The Gates of Hell, Rodin Sculpture at Stanford university CA
History
The Gates of Hell is an exquisite feature, and everyone would love to see it again, no matter how many times they visit Stanford University. It is a massive sculpture that was curved by Auguste Rodin, a French artist whose imagination created a conceived a real beauty. Its imagery is based on one of the scenes from “The Inferno” by Dante. It stands six meters tall and four meters wide.
It is one of the 180 figures found in the institution, many of which were later known on their own. The famous one here is the “thinker,” which is the image of a man seated while his hands form a perfect resting place for his chin. Its design was commissioned in the year 1880, and its completion was expected to be due in five years. However, Rodin took 37 years to complete it. He was still working on it until when he passed on in 1917.
He labored to make it look great. The directorate requested an open entrance to the organized decorative arts museum, and Rodin was allowed the leeway to pick the perfect theme. Surprisingly he had come up with sketches on some of the characters in Dante’s work even before the sculpture was commissioned. However, the dream of the Decorative Arts Museum never saw the light of the day as it was not built.
His work station was in the Hotel Biron’s ground floor, and close to his death, he donated the drawings, reproduction rights, and sculptures to the French authorities. Two years after his passing, the Hotel Biron was renamed Musee Rodin and housed the cast for the Gates of Hell and other works.
This paper employs visual analysis to examine this monument. Standing before the Gates of Hell sparks a surreal feeling. It is very complicated in the way it is designed and has many figures in it. When I visited the place, I kept on imagining how Rodin managed to display the reality about something human that is not opening for many people to observe. It manifests the drama of man that is reflected through his soul and flesh.
The apparent theme for this unique sculpture is how human consciousness evolves. The thoughts that led to its creation are that of a man who has become lonely and isolated. He is meditating as he confronts his destiny. The way he thinks about the world defines his strength. Ugolino and his offsprings represent how a new man emerges once his consciousness is eradicated. The observer is also alerted to their frailties as a result of time.
Lastly, when a person gives in to the call of passion, they end up forgetting their conscience, the Fugit Amor, and Kiss. The most current version of the Gates of Hell has more than 186 figures. The first one you see is that of the Falling Man. It provides the details regarding the Gates of Hell’s lintels. The most apparent trait displayed here is Rodin’s genius when he portrays the muscular tension as well as the foreshortening of the person’s body that is viewed as dangling on the abyss. Here the thinker can be observed to be the central element of the Gates of Hell monument. From the position he is given, he is following the happenings that are taking place below him.
The purpose of the thinker is to act as the witness as well as the participant during the tour. He gives invaluable access for the reader on the various events that are explained in the Divine Comedy that is mostly narrated in the first-person point of view. Notably, in the absence of the Dante figure in the comedy it could and on the monument of the Gates of Hell, it could have been hard for the viewer or reader to have access to the private four lessons. Instead, they could only be limited to witnessing in passive fear what the punishments of Hell. His primary responsibility in the inferno is to understand man’s nature with unbiased eyes and afterward look for the way to righteousness through divine guidance.
Here Dante is representative of what the soul comprehends. The person that can understand the truth about human existence as well as its weaknesses, but at the same time has lost his or her faith. In this context, his intention to go back to righteous ways is exhibited by the powerful muscular body as well as the clenched fist. Also, a man can be observed as crawling on his knees and hands as a scavenging animal could do. From the look of things, he is oblivious to the dead children that are clinging to his body.
This scene presents the perfect illustration of the Ugolino story. The traitor was incarcerated in the tower and left to die with his children. He ends up eating them. In this aspect, Rodin intends to show the observe how Ugolino’s last moments were. He was literarily reduced to the beast that he became. He crawled to where his children’s bodies were lying. In the scene, a woman can also be seen hanging to another man’s body.
The woman here is Francesca, who was a wife to an older man. She fell deeply in love with Paolo, who was her brother in law. Afterward, they were hit by an unfortunate tragedy when the husband killed them. The assumption here is that their adulterous escapades led them to Hell. Rodin shows them being tossed and punished in Hell. This punishment is reserved for those that are adulterous. The most conspicuous lovers in this monument are Paolo and Francesca, who evidently cannot be separated.
This scene tends to imply that the characters were being pushed back into their rational beings. However, if the pressure at which they were being pushed at were to be increased, the 3D sculptures would transform to bas-reliefs. Another increase would see them transformed into wall imprints. Therefore, this monument is a tremendous expression of this sort of pressure. For instance, if one looks at the scene of the Last Judgement by Guslebertus, the concepts could have become more explicit if we were to, first of all, examine the lintel from left to right.
