Hand 1881 - 1894

Editor: So here we have "Hand", a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin, crafted sometime between 1881 and 1894. It feels… weighty. The gesture is so expressive, even without the rest of the figure. It reminds me of a clenched fist, both defiant and vulnerable at the same time. What's your take on it? Curator: It does, doesn't it? Like it’s been severed not just from the body, but from its narrative, floating, somehow substantial, and deeply melancholic. When I see it, I wonder what it held, what it lost. Bronze always feels like captured time to me, wouldn't you say? Something ancient echoing in the modern world. Editor: Definitely, like it's holding onto a ghost. Did Rodin do a lot of hands like this? It seems such an odd fragment to focus on. Curator: He was obsessed with hands; they appear everywhere in his work! He believed they could express almost as much emotion as a face, sometimes even more. He would rework and reuse the same hand in multiple sculptures, re-contextualising the language they spoke, giving them entirely new narratives. I sometimes wonder if they were more like self-portraits for him than mere appendages, wouldn't you agree? Editor: Wow, that makes me see it differently. It’s not just a hand; it's a whole story, maybe Rodin's own. I thought it was just a powerful image, but it's so much deeper now. Curator: It's the power of fragments isn't it? A whispered echo of stories half told. Each viewer becomes a co-creator, imagining the missing context, building their narrative around this lone, enduring hand. A single hand reaching, holding...forever asking. Editor: I'll definitely be spending more time looking at hands in art from now on, looking for their secrets! Curator: Me too. Every visit reveals something new, wouldn't you say?