Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

Rodin was not a carver, but a modeller.  His instruments of power were his fingers; his hands, like those of a healer, promoted life through their touch. Hands held a kind of obsession for him, he kept a drawer full of plaster hands which he used to pull out and contemplate.  Rodin could be very good or very bad - his great work, The Gate of Hell shows both sides. Rodin is greatest when he is not working from a given subject, but from a chance pose or movement that fired his imagination.