The Kiss is an 1889
marbleMarble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
sculptureSculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
by the
FrenchThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
sculptor
Auguste RodinFrançois-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
. Like many of Rodin's best-known individual sculptures, including
The ThinkerThe Thinker is a bronze and marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin, whose first cast, of 1902, is now in the Musée Rodin in Paris; there are some twenty other original castings as well as various other versions, studies, and posthumous castings. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a...
, the embracing couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of
reliefRelief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
s decorating Rodin's monumental
bronzeBronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
portal
The Gates of HellThe Gates of Hell is a monumental sculptural group work by French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from "The Inferno", the first section of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. It stands at 6 m high, 4 m wide and 1 m deep and contains 180 figures. The figures range from...
, commissioned for a planned museum of art in
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The couple were later removed from the Gates and replaced with another pair of lovers located on the smaller right-hand column.
The Kiss is an 1889
marbleMarble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
sculptureSculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
by the
FrenchThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
sculptor
Auguste RodinFrançois-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
. Like many of Rodin's best-known individual sculptures, including
The ThinkerThe Thinker is a bronze and marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin, whose first cast, of 1902, is now in the Musée Rodin in Paris; there are some twenty other original castings as well as various other versions, studies, and posthumous castings. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a...
, the embracing couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of
reliefRelief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
s decorating Rodin's monumental
bronzeBronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
portal
The Gates of HellThe Gates of Hell is a monumental sculptural group work by French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from "The Inferno", the first section of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. It stands at 6 m high, 4 m wide and 1 m deep and contains 180 figures. The figures range from...
, commissioned for a planned museum of art in
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The couple were later removed from the Gates and replaced with another pair of lovers located on the smaller right-hand column.
Background
The sculpture, The Kiss, was originally titled
Francesca da RiminiFrancesca da Rimini or Francesca da Polenta was the daughter of Guido da Polenta, lord of Ravenna. She was a historical contemporary of Dante Alighieri, who portrayed her as a character in the Divine Comedy.-Arranged marriage:...
, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalised in
DanteDurante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
's Inferno (Circle 2, Canto 5) who falls in love with her husband
Giovanni MalatestaGiovanni Malatesta , known, from his lameness, as Gianciotto, or Giovanni, lo Sciancato, was the eldest son of Malatesta da Verucchio of Rimini.From 1275 onwards he played an active part in the Romagnole Wars and factions...
's younger brother
PaoloPaolo Malatesta was the third son of Malatesta da Verucchio, lord of Rimini. He is best known for the story of his affair with Francesca da Polenta, portrayed by Dante in a famous episode of his Inferno...
. Having fallen in love while reading the story of
LancelotSir Lancelot du Lac is one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is the most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories...
and
GuinevereGuinevere was the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. In tales and folklore, she was said to have had a love affair with Arthur's chief knight Sir Lancelot...
, the couple are discovered and killed by Francesca's husband. In the sculpture, the book can be seen in Paolo's hand. The lovers' lips do not actually touch in the sculpture, suggesting that they were interrupted and met their demise without their lips ever having touched.
When critics first saw the sculpture in 1887, they suggested the less specific title Le Baiser (The Kiss).
Rodin indicated that his approach to sculpting women was of homage to them and their bodies, not just submitting to men but as full partners in ardor. The consequent
eroticismEroticism is generally understood to refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality and romantic love...
in the sculpture made it controversial. A bronze version of The Kiss (74 centimetres (29.1 in) high) was sent for display at the 1893
World's Columbian ExpositionThe World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
in Chicago. The sculpture was considered unsuitable for general display and relegated to an inner chamber with admission only by personal application.
Small versions
Rodin's method of making large sculptures was to employ assistant sculptors to copy a smaller model made from a material which was easier to work than marble. Once they had finished, Rodin himself would put the finishing touches to the larger version.
Before creating the marble version of The Kiss, Rodin produced several smaller sculptures in
plasterPlaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...
, terracotta and bronze.
French commission
In 1888, the French government ordered the first large-scale marble version of The Kiss from Rodin for the 1889 Exhibition Universelle, but it was publicly displayed for the first time in the
Salon de la Société National des Beaux-ArtsThe Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
in 1898. It was so popular that the company
BarbedienneFerdinand Barbedienne was a French metalworker and manufacturer, who was well-known as a bronze founder, and who invented a machine to create miniature bronze replicas of statues....
offered Rodin a contract to produce a limited number of smaller copies in bronze. In 1900 the statue was moved to the
Musée du LuxembourgMusée du Luxembourg is a museum in Paris, France. It occupies the east wing of the Palais du Luxembourg, whose matching west wing originally housed Ruben's Marie de' Medici cycle. Since 2000 it has been run by the French Ministry of Culture and the Senate and is devoted to temporary exhibitions...
before being taken to its current location, the
Musée RodinThe Musée Rodin in Paris, France, is a museum that was opened in 1919 in the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds. It displays works by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin....
, in 1918.
Warren's commission
In 1900, Rodin made a copy for
Edward Perry WarrenEdward Perry Warren , known as Ned Warren, was an American art collector and the author of works proposing an idealized view of homosexual relationships.-Biography:...
