The Gates of Hell - Stanford, CA
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DopeyDuck
N 37° 25.948 W 122° 10.248
10S E 573359 N 4143171
Auguste Rodin's monumental sculpture "The Gates of Hell" was commissioned as the entrance doorway to the Decorative Arts Museum in 1880. The museum was never built, but the doorway was completed 37 years later. This is a bronze cast of the original.
Waymark Code: WM8KF9
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 04/14/2010
Views: 4
"The sculptural ensemble was commissioned by the Directorate of Fine Arts in 1880 and was meant to be delivered in 1885. Rodin would continue to work on and off on this project for 37 years, until his death in 1917.
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.
The Decoratives 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.
The Gates of Hell is a monumental bronze sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from "The Inferno", the first section of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. It stands at 6 m high, 4 m wide and 1 m deep (19.69'H × 13.12'W × 3.29'D) and contains 180 figures.
Some of the original sculptures were enlarged and became works of art of their own, including The Thinker (located above the door panels), The Kiss, Ugolino and His Children (who according to the story, ate the corpses of his children after they died by starvation), The Three Shades, Fugitive Love, Meditation, The Old Courtesan, I Am Beautiful, and Adam and Eve."
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