Rodin: A Self-Portrait in the Gates of Hell

Author(s): Albert Alhadeff

Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 48, No. 3/4 (Sep. - Dec., 1966), pp. 393-395
Published by: College Art Association
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393

RODIN: A SELF-PORTRAIT IN

mournfully with his left hand pressed against his forehead, while an

THE GATES OF HELL

unseen female form . .. appears at his back and extends her arms
almost around, without touching him."8 Bartlett, like Rilke, observed

ALBERT ALHADEFF

the pensive character of the leading figure and noted its contact with

In 1880, when Rodin was still relatively unknown,1 he received a com-

the secondary female form. However, neither critic noticed that the

mission for the entrance portal to the Musee des Arts Decoratifs. The

facial characteristics of the kneeling figure suggest a self-portrait. The

work, known as the Gates of Hell, marked the beginning of his acclaim

figure has a long, rich, undulating beard which falls onto the chest, and

as an artist. In the years that followed he rose from near anonymity

to international renown. Both in Europe and America Rodin was con-

almost full profile. The forehead, high and expansive, is marked by

sidered the most influential sculptor of his time2 and it was not uncom-

prominent bulges and hollows (Fig. 2).

mon during his life to compare his work with Michelangelo's.3

a full mustache that covers the mouth. The large, sturdy face is set in

The same facial characteristics were attributed to Rodin himself by

Work never ceased on the Gates of Hell throughout the rest of the

Paul Gsell, a friend of the artist during his later years: "Rodin has an

master's career, even though by the turn of the century it no longer

immense beard . .. It is a wavy and silken beard, the beard of Michel-

had a specific destination.4 A personal commitment to the Gates kept

him engaged on the portal for thirty-seven years, making it one of

those rare works in the history of art which encompass, in quite a

literal sense, the creative lifespan of its maker. Rodin's oeuvre stems

angelo's Moses ... The physiognomy of my host is especially characterized by bosses marking his forehead just above the eyes ... The nose
continues the line of the forehead: a powerful nose, with palpitating,
sensuous nostrils."9 Gsell's description, based upon personal observa-

from this monumental doorway, which was the source from which his

tion, underlines the salient features of Rodin's physiognomy. Character-

greatest figures were drawn.5

istics common to both his person and our relief are the strong, sharply

Among the numerous figures on the Gates is one, at the very base of

drawn profile, the broad nose, the immense, undulant beard, and the

the inward left reveal of the door (Fig. 1), which this writer will at-

marked forehead with prominent projections.

tempt to identify as a portrait of Rodin. The crouching figure is

modeled in extremely low relief, enclosed and isolated from the field

1880,10 Rodin chose to present himself as a bulwark of strength. His

above by an architectural frame. It is not possible to recognize the

forms if one does not stand directly before the relief. Viewed from a

In his self-portrait, the only one thus far confirmed, drawn around

massive body, contained within a compact silhouette, boldly faces the

viewer (Fig. 5). In this sketch of himself Rodin has bosses above the

distance, the forms are drastically foreshortened and less discernible.

eyes which accentuate his forehead, closely cropped hair and a long

The figure, its legs neatly tucked under it, rests on its knees, its body

beard, as does the relief. Of the innumerable figures swarming over the

leaning forward. The left hand is raised to the forehead, while the
body of the kneeling male swells with muscular shapes, while the

Gates, only the kneeling man in the relief is distinguished by a very

full beard and short hair.11 Moreover, in a late photograph of the
artist taken by Edward Steichen (Fig. 3) the bosses above the eyes are

smaller form has the smooth curvature of a woman.

prominent.

right arm, bent at the elbow, holds a second, much smaller figure. The

In 1903, the relief was noted by Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the early

Subsequent to Rilke's description of the group, the bas-relief was not

writers on Rodin, without citing its specific location on the door. In his

mentioned in Rodin literature until Albert Elsen's recent study of the

interpretive essay on the Gates, he called the bas-relief, L'homme et sa

Gates. Elsen called the kneeling figure "the Creator," interpreting it

pensee, remarking that by touching his forehead the figure awakens the

in the light of a second relief, "Eve" (Fig. 4), situated on the opposite

forms of a women.6 The American journalist, T. H. Bartlett, described

side of the door.12 Elsen argued that Rodin, with these two panels,

the relief in 1889, the terminus ante quem for the insertion of the relief

established a "reference to God as maker of the world and its laws, and

in the Gates:7 "The group is composed of two figures, the poet, standing

Eve as symbolising the power of sin, whose harvest is reaped by her

1 In the 1870's Rodin had been employed by a number of decorative sculptors

(Laouste, Legrain, Carrier-Belleuse), and had been involved in a difficult partnership with a Belgian sculptor, Van Rasbourgh. While working with these men
Rodin agreed to withold his name from the work he produced for their ateliers.
By 1880 his sole publicity had been the libelous press reports over the Age of

Bronze.