, an eccentric American collector who lived in
LewesLewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...
in
SussexSussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, with his collection of
GreekAncient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
antiquities and his lover John Marshall. After seeing The Kiss in the Salon de Paris, the painter
William RothensteinSir William Rothenstein was an English painter, draughtsman and writer on art.-Life and work:William Rothenstein was born into a German-Jewish family in Bradford, West Yorkshire. His father, Moritz, emigrated from Germany in 1859 to work in Bradford's burgeoning textile industry...
recommended it to Warren as a possible purchase, but The Kiss had been commissioned by the French government and was not available for sale. In its place, Rodin offered to make a copy and Warren offered half of its original price (10,000 francs, instead of 20,000), but Rodin would not lower the price. The contract for the commission included that "the genitals of the man must be complete." A previous letter explained that "being a pagan and lover of antiquities", Warren hoped that the genitals of the man would be sculpted prominently in the
Classical Greek traditionThe arts of ancient Greece have exercised an enormous influence on the culture of many countries all over the world, particularly in the areas of sculpture and architecture. In the West, the art of the Roman Empire was largely derived from Greek models...
rather than modestly hidden.
When the sculpture arrived in Lewes in 1904, Warren placed it in the stables at the back of his home, Lewes House, on School Hill, where it remained for a decade. It is not known whether this location was chosen due to the great size of the sculpture or because it did not fulfil Warren's expectations. In 1914 the sculpture was loaned to the Lewes
town councilA town council is a democratically elected form of government for small municipalities or civil parishes. A council may serve as both the representative and executive branch....
and put on public display in the Town Hall. A number of puritanical local residents, led by headmistress Miss Fowler-Tutt, objected to the erotic nature of the sculpture. They were particularly concerned that it might encourage the ardour of the large number of soldiers who were billeted in the town at that time, and successfully campaigned to have the sculpture draped and screened from public view. It was returned to Warren's residence at Lewes House in 1917 where it remained stored in the stable for 12 years until Warren's death in 1929. The beneficiary of Warren's will, H. Asa Thomas, put the sculpture up for sale with Gorringes, the local auctioneers, but it failed to meet its reserve price and was withdrawn from sale. A few years later it was loaned to the
Tate GalleryThe Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In 1955 the Tate bought the sculpture for the nation at a cost of £7,500. In 1999 between June 5 and October 30, The Kiss returned briefly to Lewes as part of an exhibition of Rodin's works. Its regular home is now the
Tate ModernTate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
- however, in September 2007, the work was transferred to the Tate Liverpool,
Albert DockThe Albert Dock is a complex of dock buildings and warehouses in Liverpool, England. Designed by Jesse Hartley and Philip Hardwick, it was opened in 1846, and was the first structure in Britain to be built from cast iron, brick and stone, with no structural wood...
where it assumed pride of place for the duration of the celebrations surrounding both that city's 8th Centenary and Liverpool's European Capital of Culture status in 2008.
Jacobsen's commission
A third replica was commissioned in 1900 by
Carl JacobsenCarl Christian Hillman Jacobsen was a Danish brewer, art collector and philanthropist, the son of J. C. Jacobsen, who founded the brewery Carlsberg and named it after him.-Career:...
for his projected museum in
CopenhagenCopenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
,
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
. The replica was made in 1903, and became part of the initial collection of the
Ny Carlsberg GlyptotekThe Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is an art museum in Copenhagen, Denmark...
, inaugurated in 1906.
Other versions
The three larger marble versions were exhibited together at the
Musée d'OrsayThe Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
in 1995. A fourth, smaller copy, about 90 centimetres (35.4 in) in height – compared to 181.5 centimetres (71.5 in) for the copy in Paris – was made after the death of Rodin by sculptor
Henri-Léon GréberHenri Léon Greber was a French sculptor. His son was the architect Jacques Gréber. Active in the United States of America, he produced a fountain sculpture of 4 equestrian statues for Harbor Hill and the copy of The Kiss in the Philadelphia Rodin Museum.-See also:*Monument...
for the
Rodin MuseumThe Rodin Museum is a museum located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which contains the largest collection of sculptor Auguste Rodin's works outside Paris.-Founding:...
of
PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
.
A large numbers of bronze casts have been done of The Kiss. The Musée Rodin reports that the Barbedienne foundry alone produced 319. According to French law issued in 1978, only the first twelve can be called original editions.
Cornelia Parker
In Spring 2003, artist
Cornelia ParkerCornelia Ann Parker OBE, RA is an English sculptor and installation artist. -Life and career:Parker studied at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design and Wolverhampton Polytechnic...
intervenedArt intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience or venue/space. It has the auspice of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with the Viennese Actionists, the Dada movement and Neo-Dadaists...
in The Kiss (1886) with the permission of the
Tate BritainTate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
gallery, where it was exhibited at the time, by wrapping the sculpture in a mile of string. This was a historical reference to
Marcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
's use of the same length of string to create a web inside a gallery in 1942. Although the intervention had been endorsed by the gallery, many viewers of the sculpture felt it offensive to the original artwork, prompting a further, unauthorised, intervention, in which Parker's string was cut by
StuckistStuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
Piers Butler, while couples stood around engaging in live kissing.
Sources
- Hale, William Harlan. The World of Rodin 1840–1917. New York: Time-Life Library of Art, 1969.
External links
- Link to The Kiss on the official website of the Musée Rodin.
- Collection of The Kiss of Rodin
- Ny Calsberg Glyptotoek, Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark
- Tate Britain, London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
- Alighieri, Dante. Inferno, Canto V
- TateShots video a short video of the work from Tate Britain
Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...