131TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)CHAPTER 31 The Move Toward Modernism 131131ugly choreography, Duncan danced barefoot, often wear-
ing Greek-style tunics in reference to ancient dance. “I
have discovered the art that has been lost for two thou-
sand years,” claimed Duncan.
Rodin’s most ambitious project was a set of doors he
was commissioned to design for the projected Museum of
Decorative Arts in Paris. Loosely modeled after
Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise (see Figure 17.20), The Gates
of Hell (Figure 31.23) consists of a swarm of figures
inspired by the tortured souls of Dante’s “Inferno” (see
chapter 12). Rodin worked on the project for eight years,
making hundreds of drawings and sculptures based on
Dante’s poem; but he never completed the doors, which
were cast in bronze only years after his death. The figures
that occupy The Gates, not all of which are identifiable,
writhe and twist in postures of despair and yearning.
Arrived at intuitively—like the images in a Mallarmé
poem or a Monet landscape—they melt into each other
without logical connection. Rodin admitted that he
projected no fixed subject, “no scheme of illustrations or
intended moral purpose.” “I followed my own
imagination,” he explained, “my own
sense of movement and composition.”
Collectively, his figures evoke a world of
flux and chaos; their postures capture
the restless discontent voiced by
Nietzsche and Gauguin, and their
random arrangement gives sub-
stance to Bergson’s view of reality
as a perpetual stream of sensations.
Throughout his career, Rodin
remained compelled by the con-
tents of The Gates. He cast in
bronze many of its individual fig-
ures, and recreated others in mar-
ble. The two most famous of these
are The Kiss (Figure 31.24), based
on the figures of the lovers Paola
and Francesca (on the lower left
door), and The Thinker. The lat-
ter—one of the best known of
Rodin’s works—originally repre-
sented Dante contemplating his
imagined underworld from
atop its portals.
Figure 31.24 AUGUSTE RODIN,
The Kiss, 1886–1898. Marble, over life-size.