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by Auguste Rodin




From Wikipedia:
"The Musee Rodin in Paris, France, is a museum that was opened in 1919 in the Hotel Biron and surrounding grounds. It displays works by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

While living in the Villa des Brillants (in Meudon, surburbs of Paris), Rodin used the Hotel Biron as his workshop from 1908, and subsequently donated his entire collection of sculptures (along with paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir that he had acquired) to the French State on the condition that they turn the building into a museum dedicated to his works.
The Musee Rodin contains most of Rodin's significant creations, including The Thinker, The Kiss and The Gates of Hell. Many of his sculptures are displayed in the museum's extensive garden. The museum is one of the most accessible museums in Paris. The gardens around the museum building contain many of the famous sculptures in natural settings. Behind the museum building is a small lake and casual restaurant.
The Musee Rodin collections are very diverse, as Rodin used to collect besides being an artist, some paintings by Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh which were in Rodin's personal collections are also presented. The museum has also a room dedicated to works of Camille Claudel."


About THE KISS:

"The Kiss is an 1889 marble sculpture by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Like many of Rodin's best-known individual sculptures, including The Thinker, the embracing couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of reliefs decorating Rodin's monumental bronze portal The Gates of Hell, commissioned for a planned museum of art in Paris. The couple were later removed from the Gates and replaced with another pair of lovers located on the smaller right-hand column.

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, 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 eroticism in the sculpture made it controversial. A bronze version of The Kiss (74 centimetres (29 in) high) was sent for display at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The sculpture was considered unsuitable for general display and relegated to an inner chamber with admission only by personal application.

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 plaster, terracotta and bronze."



About THE GATES OF HELL:

"The Gates of Hell (French: ''La Porte de l'Enfer'') 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 (19.69'H ? 13.12'W ? 3.29'D) and contains 180 figures. The figures range from 15 cm high up to more than one metre. Several of the figures were also cast independently by Rodin.

The sculptural was commissioned by the Directorate of Fine Arts in 1880 and was meant to be delivered in 1885. Rodin would continue to work on and off on this project for 37 years, until his death in 1917.

The Directorate asked for an inviting entrance to a planned Decorative Arts Museum with the theme being left to Rodin's selection. Even before this commission, Rodin had developed sketches of some of Dante's characters based on his admiration of Dante's Inferno.
A work of the scope of the Gates of Hell had not been attempted before, but inspiration came from Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise at the Baptistery of St. John, Florence. The 15th century bronze doors depict figures from the Old Testament. Another source of inspiration were medieval cathedrals. Some of those combine both high and low relief. Also Rodin was inspired by Delacroix's painting Dante and Virgil Crossing the Styx, Michelangelo's The Last Judgment, Honore de Balzac's book La Comedie Humanine, and Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal.

In an article by Serge Basset printed in Le Martin in 1890, Rodin Said: "For a whole year I lived with Dante, wit

"This exceptional monument, a sarcophagus or cinerary urn, comes from Caere (modern Cerveteri), a city famous in the Archaic period for its clay sculpture. It features the deceased tenderly entwined, reclining on a bed in the attitude of banqueters, in accordance with a style that originated in Asia Minor. They are making the gesture of offering perfume, a ritual that, along with the sharing of wine, was part of the funeral ceremony.


Description


An example of terracotta sculpture from Caere

The Sarcophagus of the Spouses was found in 1845 by the Marquis Campana in the Banditaccia necropolis in Caere (modern Cerveteri). Purchased in 1861 by Napoleon III, this monument has often been regarded as a sarcophagus because of its exceptional dimensions. However, its function remains uncertain because burial and cremation were both practiced by the Etruscans. It may actually have been a large urn designed to contain the ashes of the deceased. Only one example similar to this work is known (Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, Rome), which also demonstrates the high level of skill attained by the sculptors of Caere in clay sculpture during the late 6th century BC.
During the Archaic period, terracotta was one of the preferred materials in the workshops of Caere for funeral monuments and architectural decoration. The ductility of clay offered artisans numerous possibilities, compensating for the lack of stone suitable for sculpture in southern Etruria.


Funerary banquet and ritual

This urn takes the form of a bed, upon which the deceased are resting in the position of banqueters. This theme was not an Etruscan invention, but originated in Asia Minor: the Etruscans, like the Greeks before them, had adopted the eastern custom of feasting in a reclining position, and the conventional method of representing it. Unlike in the Greek world, where banquets were reserved for men, the Etruscan woman, who held an important place in society, is represented by her husband's side, in the same proportions and in a similar pose. The couple are reclining on cushions in the form of wineskins, a reference to the sharing of wine, a ceremony that was part of funerary ritual. Tenderly clasped by her husband, the deceased woman is pouring a few drops of perfume into his hand, probably from an alabastron, as can be seen on a small urn displayed nearby (cinerary urn with the spouses on the lid, Louvre, CP 5193); in so doing, she is making the gesture of offering perfume, another essential component of funerary ritual. In her left hand she is holding a small, round object, possibly a pomegranate, a symbol of immortality.


The influence of eastern Greece

The style of this monument shows the influence exerted by artists from eastern Greece on Etruscan art-particularly the Ionians, who emigrated in large numbers during the late 6th century BC. The casket and the lid are decorated with bright paintwork, now partially disappeared, which adds to the elegance of the woman's finery, and to the details of the fabrics and the hair. The smiling faces and full forms of the bodies are also inspired by Ionian sculpture. However, some of the features are typical of Etruscan art, such as a certain lack of formal coherence, the way the legs in particular have received less plastic volume, and the emphasis on the gestures of the deceased. "