Thank you to Joy of Museums for this wonderful commentary on The Gates of Hell.
“The Gates of Hell” by Auguste Rodin
The Gates of Hell is a sculptural group created by Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from “The Inferno” from Dante Alighieri’s book the Divine Comedy. The sculpture was commissioned in 1880; it became Rodin’s life work as he continued to work on and off on this project for 37 years, until his death in 1917.
Many of the characters were modeled and cast separately as stand-alone art sculptures. This is one of the reasons Rodin took so long with this masterpiece. Many of the original small-scale sculptures used on the Gate were enlarged and reworked and became stand-alone works of art of their own. Examples of include:
- “The Thinker” is located above the door panels.
- “The Kiss” was initially part of the Gates, however, Rodin removed the figures that became known as The Kiss because it seemed to conflict with the other suffering figures.
- “Eternal Springtime”
- “Adam” and “Eve”
