I am Beautiful

A muscular male leans back as he lifts a woman in embrace. This pair is seen in the top section of the right pillar of The Gates of Hell. These two figures were also cast separately as The Fallen Man and The Crouching Woman. The Fallen Man is in the top section of the left door of The Gates of Hell, and a solo figure sculpture enlarged of The Crouching Woman can be found in the Museum's collection. The manner in which Rodin reconsidered individual figures from a new vantage point and then grouped two completely unrelated sculptures in a new sculptural beauty can be seen in his group sculptures. Here, in order to make the two sculptures into one Rodin changed the pose into that of a supportive figure by grounding the Fallen Man's right foot as it stretches back to jump in order to bear the weight of the woman, and changed the right hand of The Crouching Woman that grasps her left ankle into a natural forward position. This pair was originally called L'Enlèvement. The current title "I am Beautiful" is taken from the first line of a Beaudelaire poem "Beauté", from Les Fleurs du Mal, which was carved on the sculpture's step dais before 1887. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no. 134)