The Gates of Hell

Sculpture by Auguste Rodin

This article is about the Rodin sculpture. For other uses, see Gates of Hell (disambiguation).

The Gates of Hell

at the Museo Soumaya

Artist| Auguste Rodin
Medium| Bronze
Location| Musée D’Orsay, Paris (plaster model); casts in various places

The Gates of Hell (French: La Porte de l'Enfer) is a monumental bronze sculptural group work by French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from the Inferno, the first section of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. It stands at 6 metres high, 4 metres wide and 1 metre deep (19.7×13.1×3.3 ft) and contains 180 figures.

Several casts of the work were made, which are now in various locations around the world. Rodin's original plaster model is in the Musée D’Orsay, Paris. The figures range from 15 centimetres (6 in) high up to more than one metre (3 ft). Several of the figures were also cast as independent free-standing statues.

## History[edit]

The sculpture was commissioned by the Directorate of Fine Arts in 1880 and was meant to be delivered in 1885.[citation needed] Rodin would continue to work on and off on this project for 37 years, until his death in 1917.[citation needed]

The Directorate asked for an inviting entrance to a planned Decorative Arts Museum with the theme being left to Rodin's selection. Even before this commission, Rodin had developed sketches of some of Dante's characters based on his admiration of Dante's Inferno.[1]

The Decorative Arts Museum was never built. Rodin worked on this project on the ground floor of the Hôtel Biron. Near the end of his life, Rodin donated sculptures, drawings and reproduction rights to the French government. In 1919, two years after his death, the Hôtel Biron became the Musée Rodin, housing a cast of The Gates of Hell and related works.[citation needed]

## Inspiration[edit]

> Through me the way into the suffering city,
>  Through me the way to the eternal pain,
>  Through me the way that runs among the lost.
>  Justice urged on my high artificer;
>  My Maker was Divine authority,
>  The highest Wisdom, and the primal Love.
>  Before me nothing but eternal things
>  Were made, and I endure eternally.
>  Abandon every hope, who enter here.

Dante, Inferno, 3.1–9

Rodin conceived that people would walk toward the work, perhaps up a flight of stairs, and be overwhelmed frontally by the massive gates, contemplating the experience of hell that Dante describes in his Inferno. Rodin thought particularly of Dante's warning over the entrance of the Inferno, "Abandon every hope, who enter here."[2]

A work of the scope of The Gates of Hell had not been attempted before, but inspiration came from Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise at the Baptistery of St. John, Florence, 15th century bronze doors depicting figures from the Old Testament. Another source of inspiration was medieval cathedrals combining high and low relief. Rodin was also inspired by Michelangelo's fresco The Last Judgment, Delacroix's painting The Barque of Dante, Balzac's collection La Comédie humaine and Baudelaire's poems Les Fleurs du mal.[3][4]

In an article in Le Matin, Rodin said: "For a whole year I lived with Dante, with him alone, drawing the eight circles of his inferno. [...] At the end of this year, I realized that while my drawing rendered my vision of Dante, they had become too remote from reality. So I started all over again, working from nature, with my models."[5]

## Gallery[edit]

* Variations of The Gates of Hell
* The Kunsthaus Zürich in Zurich

* Musée d'Orsay in Paris

* The National Museum of Western Art in Ueno Park, Tokyo

* The Rodin Museum in Philadelphia

* The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University

## Outstanding figures[edit]

The Thinker in the Gates at the Musée Rodin Detail of the Kneeling Female Faun in the tympanum

The original sculptures were enlarged and became works of art of their own.

