The Shade, 1880 Auguste Rodin

MEDIUM

Bronze

DIMENSIONS

Unframed | 74 1/4 x 35 1/2 x 31 in.

CREDIT LINE

Gift of Morton D. May in honor of William N. Eisendrath, Jr., 1968

OBJECT NO.

WU 4393

The French artist Auguste Rodin is widely considered to be the father of modern sculpture. The Shade, created in 1880 in cast bronze, exemplifies Rodin’s expressive rendering of the male nude body. It was originally intended as one of a trio of figures decorating the artist’s monumental bronze doors, titled The Gates of Hell, undertaken for the proposed Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris beginning in 1880. Rodin was greatly influenced by Michelangelo’s painting of the Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in Rome. For The Shade Rodin altered the pose of Michelangelo’s reclining Adam by making the figure upright with his hand gesturing downward instead of outward.