Editing Auguste Rodin (section)

===''The Gates of Hell''===
{{main|The Gates of Hell}}
[[File:Zürich - Kunsthaus - Rodin's Höllentor IMG 7384 ShiftN.jpg|alt=Ornate, bronze door panels and frame showing figures and scenes in relief.|thumb|upright|left|''[[The Gates of Hell]]'' (unfinished), [[Kunsthaus Zürich]]]]

A commission to create a [[Gate|portal]] for Paris' planned Museum of Decorative Arts was awarded to Rodin in 1880.<ref name="j638"/> Although the museum was never built, Rodin worked throughout his life on ''[[The Gates of Hell]]'', a monumental sculptural group depicting scenes from [[Dante Alighieri|Dante's]] ''[[The Divine Comedy|Inferno]]'' in high relief. Often lacking a clear conception of his major works, Rodin compensated with hard work and a striving for perfection.<ref name="elsen35">Elsen, 35.</ref>

He conceived ''The Gates'' with the ''surmoulage'' controversy still in mind: "...I had made the ''St. John'' to refute [the charges of casting from a model], but it only partially succeeded. To prove completely that I could model from life as well as other sculptors, I determined...to make the sculpture on the door of figures smaller than life."<ref name="elsen35"/> Laws of composition gave way to the ''Gates''' disordered and untamed depiction of Hell. The figures and groups in this, Rodin's meditation on the condition of man, are physically and morally isolated in their torment.<ref name = "qgzhpg">Jianou & Goldscheider, 41.</ref>

''The Gates of Hell'' comprised 186 figures in its final form.<ref name = "qgzhpg"/> Many of Rodin's best-known sculptures started as designs of figures for this composition,<ref name="morey"/> such as ''[[The Thinker]]'', ''[[The Three Shades]]'', and ''[[The Kiss (Rodin sculpture)|The Kiss]]'', and were only later presented as separate and independent works. Other well-known works derived from ''The Gates'' are ''[[Ugolino and His Sons (Rodin)|Ugolino]]'', ''Fallen [[Caryatid]] Carrying her Stone'', ''[[Fugitive Love|Fugit Amor]]'', ''She Who Was Once the Helmet-Maker's Beautiful Wife'', ''[[The Falling Man (Auguste Rodin)|The Falling Man]]'', and ''[[The Prodigal Son (sculpture)|The Prodigal Son]]''.