* The Thinker (Le Penseur), also called The Poet, is located above the door panels. One interpretation suggests that it might represent Dante looking down to the characters in the Inferno. Another interpretation is that the Thinker is Rodin himself meditating about his composition. Others believe that the figure may be Adam, contemplating the destruction brought upon mankind because of his sin.
* The Kiss (Le Baiser) was originally in The Gate along with other figures of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. Rodin wanted to represent their initial joy as well as their final damnation. He removed the figure that became known as The Kiss because it seemed to conflict with the other suffering figures.
* Ugolino and His Children (Ugolin et ses enfants) depicts Ugolino della Gherardesca, who according to the story, ate the corpses of his children after they died by starvation (Dante, Inferno, Canto XXXIII). The Ugolino group was cast as a separate bronze in 1882.
* The Three Shades (Les Trois Ombres) was originally 98 cm high. The over-life size group was initially made of three independent figures in 1899. Later on, Rodin replaced one hand in the figures to fuse them together, in the same form as the smaller version. The figures originally pointed to the phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" ("Abandon all hope, ye who enter here") from Canto III of the Inferno.[6]
* Fleeting Love (Fugit Amor) is located on the right door pane, it is one of several figures of lovers that represent Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. The male figure is also called The Prodigal.
* Paolo and Francesca is shown on the left door pane. Paolo tries to reach Francesca, who seems to slip away.
* Meditation appears on the rightmost part of the tympanum, shown as an enlarged figure in 1896.
* The Old Courtesan is a bronze cast from 1910 of an aged, naked female body. The sculpture is also called She Who Was Once the Helmet-Maker's Beautiful Wife (Celle qui fut la belle heaulmière). This title is taken from a poem by François Villon.
* Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone is based on the figure at the top of the left pilaster. Around 1881 Rodin enlarged her and gave her a stone.[7]
* I Am Beautiful (Je suis belle), cast in 1882, is among the second set of figures on the extreme right portion of the door.
* Eternal Springtime (L'Éternel printemps) was cast in 1884. It exists in several separate versions, both in marble and in bronze.
* Despair is found in various versions on both the left and right door panes.
* Kneeling Female Faun was conceived around 1884 and first cast in 1887. It is found on the left side of the tympanum, in front of the bas-reliefs which form the background.
* Adam and Eve. Rodin asked the directorate for additional funds for the independent sculptures of Adam and Eve that were meant to frame The Gates of Hell. However, Rodin found he could not get Eve's figure right. Consequently, several figures of Eve were made, none of which were used, and all of them were later sold.

Most of the individual figures portrayed on the gates do not originate in Dante. Rodin's sculptures are not illustrations of scenes from Inferno. Rather, Rodin “reinvented” Dante's hell to include figures who personified his own conception. Dante's Adam and Eve, for example, are in Paradise, thought to have been “rescued” from eternal damnation by Christ on Holy Saturday in the Harrowing of Hell.[citation needed]

The three shades are a transformation of three sinners whom Dante encounters in the Seventh Circle of murderers, suicides and homosexuals, all included among the violent against others, self and nature.[citation needed]

Other figures are either fully invented by Rodin or derive from other literary sources.[citation needed]

## Locations[edit]

External videos

Rodin's The Gates of Hell, Smarthistory[8]
The Gates of Hell, The story of a damned artwork , Canal Educatif[9]

The original plaster was restored in 1917 and is displayed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.[8] A series of plaster casts illustrating the development of the work is on view at the Musée Rodin in Meudon. Also in 1917, a model was used to make the original three bronze casts:

* The Musée Rodin, Paris.[10]
* The Rodin Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
* The National Museum of Western Art in Ueno Park, Tokyo.[11]

Subsequent bronzes have been distributed by the Musée Rodin to a number of locations, including:

* The Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich
* The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University
* The Plateau, Seoul, Korea
* Museo Soumaya, Mexico City

## See also[edit]

* List of sculptures by Auguste Rodin
* Dante and his Divine Comedy in popular culture

