The Kiss (Le Baiser)

Nineteenth-century viewers and critics were immediately taken with Rodin's three-dimensional group, entitled _Paolo and Francesca_, the passionate lovers from the fifth canto of Dante's _Inferno_. When one enthusiastic critic referred to it as _The Kiss_, the new title stuck, and the association with Dante's ill-fated lovers gave way to a more contemporary, universal response to their passionate embrace.

By including only one specific reference to the lovers' story (Paolo holds in his left hand the book of courtly love they read together), Rodin encouraged viewers to become immersed in the spiraling rhythms of the entwined bodies and the sensuous finish of smooth limbs against pitted rock.

Rodin had intended to include this work in his monumental _Gates of Hell_, the high-relief sculptural doors that he would cover with figures from Dante's _Divine Comedy_. But the sculptor removed the pair of lovers from the _Gates_, instead developing it as an independent grouping. The original bronze sculpture (almost three feet high) was reproduced in bronze and marble, in both enlarged and reduced versions. The National Gallery's diminutive golden bronze work (under ten inches) is one of sixty-nine versions of this size. In 1902 Rodin presented it as a souvenir to a loyal American patron, Kate Simpson, after she posed for her portrait bust in the sculptor's Paris studio. It bears his personal inscription: "homage to Madame Kate Simpson in memory of hours in the studio. September 1902."

More information on this object can be found in the Gallery publication _European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century_, which is available as a free PDF <u>https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/european-sculpture-19th-century.pdf</u>