This is Eve After the Fall, a sculpture by Auguste Rodin, first exhibited in 1899. This particular version of the piece is marble; it stands about 30 inches tall. The height of the pedestal beneath her makes Eve’s bellybutton about eye level to me, an average-height woman. I snapped this photo of her last weekend at the Art Institute of Chicago (Gallery 243) after waiting a long time for the crowd to clear out behind her.
As you walk around Eve, seeing her contortions from every angle, it’s hard not to feel her pain. Not because of the silly Bible story, but because there she is, in the middle of downtown Chicago, in a packed museum, totally nude. I’d be embarrassed too.
We’ve all had those nightmares. The ones where we show up at work without shoes on, or where our teeth suddenly fall out. Or the really bad dreams like the one Eve is having — where we’re inexplicably naked and ducking for cover. Poor lady. She’s clearly trying to hide herself from gawkers like me. But she’s frozen forever, mid-grapple, in front of the Garden of Eden known as Monet’s Irises. Humiliating. If I were a decent human being I would have put down my iPhone and given her my coat. (Fat chance! It was zero degrees outside.)
Originally, Eve was not meant to be standing alone. As part of a commission by the French government in 1880, Rodin had undertaken the creation of a massive project in bronze called The Gates of Hell, a fun-sounding installation that was meant to depict stories from the book of Genesis. Adam was supposed to flank Eve in their characteristically guilt-ridden way, you know, surrounded by writhing snakes, devils, and other elements that naughty people wrestle with in religious art. Apparently, Rodin was a bit of a slacker because the original version of the piece was never completed.* But, ever the hustler, the terracotta sketches he made for The Gates of Hell (including all-stars like The Thinker) were cast in bronze and carved into marble. And now, bits and pieces populate museums around the world. You can see mortified Eves from Paris to Mexico City — where she’s a lot toastier than the chilly Eve in Chicago.
No matter where you happen to do the museum shuffle, nudes are ubiquitous; in paintings, in sculptures, and for sale in the gift shop in the form of mouse pads. Most of them seem unaware of the fact that they’re undressed; many are downright exhibitionistic. They sprawl and cat stretch. They reach for fruit. Their creators made them pleasing to look at, even downright sexy. But we snobbishly look past the fact that their marble robes drape off one shoulder, Hugh Hefner-style. “The way he captured the human form is remarkable!” we might hear ourselves mutter. Unless you’re one of my boys, you hardly notice the nakedness at all. We’ve been trained not to look.
But as soon as you glance over at this Eve, it’s too late. She sees you seeing her. She’s not in a private moment of seduction — that’s what happened right before the fall. Now she’s freaking out. And although any of us would do the same under the circumstances, she’s supposed to be illustrating the concept of Original Sin — which, I think, is our tendency for moral corruption.
I attended Sunday school just long enough to have a picture taken of me with HI-C fruit punch all over my face. My motivation for attending is evident, and that day was the extent of my religious education. So, I confess that I’m muddy on the concept of Original Sin. But reading up on it now is like watching an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies — it’s as stupid as it is hilarious. Who in their right mind would ever believe the backward thinking of a preposterous story about apples and serpents? To me, Genesis has all the moral high ground of Granny Clampett and her propensity for using leaches. And it’s just as painfully dated.
It’s true that sitcoms — and religious themes in art — survive on commercial success; that’s why museums are filled with centuries of sponsored content like Eve After the Fall, even if Rodin did not (ever) meet the terms of his deadline. (In today’s market, he’d be sued for breach of contract.) What’s strange, however, is how long Rodin took to wrestle with this time-worn idea — and also: why he wrestled at all?
When this sculpture was first shown publicly at the 1899 Paris Salon — 19 years after he started it — people were shocked. Not because of her state of undress, but because she looked like a real woman. Her flesh-and-blood appearance was startling. She was described as “natural.” While other sculptors of the classic school were creating images of the ideal human form, Rodin presented a lady with a little meat on her bones. A ripple here and there. How do you say “cellulite” en Francais? Was he the first artist to endorse Body Positivity in an age of aesthetic perfection? Did the august Auguste Rodin see the value — and beauty — of creating a lady of average proportions? No.
The reason for Rodin’s undoing was the Italian model who posed for this sculpture, Adèle Abruzzesi. She was one of Rodin’s favorites, known for inspiring some pretty va-va-voom pieces, including Torso of Adèle. But, when she began sitting for Eve in 1881, things weren’t going as planned. Her womanly physique began to confuse Rodin. Why? Because she was pregnant.
'Without knowing why, I saw my model changing. I modified my contours, naively following the successive transformations of ever-amplifying forms.”
Auguste Rodin
Naive indeed. This was the artist’s charming way of saying she was getting fat. Not only that, he blamed her for not showing up at the studio because she was cold. That’s why he couldn’t finish, he said. I’d suggest something else as well: as Rodin grappled with his own approach to Eve’s nakedness, he had a conflict. How could he, knowing his once-svelte model was knocked up — guilty of Original Sin herself — find a way to portray her? He could make her look embarrassed, but he couldn’t make her sensual. If he did, he’d make every museum-going zealot feel guilty of having the hots for someone who’d fallen from grace. In that case, who would be morally corrupt? Pas moi!
You’re correct to assume that I’m areligious, but I happen to live on the same planet every other human woman lives on. So I know full well the asinine level of destruction that the morality tale of Original Sin hath wrought. We all know that Adam was never quite as contrite as Eve, and that Jethro got away with a lot more than Elly May. But I shiver when I consider the sheer number of images of woman who — if they aren’t there for the explicit pleasure of men — portray them instead as average, unwanted, guilty, and (in this case) freaking out.
Standing at belly-button level, there’s a lot more to Eve than meets the eye — things that Rodin never intended. It’s the figure of a real woman enduring a pregnancy with a real body. It’s the figure of a woman being forced to feel historically guilty about a stupid story — even if she doesn’t. And it’s the figure of a woman who does not want to be seen, least of all naked, by anyone and everyone. Rodin tried to pin that on Original Sin, I call it good sense.
Now, for chrissakes it’s cold out. Somebody give that woman a coat.
* A bronze cast of The Gates of Hell was created in 1926; it was commissioned by cinema magnate Jules Mastbaum and was installed at the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia where you can see it today ($15 for adults).
Marcy! This was hysterical! and original! and spot on! Thank you for sharing this perspective on nudes, women, guilt, shaming, sexism, etc, in a new light for me, in such a delightful, non self-effacing way.