THE SHADE by Auguste Rodin - Bronze Sculpture of Adam

Rodin was profoundly influenced by the work of Michelangelo. His direct study of Renaissance masterpieces—both during his time in Italy and in the Musée du Louvre in Paris—seems to have revealed to him many of the secrets behind Michelangelo’s extraordinary modeling. In this sculpture, Rodin draws on those lessons to express the inner anguish and intense concentration of a powerful yet immobilized figure. Two of Michelangelo’s works help explain both the meaning and origin of the unusual gestures Rodin assigned to Adam. As noted by Albert Elsen in the catalogue for Rodin at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the figure’s right arm alludes to The Creation of Man from the Sistine Chapel fresco in the Vatican, while the left arm echoes the form of the dead Christ from the Pietà in the Cathedral of Florence. Elsen summarized Rodin’s intention beautifully: “The figure is framed by the beginning and end of life; between these, his body shows its tortured existence.