Art is the Solution

The Gates of Hell (The Kunsthaus Zürich) Source: Wikimedia Commons There are few sculptors more famous than Auguste Rodin. He’s widely considered to be the father of modern sculpting, and I bet you’ve seen his most recognizable masterpiece, The Thinker , parodied a million times in pop culture. However, I bet you’ve never heard of his spookiest piece of art: The Gates of Hell . Commissioned as the entrance for Paris’ Museum of Decorative Arts (a museum that never materialized, by the way), The Gates of Hell depicts scenes from Dante’s Inferno , including famous vignettes such as the story of Ugolino and his children and the story of Paolo and Francesca. The sculpture contains 180 figures in total, many of which do not appear in Dante’s work at all. Rather, these figures were inspired by the Inferno, but have their roots in Rodin’s personal interpretation of the text. In fact, Many of Rodin’s most famous works—including the exalted Thinker —began as an element of The Gates of Hell . De...