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The impressionist Rodin created bronze figures with small surface gouges, bumps, and hollows. This gave the human figures lifelike skin that reflected shadows and light. Rodin was also the first sculptor to leave his large bronzes unfinished in the back or on the sides. Rodin wanted the public to better understand how the sculptures were made. Rather than hide the armature, Rodin allowed viewers to peer into the work and see how the piece was constructed. According to Elliott, this practice “served to highlight the creative process involved in the making of a bronze sculpture, declaring in effect that artistic representation was .

34 Today Duchamp is among the most well-known sculptors of the twentieth century, but he began his career as a cubist painter. His 1912 painting Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 portrays an abstract figure that seems to move across the canvas in a series of overlapping, violently jagged images. Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 is now considered an innovative masterpiece. However, when the painting was initially exhibited, at the 1913 Armory Show in New York City, Americans were scandalized. At the time people in the United States had had little exposure to European cubism, and critics were merciless.

He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object. As for plumbing, that is absurd. 39 Fountain quickly became a symbol of the Dada movement. The fact that a common plumbing appliance could generate such astonishment reinforced the Dada philosophy—society appeared ridiculous, more so than the artist who displayed the fixture as sculpture. Duchamp might have had a playful intent when he created Fountain and his other readymades, but he was seriously challenging basic concepts of art.