## References[edit]

1. ^ Elsen, Albert E. (1963). Rodin. New York: Museum of Modern Art. p. 35.
2. ^ Fisher, Paul Zelanski, Mary Pat (2011). The Art of Seeing (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. pp. 73–4. ISBN 978-0-205-74834-1.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
3. ^ Musée Rodin, La Porte de l'Enfer (French)
4. ^ "RODIN ET CHARLES BAUDELAIRE". Musée Rodin (in French). Archived from the original on 31 December 2017. Retrieved 15 July 2022. "son influence se fait sentir dès 1880 avec la mise en œuvre de la Porte de l'Enfer" [[Baudelaire's] influence is felt from 1880, with the beginning of his work on The Gates of Hell]
5. ^ Basset, Serge (19 March 1900). "LA PORTE DE L'ENFER". Le Matin. Paris. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
6. ^ Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette (1999). Rodin:The Gates of Hell. Paris: Musée Rodin. ISBN 2-901428-69-X.
7. ^ Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone at the Met
8. ^ a b "Rodin's The Gates of Hell". Smarthistory at Khan Academy. Retrieved 13 March 2013.
9. ^ "The Gates of Hell, The story of a damned artwork". Canal Educatif. Retrieved 13 March 2013.
10. ^ "The Gates of Hell". Musée Rodin. Retrieved 27 January 2012.
11. ^ "The Gates of Hell". The National Museum of Western Art. Retrieved 27 January 2012.

## Further reading[edit]

* Chevillot, Catherine; Marraud, Hélène; Pinet, Hélène; Adamson, John (transl.) (November 2014). Rodin: The Laboratory of Creation. Dijon: Éditions Faton. ISBN 9782878442007.
* Elsen, Albert (1955). Rodin's Gates of Hell. New York: Columbia University.
* Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette (September 2014). Rodin. New York: Abbeville. ISBN 9780789212078.

## External links[edit]

* Media related to The Gates of Hell at Wikimedia Commons
* La Porte de l'Enfer, a tool for exploring The Gates of Hell by the Musée Rodin
* Rodin: The B. Gerald Cantor Collection, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on The Gates of Hell
* Octave Mirbeau, « Auguste Rodin ».
* The Gates of Hell, Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, Object Number 1985.86, bronze cast No. 5.

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Auguste Rodin

Works|

* List of sculptures
* Man with the Broken Nose (1863)
* Alsatian Orphan (1871)
* Suzon (1872–73)
* The Age of Bronze (1876)
* La Defense (1879)
* The Maiden Kissed by the Ghost (1880)
* The Shade (1880)
* The Gates of Hell (1880/1917)
* The Thinker (1880, locations)
* Adam (1880–81)
* Eve (1881)
* Crouching Woman (1880–1882)
* Saint John the Baptist (1880/1907)
* Ugolino and His Sons (1881)
* The Kiss (1882)
* I Am Beautiful (1882)
* The Falling Man (1882)
* Jules Dalou (1883)
* Bust of Maurice Haquette (1883)
* Bust of Victor Hugo (1883)
* Eternal Springtime (1884)
* Torso of Adele (c. 1884)
* The Burghers of Calais (1884–1889)
* Head of Camille Claudel (1884/1911)
* The Prodigal Son (1885)
* Mask of a Weeping Woman (1885)
* The Martyr (1885)
* Psyche Looking at Love (1885)
* Eustache de Saint Pierre (1885–86)
* Jean d'Aire (1885–86)
* Jean de Fiennes (1885–86)
* Avarice and Lust (1885–1887)
* Damned Women (1885–1890)
* The Old Tree (1885)
* Paolo and Francesca (1885)
* Young Mother (1885)
* Young Mother in the Grotto (1885)
* Young Woman with a Serpent (c. 1885)
* The Three Shades (1886)
* Meditation (1886)
* Fugitive Love (1886–87)
* Ovid's Metamorphoses (1886–1889)
* Pierre de Wiessant (1887)
* Head of Saint John the Baptist (1887)
* The Sirens (1887)
* Polyphemus (1888)
* Standing Mercury (1888)
* The Kneeling Man (1888)
* Adonis Awakens (1889)
* Andromeda (1889)
* Glaucus (1889)
* Kneeling Female Faun (1889)
* The Succubus (1889)
* Despair (c. 1890)
* Brother and Sister (1890)
* Danaid (1890)
* Cybele (1890/1904)
* Monument to Balzac (1892–1897)
* Balzac in the Robe of a Dominican Monk (1892)
* Youth Triumphant (c. 1894)
* Octave Mirdeau (1895)
* Iris, Messenger of the Gods (c. 1895)
* Bacchantes Embracing (c. 1896)
* The Spirit of Eternal Repose (1898–99)
* Illusions Received by the Earth (pre-1900)
* The Athlete (1901–1904)
* The Death of Adonis (1903–1906)
* Adam and Eve (1905)
* The Walking Man (1907)
* The Cathedral (1908)
* The Prayer (1909)
* Standing Female Faun (1910)

