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1) The Gates of Hell by Auguste Rodin (2 x 13 min)

Version anglaise Was Rodin's monumental masterpiece a failure?
This video explains why there are two different versions of the same artwork, and why Rodin remained obsessed by the Gates until his death.
It shows how the artist used this work to solve major aesthetic issues that faced modern artists at that time.

2) Free photographs

3) Scientific partners

This documentary was produced by Canal Educatif à la Demande, a charity, with the support of the Musée Rodin and INHA.

4) Special thanks

Vincent Nash, former chief translator, who has greatly helped us for the translation of the screenplay.
Antoinette le Normand, who has constantly supported the project.
Alex Potts, whose book, Sculptural Imagination has been a tremendous source and inspiration.

With chapters : Large | Medium | French version
Without chapters : HD | Small

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10. Awesome par Aaron Tuckler, Medical Doctor, from Coral Gables (USA) (10/16/2009)

What I liked : everything
What I disliked : none

10. Awesome by Maher, student PHD from Paris (FRANCE) (01/12/2008)

What I liked : everything....
What I disliked : i could not say ...wonderfull

Comments by Colin Lindsay, student from Los Angeles (United States) (01/12/2008)

What I liked : this is a great introduction to the work without paying for a large book to get any interesting information.
very fluid and consise
thankyou
What I disliked : some of the music could have been a little more subtle maybe but i wouldn't say i was complaining at all.
My comments: thanks for a great resource

Comments by Joshua, writer, from Cclifton heights PA (USA) (12/27/2008)

What I liked : I love this sulpture. Where can I buy a small replica??
What I disliked : Not close enough to see all the detail
My comments: love it

Comments by Diana Wells, pediatrician, from Santa Cruz, California (USA) (11/21/2008)

What I liked : I love the way the video drew me in - the history of the sculpture, I learned much more about Rodin than I expected to

9 by geri parlby, lecturer in History of Art, from Plymouth (UK) (10/31/2008)

What I liked: This is a beautifully presented introduction to the work of Rodin
My comments: Can you produce more videos in English so I can link to them for my on-line teaching

Comments by Toby DeVoss, Retired graphic designer & museum docent, from Las Cruces, NM (USA)

What I liked: Well produced and very informative.

Comment by Michael Gilbert, musician, from Cottonwood (usa) (10/21/2008)

What I liked: “the depth of the study. The inclusion of the historical circumstances surrounding the piece was very beneficial in helping me in understanding it. Also, the comparison with other artists before and after was eye-opening!”
What I disliked: “The question posed toward the beginning of the film, "why did the subject of hell interest Rodin," was not answered clearly. I still don't have a clue as to what his interest in the concept of hell was. Also, some of the narrator's words were hard to understand.”
My comments: “Overall, an excellent video that I would recommend to anyone wanting to know more on the subject. The quality was amazing and the music helped to keep me riveted throughout.”

One special comment with images by Alexander Potts, University of Michigan (10/2008)

"Many thanks for sending me the link to your video on Rodin’s Gates of Hell, which I thought did an excellent job of presenting the work and explaining its complex significance. If there were a version of the video in English, I’d like to use it for my teaching, particularly for the analysis it offers of this works’ ongoing remaking and incompletion. This is usually made either to seem excessively complex, or is left dangling in generalities, and you successfully avoided both. "
"One small comment. I wondered whether you could have made more of the possible interconnections – and differences - between the relatively ‘abstract’ late torsos Rodin exhibited at the Salon, and the final, ‘defigured’ Gate of Hell. It seems that at this point he found a more insistent divide than before opening up between the imperatives of bas-relief and those of the new free standing sculpture with which he was experimenting. The free standing torsos make a strong ‘sculptural’ impact on the viewer through the simple, powerfully modeled bodily shape and the striking variety of aspects they present as one moves around them. The late Gates of Hell, by contrast, has become an enigmatic and atmospheric picture, out of which half formed suggestions of human presence and gesture emerge from time to time. Both kinds of late work, as you argue, are more abstract, bracketing out the clear representation of allegory and drama that were still so central in his earlier sculpture. But it might strengthen your argument if you underlined how the form of abstraction was different in the two cases, with the late Gates of Hell approaching the condition of painting - the suggestions here and there of solid three-D shape dissolved within what in effect is now a pictorial field. It’s as if this curious bas-relief was able finally to achieve the optical dissolution of sculptural form that Medardo Rosso too was striving for with his flowingly impressionistic heads, but that nevertheless still remain very much solid three dimensional things (they only dissolve into the surrounding atmosphere in his Stieglitz like photographs). With the torsos, by contrast, Rodin was preoccupied with creating a fully sculptural, three dimensional presence."

Medardo-Rosso, Ecce-Puer (1906) bronze

Rodin, Cybele or Seated Woman, enlarged Version displayed in the Salon of 1905

Rodin, Iris Messenger of the Gods bronze with The Gates of Hellphoto by Druet