Rodin : All about Eve ~ at Kettle's Yard

Tuesday, 08 August 2006 10:21

Cambridge, UK - This is an exhibition about one of Auguste Rodin's greatest sculptures. Made in 1881, the sculpture 'Eve' was conceived to form a pair, with 'Adam', to flank 'The Gates of Hell'.  It was set aside when the model's pregnancy brought sittings to an end, and remained unexhibited until the Salon of 1899.  There it was shown simply standing on the floor.  One reviewer wrote: 'M. Rodin is an unyielding revolutionary . . . This suppression of the pedestal will count as a most dangerous innovation for some, as a most daring one for others.'  Delayed in its exhibition, perhaps the full implications of this 'revolutionary' gesture were not fully realized until the 1960s.

The exhibition will include two bronzes of the life-sized sculpture and one of a reduced version, each shown in a different space.  Alongside the sculptures will be three contrasting sets of photographs of 'Eve' taken during Rodin's lifetime by Théodore Druet, Stephen Haweis and Henry Coles, and Jacques-Ernest Bulloz, and newly commissioned photographs of the sculpture by Nicholas Sinclair and Iraida Icaza. On exhibition 23 September to 19 November, 2006.

Rodin wrote of his model, one of two Italian sisters who worked for him: 'The dark one had sunburned skin, warm, with the bronze reflections of the women of sunny lands; her movements were quick and feline, with the lissomness and grace of a panther; all the strength and splendor of muscular beauty, and that perfect equilibrium, that simplicity of bearing which makes great gesture.' 

Rodin's sculpture is remarkable for the way in which the horrifying consequences of Eve's fall are given gravity by the precarious, hunched pose of the standing figure, her weight on one foot, her head sunk into her arms, wrapped around her chest.  The origins of this pose can be traced to Rodin's passionate study of Michelangelo - to Eve on the Sistine ceiling but also to the figure of Mary in the late drawings of the Crucifixion.  A more recent precedent was Jean-Antoine Houdon's sculpture La Frileuse in the Louvre.