Thursday, January 24, 2019

The Gates of Hell

The Gates of Hell is the defining sculpture of Rodin's life.  The massive sculpture is 6 meters high 4 meters wide and has a depth of 1 meter. Rodin received a commision to make bronze doors for an art museum on August 16, 1880.  The museum was never built, but Rodin spent 37 years continuously altering the individual pieces located on the doors. Many of his most famous sculptures including The Thinker and The Kiss were originally small parts of the door that he then made full sized sculptures out of.  Rodin drew inspiration from Dante's vision of what hell would be like in The Divine Comedy. The figures on the doors are free floating in the scene with Rodin trying to show how the only thing binding them together is the displays of agony. I found this piece interesting because of its size and the amount of attention to detail.

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