Dome

Overall view from below left, seen in the Musee d'Orsay main concourse; When the plaster was exhibited at the 1898 Salon the critics went wild, pouring scorn on the formless block. They compared it to a toad in a sack, a statue still wrapped, a block of salt caught in a shower. They nicknamed it the menhir, the snowman. The Société des Gens de Lettres refused to accept this work that broke with all the traditional conventions for a commemorative monument, and that ignored the requirement for a realistic portrait. And so Rodin kept the statue, returned the money, and refused all offers to buy it. It was not until 1939 that a bronze cast was erected in Paris, on the boulevard Raspail. Source: Musée d'Orsay [website]; http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/ (accessed 8/27/2015)