The Kiss (Rodin sculpture)

:This article is about the sculpture created by Auguste Rodin. For more works of art that share this name, see The Kiss.

Smaller versions of The Kiss

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.

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Before creating the marble version of The Kiss, Rodin produced several smaller sculptures in plaster, terracotta and bronze. The sculpture 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. When critics first saw the sculpture in 1887, they suggested the less specific title Le Baiser (The Kiss).

Related Topics:
Plaster - Terracotta - Bronze - Francesca da Rimini - 13th-century - Dante - Inferno - Giovanni Malatesta - Paolo - Lancelot - Guinevere - 1887

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