Eve after the Fall

Auguste Rodin’s sculpture Eve owes its genesis to The Gates of Hell, the artist’s major commission from the French government in 1880. The associations posed by the sculptural portals of that project led Rodin back to the art of Lorenzo Ghiberti and Michelangelo, particularly their depiction of biblical stories from the book of Genesis. A number of elements from the Gates—such as The Thinker, Adam, and Eve—gradually evolved into independent works. In particular, Eve recalls the most sculptural of Renaissance paintings: Michelangelo’s panels from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling and Masaccio’s Expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Its naturalism shocked critics when it was first exhibited, since Eve seemed to them more like a flesh-and-blood woman than an idealized creation.