2 For an interesting history of Rodin's reputation in America see "Rodin and

America," by Peter Selz in Albert Elsen's Rodin, New York, 1962.
3 As early as 1882, when the Age of Bronze and the St. John were exhibited at the
Triennial Salon in Paris, "they became the objects of the most enthusiastic and
general praise . . . their author often mentioned in connection with Donatello and
Michael Angelo" (Truman H. Bartlett, "Auguste Rodin, Sculptor," American
Architect and Building Netos, 25, 1889, 113).

Rodin, 49ff.

6 Rainer Maria Rilke, Rodin, Maurice Betz, trans., Paris, 1953, 75: "La representation d'un homme qui est agenouillk et qui, par le contact de son front, iveille
dans la pierre les formes discrites d'une femme, lesquelles restent libes A cette
pierre."

7 Rodin was about forty-nine when he executed the relief. However, he represents
himself as in the prime of life.

8 Bartlett, "Rodin, Sculptor," 249. The phrase, "standing mournfully," must be

interpreted figuratively and not literally.

9 Paul Gsell, "Chez Rodin," L'art et les artistes, February, 1907, 394: "Rodin a une

immense barbe dont le rouge flamboiement de jadis s'apaise sous la neige des

annies. C'est une barbe ondulke et soyeuse, la barbe du Moise de Michel Ange

S. . La physionomie de mon h8te est surtout caracterisge par les bosses qui
soulevent son front juste au-dessus des yeux. . . Le nez continue la ligne du

4 For a study of the Gates of Hell see Albert Elsen, Rodin's Gates of Hell, Minneapolis, 1960. As late as 1903 the French government still hoped to receive the
portal, but in the following year Rodin settled his financial obligations with the
Beaux-Arts Commission and kept the Gates. See Judith Cladel, Rodin, sa vie

front: un nez puissant aux narines palpitantes de sensualit6." The italics are mine.
10 Elsen, Rodin, 159.

5 "Les quelque deux cents figures qu'elle comprend constitubrent un fonds dans
lequel il ne cessa jamais de puiser; ses statues, ses groupes les plus c6l1bres en

12 Elsen believes that the small panel of "Eve" as it exists today on the Gates is a

glorieuse et inconnue, Paris, 1936, 141f.

ont
&t6 extraits
pour .tre
transformbs,
. . . LeLes
Penseur,
Les
Ombres,
La Cariatide,
La arranges,
Femme Accroupie,
Les 'augmentbs'
Metamorphoses,
Faunesses,

La Belle Heaulmiare, le groupe du Baiser, les figures d'Adam et d'Eve et tant

d'autres, sont des fragments de La Porte." (Cladel, Rodin, 142) Also see Elsen,

11 The only other bearded figure on the Gates known to this writer is the severed
head of St. John the Baptist.

modification of Rodin's original idea to have two colossal statues, an Adam and
Eve, standing at either side of the door. Although the Beaux-Arts Commission

refused Rodin the money for this project, Elsen notes that "a small sculpture of
Eve, however, was subsequently inserted in the lower right reveal of the door"
(Rodin's Gates, 67f.).

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1. Rodin, Self-Portrait from the Gates of Hell. Philadelphia, Rodin Museum

2. Rodin, Self-Portrait from the Gates of Hell (detail). Philadelphia, Rodin

3. Edward J. Steichen, Auguste Rodin (photo: Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art)

Museum

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4. Rodin, A Siren from the Gates of Hell. Philadelphia, Rodin Museum

5. Rodin, Self-Portrait, drawing (photo: Zentralinstitut fiir Kunstgeschichte)

6. Stefano Ricci, Monument to Dante Alighieri (detail). Florence, Santa Croce

(photo: Alinari)

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394 The Art Bulletin

descendants in The Gates."is The evidence we have presented poses

some problems regarding Elsen's interpretation. First, Elsen does not
account for the female figure that gropes towards the male form in the
"Creator" panel. His interpretation confuses the creation iconography,

for instead of Adam serving as a pendant to Eve it is the Creator who

faces the latter. Second, the figure called "Eve" by Elsen appears to be
not a woman, but rather a siren, since the lower half of her sinuous
body tapers into the form of a fish tail.

"Nothing, really, is more moving than the maddened beast, dying from

unfulfilled desire and asking in vain for grace to quell its passion."17
The function of the pendant figure (Fig. 4) becomes clear in the light
of the evidence above. The taunting, curled up siren, her scaly fish-tail
lifted high and cradled in her arms, her gaze boldly turned towards
the kneeling man (Fig. 1), represents the forces both struggled against
and celebrated by the artist. She is Baudelaire's Idole famais connue,

within whose womb lies the latent hope of death and resurrection.

