with the best possible material and colour uniformity.
The mould is usually taken directly from the original so that the replication reproduces even the finest details. After casting the replication, using the most appropriate method, the surface is polished, patinated, gilded or painted according to the original.
A replication of ars mundi is a recognizable copy of the original.
A plastic work of sculptural art made of wood, stone, ivory, bronze or other metals.
While sculptures from wood, ivory or stone are made directly from the block of material, in bronze casting a working model is prepared at first. Usually, it is made of clay or other easily mouldable materials.
The prime time of sculpture after the Greek and Roman antiquity was the Renaissance. Impressionism gave a new impulse to the sculptural arts. Contemporary artists such as Jorg Immendorf, Andora, and Markus Lupertz also enriched sculptures with outstanding works.