Was Rodin's monumental masterpiece a failure?
This video explains why there are two different versions of the same artwork, and why Rodin remained obsessed by the Gates until his death.
It shows how the artist used this work to solve major aesthetic issues that faced modern artists at that time.

I Contemplation

1- Hell

2- Dante's journey to hell

3- A pretext ?

II Analysis

1- Circonstances

2- Innovation

3- An aesthetic dilemma

III- A new development

1- An ever-ending story ?

2- An abstract structure

3- Why a second version?

Conclusion

Transcript of the introduction and Act I

Introduction

The Rodin Museum, in Paris: an imposing door made of bronze. It seems to be swarming with lost souls, all of them sinking into hell. 

The Rodin Museum, at Meudon, in the Hauts-de-Seine Département. A door made of plaster. There are only three figures, at the top. The rest is an abstract surface, with various folds and indentations.

Both doors were the work of one man, Auguste Rodin, and there is something deeply mysterious about them.  The bronze door in Paris appears the more finished – but is actually a mere first version.  Rodin never exhibited it, and it was not cast until 1930, well after his death. 

The Meudon plaster door seems unfinished – but is the only one exhibited by Rodin in his lifetime - in 1900.  Even after that and up to the time of his death, he repeatedly returned to it and made changes.  So must we regard this unfinished work as a failure?  Why was Rodin never satisfied with either version?  In this video, we shall try to find out what he was really trying to do.  We shall also see how this unfinished work became a landmark in the history of sculpture.

Act I. Hell according to Rodin ; Beyond a door, hell

But first, what is the "Gates of Hell "?

Standing six meters high and four wide, and containing eight tons of bronze, it makes an impressive showing in the courtyard of the Rodin Museum.

It certainly seems to be a door, with its:

        •       two leaves

        •       richly ornamented side-posts, and

        •       tympanum

And yet, it does not open, because:

        •       the figures are too entangled

        •       it has no opening mechanism

The first impression is of chaos, but various groups of figures soon become distinguishable.

At eye level, graves are opening, and human forms are emerging from them .  This is the worldly level.

Higher up, demons are casting brandishing and casting the souls of the damned into the abyss.

From the centre of the tympanum, a pensive male figure watches their endless, ineluctable fall: this is the celestial supernatural level, also the level of  thought.

Here, Rodin is giving us, not just a door, but a spectacular vision of hell.  Why did this subject interest him?

His inclusion of certain identifible characters points the way to an answer. 

At eye level, a man is crawling on hands and knees, like some scavenging animal.

He seems oblivious of the dead children who are still clinging to him.

The subject is a popular one. Twenty years earlier, Carpeaux, another French sculptor, had created a sensation with a similar, anguished figure.

Rodin and Carpeaux are both illustrating the same story – that of Ugolino, the traitor confined in a tower and left to starve with his children, whom he ends by devouring.

Carpeaux’s Ugolino is gnawed by hunger, but remains upright, battling temptation. The sculptor allows him to retain his human dignity.

Rodin’s treatment is even more expressive. He shows us Ugolino's last moments when, reduced to a beast, he crawls over the bodies of his dead children, on the point of devouring them. 

Lower down, a woman is clinging to a young man’s body. This is Francesca, wife on earth of a far older husband, who fell passionately in love with Paolo, her handsome brother-in-law, with whom she spent days reading tales of the love between Lancelot and Guinevere. Tragedy strikes when the lovers are surprised and murdered by Francesca's husband. Their adulterous passion leads them straight to hell.

There was nothing random in Rodin’s choice of these scenes.  

On one level, he is drawing on traditional sources; his door features episodes from Dante's Divine Comedy.

This – the first Italian epic not written in Latin – is universally regarded as one of the founding works of world literature.

It recounts Dante’s journey, accompanied by Virgil, to hell, purgatory and, finally, heaven.

Rodin kept a copy of the work in his pocket, constantly reading and re-reading favourite passages. 

On another level, Rodin is competing directly with other artists in his treatment of popular themes:

             In 1819, Ingres portrayed Paolo and Francesca at the very moment when the deceived husband surprises them.  In atmosphere, his painting is redolent of courtly love, and there is abundant medieval detail - costumes, a coat of arms, a richly bound book.

             In 1822, Delacroix depicted Dante and Virgil on Charon’s bark, surrounded by the beseeching souls of the damned in a scene teeming with anguished energy and torment.

             In 1870, Cabanel took up the Paolo and Francesca motif, showing them on their death-bed, in a scene filled with medieval imagery.

Unlike these artists, Rodin gives us nude figures, with no picturesque detail or clearly identifiable décor.

Above all, he adopts a far more personal approach to his subject – so much so that Dante's story becomes a mere pretext! 

This personal approach appears first in the figure of Dante himself.

Rodin decided early on to plave him on the upper part of the door crouching, naked and clutching his toes, meditating,Initially, Rodin had decided to place him on a rock near the top of the door, meditating on the work he is himself creating.  But his sketch omits the head covering traditionally used to identify Dante.

Rodin actually turns the figure into a separate sculpture, exhibiting it as "the poet, the thinker". It is as much Hugo or Baudelaire as Dante.

In this way, he turns a real, historical character into a universal poet figure, dropping the direct reference to the Divine Comedy. 

Francesca and Paolo, too, acquire more general significance:

Rodin originally showed another part of the story - the fateful moment when the lovers embrace, and the book about Lancelot they left behind tumbles to the floor . He felt, however, that this instant of bliss had no place on the door. He removed the group, which became The Kiss, with no reference to the Divine Comedy.

Instead, on the door, he shows the lovers buffeted and tossed by the winds of hell - the punishment reserved for those guilty of lust.  They are still Francesca and Paolo - but now, above all, a general image of lovers who refuse to be parted.