The lower part of the lintel has tombs that are curved. This is the part where the dead are raised when the angels blow the horns. Under the feet of Christ that is at the center, an angel is standing with a sword and draws a division between the elect and the damned. The elect is found on the left part of the lintel, with some of them sticking out of their sarcophagi while others are standing on or in them. The damned ones are on the right part while there is an inscription just below their half, saying that fear shall strike the ones that commit earthly failures because their fate is indicated by the horror of the figures presented.
At the same time, those that are damned are displayed in the nude as many of them try to conceal their faces as they are terrified. There is also the scene of the collector holding a bag of money with a snake meandering round his body. He can be seen screaming. There is an adulterous female that has two serpents biting her two breasts. Next to her is a figure that is being strangled by two giant hands that look like claws.
Then there is a saint that is holding a book. That could be St. John. Standing next to him is Archangel Michael and has two souls that are clinging to his robes in an attempt to have him protect them. Archangel Michael is weighing the souls. His biggest adversary Satan looks horrible and has a monster head. He also has a tail, a skinny body, and is portrayed as half man and half reptile. This is in stark contrast to Archangel Michael’s garments that serve as a convenient refuge for the souls.
The devil can be seen dragging one unfortunate soul in air, and there is a snake with three heads that is coiled between the legs. The action of weighing souls resembles Byzantine art. Because the subject is very familiar as a result of the information from the Last Judgement, there needs to be emphasized that these forms one of its early exhibitions in the west. The display of the Autun subject is very similar to that of the Byzantine sort with the demons trying to interfere with scales action.
The forms of the Last Judgement are not naturalistic at all and are patterned. They also are dependent on their impact on the decorative application of distortion that has posters that are angular. This sculpture treats many of its forms abstractly, for instance, trapezoids, circles, or triangles, depending on the amount of space they will fill. Christ’s figure is portrayed as flat and almost posits that there are no concerns with the body proportion.
This sculpture focuses on the chaotic nature of the world of a man as well as subjecting it to the geometrical order that is very indifferent to the world that we live in. The Gates of Hell represents a man’s world with the way the different characters integrate. Also, more significantly, it aids the sculpture to retrieve its modernity through disintegrating with the clamor for an elegant finish.
The door has both elements. The parts that are worked finely, for instance, the arms of Ugolino and the people next to him, are rough. Apart from that, Rodin was very creative in his work. He conceived many ideas on how he could make his sculptures look different from the rest. The repetition of shades is one such a creative idea. All characters identical and seem are made from one type of mold. Every aspect is at a slight angle from the res. This element is essential as it makes their features more visible without one having to move around to see them.
The second innovation he does is an experimental simplification of different forms. In this sculpture, he took advantage of the accident that made the shades to lose their hands. He made no effort to hide the amputation. His approach was very successful here as they observe pities that victims. This feeling is further reinforced by the fact that Rodin is a sculpture and used his hands to create things. Observably, in the Last Judgement, there is a small detail in Christ’s robe in which delicate lines are implied presence of folds in the robe’s fabric.
The fabric is pressed to Christ’s body, unraveling his thin legs that are bent at his knee. However, it flows loosely at his feet. It them curls engendering a sense of movement, echoing the very foliage that embellishes the tympanum. These figures are erect and long, and the vertical lines are an indication of spirituality. They rise beyond humans and stretch to the heavens. In the Gates of Hell, many edges are curved diagonally, conveying a sense of instability. The vertically straight lines indicate permanence and stability.
The artist effectively combined emotional tension and liturgical gravity, the depth of applying the shallowness of projection in modeling, the variegation in a gesture, as well as the many details and manages to come up with an art that has serenity. This masterpiece only serves to confirm his genius in the art of sculpture. At the same time, the figures portrayed in the Gates of Hel assume a range that is from close to planar just on the doorposts up to the 3D sculptures to the ones that are on the panels.
The Gates of Hell embraces both the three- dimensional and two-dimensional features this making them stand out from the rest. In this art, he wanted to interpret minimum relief in a manner that it could accommodate décor as an integral part of the whole body and then allow light to shade more sculptural motifs. He used his fascination with illumination and used it to a significant effect. For instance, the movements of the surfaces, planes as well as the passion pulse all liven up form.
Conclusion
The experience of observing the Gates of Hell at Stanford University is one that I will remember for a long time. Before I embarked on this journey, I had no idea how the monument looked like or the experience it came with. However, when the time came, I relished every moment I spent there. The most important part to me was to understand the unique features of the sculpture and the brain behind it. The history of the monument serves to whet the appetite, but I must say that experiencing it first hand is indescribable.
It was like rolling back the years to ancient times. Again, it made me question my faith as a believer. I realized that in recent times I had slackened a bit. However, I intend to use this trip as a way of revitalizing my faith so that I may not find myself on the right side of the lintel.