Sculpture La Cathédrale Rodin Plaster Workshop Casting

LA CATHÉDRALE
Auguste Rodin (1840 -1917)
1908
Pierre
H. 64 cm; W. 29.5 cm; D. 31.8 cm
S.1001
Cut from stone, leaving traces of tools visible, La Cathédrale brings together in a single work two right hands, belonging to two distinct figures. It was originally entitled L'Arche d'alliance (The Ark of the Covenant) before taking on the title Cathédrale (Cathedral), which was probably given to it when Rodin published Cathédrales de France (Cathedrals of France) in 1914. The interior space that emerges from the composition allows us to see in it a correspondence with Gothic architecture.
The void is a datum with which Rodin is accustomed to reckoning, and as Rilke points out: "The participation of air had always been of great importance" to him ( Rilke, 1928).
This work, very close to Le Secret, is part of a group of marble hands, mostly carved after 1900, such as La Main de Dieu, La Main du diable, Les Mains d'amants or Main sortant de la tombe. It underlines Rodin's taste and passion for this part of the body, which he isolated, like the fragments in his collection of antiques, to give it a finished form and an autonomous life.