Rodin: The Kiss. Unison vs. Isolation.

Following up directly from The Gates Of Hell, I give you...The Kiss.


It's subject matter is fairly obvious: A couple locked in a kiss. The forms are, as always with my work, naturalistic and expressive, conveying the depth of the intense emotions the lovers feel. But now time for a little backstory. Wikipedia provides a nice summary of the story (if you let me go into it, I would never manage to talk about the work):

The sculpture, The Kiss, was originally titled Francesca da Rimini, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalised in Dante's Inferno (Circle 2, Canto 5) who falls in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta's younger brother Paolo. Having fallen in love while reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, 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 to suggest that they were interrupted and met their demise without their lips ever having touched.

I fell that in a way, this sculpture is a homage to women everywhere. Look at the lovers: the female is equal to the man, neither of less weight than the other in the perfect harmony of their love. Yes, women can be equal to men. So stop complaining that you don't get enough respect in artwork.

It's not one of my favorite works, though, to be honest. Recall what I said about it in earlier days:

The embrace of The Kiss is undoubtedly very attractive, but I have found nothing in this group. It is a theme frequently treated in the academic tradition, a subject complete in itself and artificially isolated from the world surrounding it; it is a big ornament sculpted according to the usual formula and which focuses attention on the two personages instead of opening up wide horizons to daydreams.

I based it off one of the small figure groups from The Gates of Hell.* Remember how each figure group was seemingly isolated from the rest, never to achieve true unity with its surroundings? This was achieved by the use of pre-made parts and piecing them together (in a way) with The Gates of Hell. Here I would suppose the figures are too lost in their own world to pay attention to the space around them. It's an interesting conflict - or maybe non-conflict and complete non-interest - between the "inner space" of our emotions and the "outer world" around us. But still, can't you just feel the sheer delight and love of the two partners emanating from the sculpture? That's what someone said to me when he saw it. I'm glad that my work inspires such responses in viewers. Does it in you?

*Well, it was intended for use in The Gates of Hell at first. I eventually replaced them with another couple.

Here's another version in white marble.

Rodin: The Gates of Hell. Activity without accomplishment.

My method of sculpture may be quite interesting to you. I do not try to hide that my sculptures are not the same as nature: they show signs of my sculpting and editing and some even have obvious seams of the molds from which I cast them. Some people call my work fragmented, because of this. But it can be put to good effect. Let me show you.
This is The Gates of Hell. Pleasant image, isn't it. Do you feel a sense of fragmentation in this work? Do you know why?

I made each of the figures on the Gates separately. Some of them are even what other sculptors of my day would consider "incomplete". The result of this is that the figures feel like they were patched together. Even though they are all together in the same work, there is no true unison between them (because I created each one separately), leaving them only to grasp desperately at each other without ever being able to attain mutuality.

Do you also notice that many of the figures (especially on the two sides of the Gates) are similar to one another? When I make my sculptures, I make "spare parts" like hands and torsos, which I can then put together to complete a figure. In this work, my use of figures with identical torsos and similar poses* helps to show the idea that despite all the frenzy and activity going on, there is no real change that has happened. The Gates of Hell indeed - all action but not accomplishing anything, without an end in sight. What a wretched existence!






* But don't you find it interesting that the same body parts, arranged in different combinations and poses, can provide such a great variety of figures? I feel as though this method of working makes the range of meaning my work can show so much wider.

Rodin: The Age of Bronze. I am famous.

I trust you have heard of my work The Age of Bronze, or L'age d'airain for my French readers. I first exhibited the work at the 1877 Salon in Paris. After all, who has not heard the claim that my sculpture was made by casting a living model? As if I would do such a thing. I am a craftsman and I certainly do not cheat.

The model for The Age of Bronze was a Belgian soldier. I got insipration for the sculpture after seeing Michaelangelo's Dying Slave at the Louvre in Paris.

Well, any publicity is good publicity, and at least the claims made people so curious about my work that lots of them came to view my sculpture.

Today while searching my own name online (don't ask) I was delighted to see that copies of this sculpture are in museums all over the world, including:

• Musee d'Orsay (France)
• MoMA (USA)
• National Gallery of Canada (Canada, obviously)
• Alte Nationalgalerie (Berlin)

And more! RECOGNITION! This makes me so happy.