Museums|

* Musée Rodin (Hôtel Biron), Paris
* Rodin Museum, Philadelphia
* Museu Rodin Bahia, Salvador
* Plateau (closed)

People|

* Camille Claudel

Depictions|

* 1888–89 Claudel bust
* 1909 Bourdelle bust
* Rodin — The Thinker (1902 photograph)
* Camille Claudel (1988 film)
* Camille Claudel (2003 musical)
* Camille Claudel 1915 (2013 film)
* Rodin (2017 film)

Related|

* Rodin (crater)

* Category
* Commons

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Dante's Divine Comedy

Characters
and locations|

| Inferno|

* Acheron
* Bertran de Born
* Bonturo Dati
* Brunetto Latini
* Caiaphas
* Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti
* Capaneus
* Cerberus
* Charon
* Chiron
* Ciacco
* Ciampolo
* Circles of Hell
* First
* Second
* Third
* Fourth
* Fifth
* Sixth
* Seventh
* Eighth
* Ninth
* Cocytus
* Dis
* Farinata degli Uberti
* Filippo Argenti
* Francesca da Rimini
* Geryon
* Gianni Schicchi de' Cavalcanti
* Great refusal
* Gualdrada Berti
* Guido Guerra
* Guido I da Montefeltro
* Iacopo Rusticucci
* Malebranche
* Alichino
* Barbariccia
* Cagnazzo
* Calcabrina
* Ciriatto
* Draghignazzo
* Farfarello
* Graffiacane
* Libicocco
* Malacoda
* Rubicante
* Scarmiglione
* Malebolge
* Minos
* Nessus
* Paolo Malatesta
* Phlegethon
* Phlegyas
* Pietro della Vigna
* Plutus
* Pope Boniface VIII
* Pope Nicholas III
* Ruggieri degli Ubaldini
* Satan
* Styx
* Ugolino della Gherardesca
* Ulysses
* Vanni Fucci
* Virgil

|

Purgatorio|

* Alagia Fieschi
* Arnaut Daniel
* Beatrice Portinari
* Beatrice d'Este
* Belacqua
* Bonagiunta Orbicciani
* Bonconte I da Montefeltro
* Casella
* Cato the Younger
* Conrad Malaspina
* Eunoe
* Forese Donati
* Gaia da Camino
* Garden of Eden
* Gherardo III da Camino
* Giovanna da Montefeltro
* Guido Guinizelli
* Hugh Capet
* Jacopo del Cassero
* Giovanna Visconti
* Lethe
* Manfred
* Marco Lombardo
* Matelda
* Nella Donati
* Nino Visconti
* Oderisi da Gubbio
* Omberto Aldobrandeschi
* Pia de' Tolomei
* Pope Adrian V
* Sapia Salvani
* Sordello
* Statius

Paradiso|

* Adam
* Bernard of Clairvaux
* Bonaventure
* Cacciaguida
* Charles Martel of Anjou
* Constance, Queen of Sicily
* Cunizza da Romano
* David
* Empyrean
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* Piccarda
* Ripheus
* Solomon
* Saint Peter
* Thomas Aquinas
* Trajan

Concepts|

* Contrapasso
* Terza rima

Verses|

* "Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe"
* "Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi"

Adaptations|

| Architecture|

* Palacio Barolo (Palanti, 1923)
* Danteum (Terragni, 1938)

|

Cinema|

* L'Inferno (1911)
* Dante's Inferno (1924)
* Dante's Inferno (1935)
* The Dante Quartet (1987)
* A TV Dante (1989)
* Dante's Inferno (2007)
* Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
* Dante's Hell Animated (2013)
* Botticelli Inferno (2016 documentary)

