Meaning Of The Three Shades By Auguste Rodin

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The sculpture that I found the most fascinating was “The Three shades” sculpture. This sculpture is part of a much bigger sculputure entittled “Gates of Hell”. Created in 1886 by Auguste Rodin, was one piece of “The Gates of Hell” which was in fact very special because it stands at the top of the sculpture. To make the this fascinating sculpture, it took Auguste Rodin 20 to 37 years of his lifetime. To construct the entire was quite in fact a headache for him because by the time he needed to construct the other half, World War 1 was taking place making him look for refugee and not coming back to work on the art piece months later. The Three Shades never got to make it into marble because of Auguste life span. Before dying he wanted to have this piece carved into marble but due to his bad health it was never possible. …show more content…

The three man standing at top are standing at the entrance of hell, pointing to an unequivocal inscription. Before the assembling of the three figures Rodin made several studies of Shades. I ask myself, why would he chose the very top to place the three identical figures? Rodin like many artist in his century were at war to see which artwork standed out the most, The Three Shades had a lot of Michelangelo influenced in it. The way Rodin placed the figures makes us believe that they are basically welcoming you to “The Gates of Hell”. The way the heads fall downwards is mostly likely exaggerated because the necks and shoulders form an almost horizontal