| Generally considered the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo, Rodin achieved
his first success only in his late thirties, when in 1880 the French government
purchased a male nude, eventually called The Age of Bronze, and invited Rodin
to design the portals for a planned decorative arts museum. Inspired initially
by Dante’s Inferno, the first book of The Divine Comedy, the monumental
doors soon became known as The
Gates of Hell. Plans for the museum were canceled
by the mid-1880s, but Rodin continued to work obsessively on the doors until
1900. Much of the sculpture Rodin produced after 1880, including Paolo and Francesca, relates in some way to The
Gates. . . .
:: Laura Coyle, Art historian and Independent Curator |
Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from
the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
:: Purchase A Capital Collection online
:: The Curator's Journals Project
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