ABSTRACT
In 1879, Edmund Terquet (1836–1914), the French Secretary of State for Fine Arts, commissioned a monumental door from the sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). Rodin's door would be used as the entrance to the planned Decorative Arts Museum in Paris. The artist was given three years: to complete it, but the museum project started to go wrong, and the state cancelled it in 1889. In the meantime, the door had lost its original setting and function and Rodin, freed from the restrictions of designing a functional piece of art, explored the creative possibilities of the surface and created a sculpture which he would constantly revisit until his death. The sculpture, which is on exhibition at the Rodin Museum in Paris, 2 is unmistakingly a door, with its two leaves, sideparts, and tympanum. And yet, the door doesn't open. There is no opening mechanism and, even if there were one, the more than 200 figures and groups on the door are too entangled and prevent any movement of the leaves. Rodin called his sculpture La Porte de l'Enfer or The Gates of Hell, since his original inspiration was the then very popular theme of Dante's La Divina Commedia.