Perhaps Rilke best understood Rodin's intentions by calling the group,

Rodin envisioned the joy and source of creation as a conflict of forces

L'homme et sa pense'e, noting that there is reason to rejoice over the

physical and spiritual out of which order is born. For man to overcome

elusive bond between man and his thought, for without thought life is

the struggle of creation he must brace his creative powers in a context of

barren.14 Bartlett also correctly observed the fleeting motion of the

female figure, which "appears at his back and extends her arms almost

self-assertion and intractable energy. Thus Rodin represents himself in

around, without touching him. Always near though never known."'15

Thus this diminutive female figure, at once apart from and part of the

gaze, features reminiscent to Paul Gsell18 of the terribilith of Michelangelo's Moses.

kneeling man, is but a configuration of his thought; she is the idea

Rodin seems to have identified himself with the Thinker,19 earlier

called the Poet.20 The similarity in gesture between the figure in our

born from the creative effort. Elusive and struggling, she arises out of
his will, as Athena once sprang from the forehead of Zeus.

Rodin himself expressed a similar sentiment toward the relief when

he told Bartlett that the group illustrates the thought contained in two

the self-portrait drawing (Fig. 5) with towering stance and severity of

relief and the Thinker suggests that the relief figure also represents
the creative personality of the artist.21 In a description strongly reminiscent of our bas-relief, Rodin said of his Thinker: ". .. I conceived

verses of Baudelaire's poem, "The Death of The Artist." The verses he

another thinker, a naked man, seated upon a rock, his feet drawn under

cited deal with the unfulfilled longings of artists and, particularly,

him, his fist against his teeth, he dreams. The fertile thought slowly

elaborates itself within his brain. He is no longer dreamer, he is

sculptors:
It en est qui jamais n'ont connu leur Idole,
Et ces sculpteurs damnds et marquis d'un affront,
Qui vont se martelant la poitrine et le front,

N'ont qu'un espoir, etrange et sombre Capitole!

C'est que la Mort, planant comme un Soleil nouveau,
Fera s'epanouir les fleurs de leur cerveau!16

Perhaps Rodin viewed himself, the artist, as a suffering creator. Dis-

creator."22 The figure bearing Rodin's facial features at the very base
of the inward left pilaster also has given rise to the dream; the fertile
thought groping for life arises out of the artist's creative will.

We have designated the figure as a self-portrait because of its resemblance to Rodin and because of its theme, the artist's creative

struggle. The location of the relief also supports our position. The
placement of the relief in the lowermost reveal of the door indicates

that the figure has a dual role--it is a signature as well as a portrait.

cussing the role of passion in art, he remarked that suffering and conflict

Rodin allotted a single compartment to his person and his "thought" in

are the hallmarks of modern art. He told Gsell that nothing is more

order to isolate himself from the anonymous mass of the portal. Stylis-

important to the artist than the depiction of unsatiated desire, through

tically too, he distinguished himself from the writhing beings of the

which the artist can celebrate the poignant struggle of physical desire

door by incarnating in his own person the guiding principles of his

that forms the basis of our physical and mental being. In Rodin's words,

art, la grande ligne. He had observed these principles in the sway of the

13 Ibid., 68.

19 Rodin continued and thus affirmed this association in death, for he requested a
cast of the Thinker to overlook his grave at Meudon (Elsen, Rodin, 52).

14 Rilke, Rodin, 75: "si l'on veut interprdter ici, on doit se r6jouir de l'expression de

cette union indechiffrable de la pensbe et du front de l'homme; car il n'y a

jamais que sa pensbe qui vive et soit debout devant lui; aussitbt vient la pierre."

15 Bartlett, "Rodin, Sculptor," 249.

16 I have chosen to use the original French (Oeuvres complktes de Charles Baudelaire,
F. F. Gautier, ed., Paris, 1918, I, 195).
"There are those who have never known their idol,
Those sculptors, cursed and marked by a stigma,
That forever beats their breast and forehead.

They have one hope, strange and dark Ending!

That Death, hovering like a new sun,
Will blossom the flowers of their soul!"

