The Martyr

myminifactory

This figure, which emerged on the lower left-hand door and on the tympanum of The Gates of Hell, partially shrouded, with veiled eyes, and embodying Fortune, was dislodged from this infernal context to initiate an independent existence. It was then magnified but still truncated in the same manner down the spine and on the back of the head as when it was attached to the bottom of the door. Reclining, in a nebulous attitude of either torment or rapture, with arms apart and head falling backwards, the figure is depicted in the style demanded by convention since Antiquity for those who met a violent demise. Rodin likely drew his inspiration here from Stefano Maderno’s celebrated statue of Saint Cecilia (Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, 1600), but this work may also be likened to Bernini’s Ludovica Albertoni. The figure remains unidentified and unpersonalized. No detail alludes to the history or death of the person portrayed. The exposed naked body bearing no wound conveys an attitude of complete abandon and facial expression with closed eyes, establishing parallels with Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Could Rodin’s Martyr be the image of a woman in ecstasy, whose wounded heart is dying from love?