Baiser, grand modèle

One of Auguste Rodin’s most important and iconic sculptures, Le Baiser embodies the rapture and romance of a passionate embrace. The work was inspired by the tragic true story of Francesca and Paolo Malatesta, the ill-fated lovers later re-cast in Dante’s The Divine Comedy. In 1275, Francesca da Rimini married Giovanni Malatesta. Theirs was a politically motivated marriage and shortly thereafter, she felt in love with her husband’s brother, Paolo; when their relationship was discovered, a furious rage swept through Giovanni and he stabbed them both to death. In The Divine Comedy, Dante and his guide Virgil encounter Francesca and Paolo in the second circle of Hell where they have been condemned to pass all eternity. Capturing the couple’s intense and palpable desire, Le Baiser is suffused with emotion and want, unparalleled in contemporary interpretations of the subject.
Rodin had initially planned to include the lovers in his Porte de l'enfer (The Gates of Hell), the monumental bronze doors that had been commissioned by the French government in 1880 for the new Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Drawing on the narratives in Dante’s epic poem—the artist had long admired the Italian poet—Rodin envisioned a portal that resembled those by the great Renaissance masters such as Donatello and Ghiberti, replete with bas-relief scenes from The Divine Comedy. He threw himself wholeheartedly into the project, producing more than two hundred figures and groups. In the example of Francesca and Paolo, Rodin chose not to represent their haunting damnation but rather their first kiss. Over time, he came to believe that their obvious bliss and affection for each other were at odds with the catastrophic scenes that surrounded them. As such, he removed the couple and instead focused on developing an independent, free-standing sculpture based upon this subject.
In Le Baiser, Rodin depicts the exhilarating moment in which Paolo and Francesca first kiss and thus seal their fate. Presenting the pair in a noticeably sensual manner, Rodin eschewed the expected historical costuming that traditionally identified the couple and instead elected to present them in the nude. The only clue as to who they are lies in the small book beneath Paolo’s hand, which he has discarded in the heat of the moment. By removing any contextualizing clues, Rodin transformed this medieval tale into a timeless expression of intense passion and profound love. Indeed, under the artist’s hand, it is Francesca, not Paolo, who seemingly instigates the kiss, giving her a more confident role than in Dante’s original telling. She appears to lift her body to her beloved, twisting towards Paolo as she reaches her arms around his neck. Paolo himself seems almost caught off guard and his body remains surprisingly tense. This potential energy gives the sculpture its charge as Rodin captures the split second in which Paolo’s resolve gives way. The infinitesimal gap between the two bodies suggests that we are witnessing the moment before their precipitous fall. Although desire was a theme that occupied Rodin throughout his career, Le Baiser is unmatched in its representation of the complexity of emotions that such a feeling can produce.
Indeed, the sensorial potency emanating from Le Baiser is incomparable, seen not only in their entwined bodies but also in the meticulous and delicate carving. Rodin has endowed his figures with a convincing vitality, sculpting every muscle and tendon, every sigh. Later, he reflected on his process, saying, “I forced myself to express in each swelling of the torso or of the limbs the efflorescence of a muscle or of a bone which lay deep beneath the skin. And so the truth of my figures, instead of being merely superficial, seems to blossom from within to the outside, like life itself” (quoted in D. Rosenfeld, “Rodin’s Carved Sculpture” in A.E. Elsen, ed., Rodin Rediscovered, Washington, D.C., 1981, p. 81).
Le Baiser was greatly esteemed by Rodin’s contemporaries for its dynamism and natural modelling, which the artist claimed he owed to his studies of live models who he had hired thanks to the money from the commission of La porte de l’enfer. Observing from life gave Rodin an honest understanding of the body as it moved through a series of poses, and one which he would continue to draw upon throughout his career. As he explained: “I constantly note the association of their feelings and the line of their bodies, and by this observation I accustom myself to discover the expression of the soul, not only in their features of the face, but in the entire human form…” (quoted in A.E. Elsen, The Gates of Hell by Auguste Rodin, Stanford, 1985, p. 80).
The marble version of the Baiser, grand modèle was commissioned by the French state in 1888, and now resides at the Musée Rodin, Paris. The first cast was executed between 1905 and 1906, now belonging to the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. In 1923, a further cast, N°1, was executed and is on view at the Jardin des Tuileries, Paris. The edition was completed with 10 further casts, executed between 2007 and 2014.