("Rodin, Sculptor," 249)

17 Gsell, "Chez Rodin," 412: "Quoi de plus 6norme que le desirl et comment
pourrait-il Stre interdit A l'artiste d'en evoquer la farouche domination jusque dans
les transports de la demence physique? LA encore il peut ce1lbrer cette lutte poignante qui fait le fond de toute notre nature et qui met au prises l'esprit et le corps.
Rien vraiment n'est plus emouvant que la bete affolbe, mourante de volupte et

demandant en vain grace a 1A passion 6ternellement inassouvie!" And elsewhere,

paraphrasing Rodin's words, Gsell says: "Ce que c6lbre le genie contemporain,

c'est . . . la lutte violente de I'ame et du corps. Ce sont les affres de I'tre

matbriel que tourmente la folie du reve, ce sont ses convulsions demoniaques sous
le fouet du desir insatiable . . ." (ibid., 404).

18 See note 9.

20 See Cladel, Rodin, 140.

21 Elsen first recognized the relationship between the artist and the Thinker: "The
Thinker would thus be a personal projection of the artist, his deep thought indicative of the effort demanded by creation" (Rodin, 53). Rodin had originally associated the Thinker with a figure of Dante: "En des jours lointain dbjA, je
concevais l'idee de la Porte de l'enfer. Devant cette porte, assis sur un rocher,
Dante absorb6 dans sa profonde meditation, concevait le plan de son pokme.
Derriere lui c'6taient Ugolin, Francesca, Paolo, tous les personnages de La Divine
Comedie . . . Ce projet n'aboutit pas. Maigre, ascetique dans sa robe droite, mon
Dante, s6par6 de I'ensemble, eft 6te sans signification. Guid6 par ma premiere
inspiration, je conqus un autre 'Penseur' . . ." (Rodin to Marcel Adam, Gil Bias,
July 7, 1904, p. 1). Thus, the Thinker was first conceived as a Dante swathed in a
sartorial robe. Rodin never realized this figure but, the pose of the Thinker is
strikingly similar to a 19th century academic sculpture of Dante (Fig. 6) by Stefano
Ricci in Santa Croce, Florence. Ricci's figure, set high on a plinth and gazing down
on the spectator with meditative pose and a bared, heavy, muscular torso, suggests
Rodin's Thinker. Recalling Rodin's professed admiration for the Divine Comedy,
it is probable that during his visit to Florence in 1875 he had been impressed by
Ricci's conception of a contemplative Dante.

22 Gil Bias, July 7, 1904, p. 1: "je conqus . . . un homme nu, accroupi sur un roc,
oft ses pieds se crispent. Les poings au dents, il songe. La pensee feconde s'6labore

lentement de son cerveau. Ce n'est point un reveur c'est un createur." The translation is from Elsen, Rodin, 53.

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RODIN SELF-PORTRAIT 395

human body,23 in Gothic architecture,24 and in the work of Michel-

viewing of the forms; and a counterpoint between diagonal and axial

angelo.25 To Rodin la grande ligne was a system applicable to every

situation, as evidenced by his remark that these principles "are so

lines is sought. The overall result is a system of coordinates within the

simple, intelligence,
.... that theysocan
be he
taught
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as

figure. The only dissonant note from the overriding clarity of the relief
is the small, groping female figure. The absence of a strict, formal order
about her person is congruent to the other figures on the portal. Rodin's

well as I can myself.''26 By applying these principles to his person in

theory of coordinates parallels his presentation of himself as an artist

the Gates relief human forms are reduced to an ordered series of cor-

in the Gates. Based on oppositions, the system itself embodies in its

formal structure the forces of struggle and resolve that are exemplified

responding but opposing shapes. The pose of the male figure parallels
the picture plane; foreshortening and recession is studiously avoided;
limbs are laid out either frontally or in profile to allow the maximum

in the relief self-portrait.27

23 He expressed this principle as follows in his notebooks: "Every motion that we

make produces an initial swaying, which an opposing weight instantaneously balances. Thus . . . a perpetual balancing is taking place within us, a change as
facile and immediate as the changes which take place in the phenomena of respiration and circulation" (J. Cladel, Rodin, The Man and His Art, with Leaves from

25 Rodin found in Michelangelo the same incontrovertible logic he found in the

human body and in Gothic architecture. This explains his statement that Michelangelo's art was "the culmination of all Gothic thought . . ." See Auguste Rodin,
Art, Romilly Feden, trans., Boston, 1912, 217. For a further discussion of this
problem see the author's "Michelangelo and the Early Rodin," AB, 45, 1963, 363-

24 The grande ligne is a polyphony of counterbalances, it is "the sway of Gothic

26 Bartlett, "Rodin, Sculptor," 65.

His Notebook, S. K. Star, trans., New York, 1917, 198f.).

architecture . . . The Gothic style exists by virtue of oppositions, contrasts in

effects and in balance" (ibid., 200).

[New York University]

67.

27 I owe my thanks to Elliot Turiel for his assistance with the editing of this paper
and to Robert Eaton and Joseph Defez for photographs.

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