Illustrations|

* Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli (1485)
* Jean Giraud (Paradiso, 1999)

Literature|

* The Story of Rimini (1816)
* La Comédie humaine (1830–1850)
* Earth Inferno (1905)
* The Cantos (1917–1962)
* As I Was Going Down Sackville Street (1937)
* The System of Dante's Hell (1965)
* Demon Lord Dante (1971)
* Inferno (1976)
* The Dante Club (2003)
* Jimbo's Inferno (2006)
* Inferno (2013)

Music (classical)|

* Après une Lecture de Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata (Liszt, 1849)
* Dante Symphony (Liszt, 1857)
* Francesca da Rimini (Tchaikovsky, 1876)
* Francesca da Rimini (Rachmaninoff, 1904)
* Francesca da Rimini (Zandonai, 1914)
* Gianni Schicchi (Puccini, 1918)
* The Divine Comedy (Smith, 1996)
* Inferno (Ronchetti, 2020)

Music (modern)|

* Inferno (1973 album)
* "Dante's Inferno" (1995 song)
* Dante XXI (2006 album)
* A Place Where the Sun Is Silent (2011 album)

Paintings|

* The Barque of Dante (Delacroix, 1822)
* The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides (Blake, 1827)
* Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta Appraised by Dante and Virgil (Scheffer, 1835)
* Dante in Hell (Flandrin, 1835)
* The Barque of Dante (Manet, 1850s)
* Pia de' Tolomei (Rossetti, 1868)
* Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (Rossetti, 1885)
* La barca de Aqueronte (Hidalgo, 1887)
* La Laguna Estigia (Hidalgo, 1887)

Sculptures|

* The Gates of Hell (Rodin, 1917)
* The Kiss (1882)
* The Thinker (1904)

Video games|

* King of Demons (1996)
* Devil May Cry series (2001)
* Dante's Inferno (2010)
* The Lost (cancelled)

Related|

* Cultural references
* English translations
* In popular culture

* Category

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Sculptures

Types of sculptures|

* Architectural sculpture
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* Pedimental
* Soft sculpture
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Styles of sculptures|

* Baroque
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* Detonography
* Jain sculpture
* Modern sculpture
* Relief
* Renaissance

Elements in sculpture|

* Mass
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* Volume

Traditional materials|

* Wood
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* Butter
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Modern materials|

* Steel
* Ice
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* Acrylic
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* Plastic
* Fiberglass
* Glass
* Aluminium
* Fabric
* Paper
* Found object

Notable sculptures|

* Great Sphinx of Giza (c. 2558–2532 BCE)
* Abu Simbel temples (c. 1264 BCE)
* Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon (438 BCE)
* Colossus of Rhodes (c. 292 BCE)
* Winged Victory of Samothrace (c. 2nd century BCE)
* Terracotta Army (246–210 BCE)
* Laocoön and His Sons (c. 200 BCE-70 CE)
* Venus de Milo (130–100 BCE)
* Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius (175 CE)
* Buddhas of Bamiyan (507–554 CE)
* Chartes Cathedral (c. 1194–1250 CE)
* The Golden Virgin
* Jules Verne's Tomb
* Konark Sun Temple (1250 CE)
* Moai, Easter Islands (1250–1500 CE)
* Pietà (1498–1499)
* David (1501–1504)
* Veiled Christ (1753)
* Kamagaya Great Buddha (1776)
* Nelson's Column (1843)
* Lion of Belfort (1880)
* Liberty Enlightening the World, Statue of Liberty (1886)
* The Gates of Hell (1890–1917)
* The Thinker (1904)
* Abraham Lincoln (1920)
* Mount Rushmore Shrine of Democracy (1927–1941)
* Christ the Redeemer (1927–1931)
* The Motherland Calls (1967)
* Fallen Astronaut (1971)
* Mother Motherland, Kiev (1981)
* Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue (2008)
* Statue of Unity (2018)

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Authority control databases

International|

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