A Kiss by Any Other Name
The subject matter of Auguste Rodin and Constanin Brancusi’s “Kiss” sculptures are the same, two figures embracing, arms draped around one another, engaged in a kiss. However, these pieces could not be more dissimilar in their iconography and style. Although Rodin was no stranger to controversy, primarily for his depictions of nudity, he is a traditionalist in the sense that his figures are realistic and follow a canonical representation of human form. Inspired by the works of the great sculptors who came before him, Rodin found “in Italy, he was deeply impressed by the work of Michelangelo, which would influence his own sculpture for years to come.”[1] Brancusi on the other hand rejected the traditionalist landscape of sculpture. The two artists created artwork in some of the same circles, “Brancusi had previously been an assistant to Rodin, but grew restless and left after two months.” [2] But where Rodin was rejected at first for his intimate portrayal of nudes, he was ultimately considered the most talented sculptor of his time, “Though widely recognized as “the father of modern sculpture,” Rodin was repudiated by those who came after, most famously by Constantin Brancusi.” [3] Brancusi distanced himself from the classical sculpture and instead embraced modern and cubist representations.
Many modernists drew inspiration from African art, “during the early 1900s, the aesthetics of traditional African sculpture became a powerful influence among European artists who formed an avant-garde in the development of modern art.” [4] We can see this influence in the abstraction of the figures in Brancusi’s piece to their most essential elements. Unlike Rodin, there are no fingers sinking into flesh, no muscles bulging in torsion. Contour and volume are central to Rodin’s aesthetic. He told one writer, “translation of the human body in terms of the exactness of its contours gives shapes which are nervous, solid, abundant.” To another he recounted a lesson imparted to him by a decorative sculptor when he was just starting out: “never think of forms as planes, but always as volumes. Consider a surface only as a protruding volume — as a tip, however wide, pointing at you.” [5] For Brancusi there are flat planes and wavy lines for hair and circles for eyes. The figures, rather than turning and twisted towards one another in tension, are facing one another completely face forward. There is little to no contour, the piece is square with minor variation for the identifying characteristics.
The exact structure of the pieces are also at odds with each other, “Rodin adopted Michelangelo’s practice of non-finito, leaving roughened passages of stone to suggest forms emerging from the block, in part to break with the academic conventions of uniformity of surface and handling, but also to convey a feeling for sculptural process. He used the same technique, along with generalizing the details of his finished forms in an effort to make them more evanescent, as if fused with the surrounding light and atmosphere.” [6] Brancusi has left the texture of the stone intact leaving the surface raw and archaic. Rodin has built fully realized figures out of the stone. What they have in common is the rejection of the artistic status quo and the European “academy” which judged which artists would and wouldn’t be accepted into the upper echelons of artistic society.
Affection and romantic love are subjects as old as art itself but when delving deeper into the subjects of these sculptures, we can see differing influences in the final sculptural pieces.
“The increasingly erotic character of Rodin’s sculpture in the 1880s can be explained by his preoccupation with two highly charged literary sources. These were Dante’s Inferno and Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil. In Dante’s epic poem, Rodin seems to have been most deeply impressed by those who were damned by the sins of the flesh, while Baudelaire’s poetry is notoriously satanic in nature.” [7] “The Kiss” was originally envisioned as the characters Paolo and Francesca from Dante’s Divine Comedy, “slain by Francesca’s husband who surprised them as they exchanged their first kiss, the two lovers were condemned to wander eternally through Hell.” [8] Their passionate and sinful embrace is in cool contrast to the symmetrical and geometric kiss by Brancusi. Though he “did not originate the ‘kiss’ theme, but he revived its face-to-face fundamentals so thoroughly, so elementally, that the work’s blockiness seems to convey a new (and simultaneously very old) notion regarding the equality of partners.” [9] It is less obvious that this is an image of heterosexual love. There is a slight swell indicating breasts and longer hair on the right side figure but there are no genitals or distinct facial markers to indicate the genders of those embracing. Brancusi has distilled a kiss to its most essential elements, two figures, embracing in affection and attention to one another, a single unit created of two separate parts.
Another artist who was initially shunned by the artistic status quo for the blatant eroticism of his work was Gustav Klimt who Rodin met in Vienna in 1902. Klimt’s piece, “The Kiss,” completed in 1908 (the same year as Brancusi’s “Kiss”) is an oil painting on canvas. The male figure’s face is obscured and the woman clutches his hand with her face towards the viewer, eyes closed in their own world. They are decorated in abstract patterns of gold leaf on a bed of flowers. The figures in Klimt’s piece are not nude, but they portray a physical intimacy that is almost intrusive to view. Similar to Rodin’s blasphemous lovers the figures are separate from any world that contains them. “Each artist’s disavowal of tradition took root in an exploration of human psychology and the physical experience of the body. “ [10]
These three pieces in concert demonstrate a cultural shift in a rejection of the academy’s approval as well as an interest in displaying emotion as well as physicality. Female nudity was historically not an issue as long as the nude woman was a character from myth or history. Emotions are also not taboo, but the connection of the two incites a parallel to reality that is in disharmony with puritanical beliefs in “decency.” Though photography had been around for several decades at this point, the advent of studios and multi-disciplinary artists who utilized photography as a medium to express artistic sentiment proliferated. The immediacy of photography’s ability to capture emotion had never before been explored in such a way and gallerists and photographers such a Alfred Stieglitz, who gave Brancusi his first solo show in America, led a way for new modes of capturing emotion that can be reflected in the movement of the time.
Works Cited
Agee, William C. 2019. “Brancusi and America.” Art in America 107 (5): 74–81. http://search.ebscohost.com.cabrillo.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,url,cpid&custid=cabcol&db=a9h&AN=136065694&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Gibson, Eric. 2017. “The Necessity of Rodin.” New Criterion 36 (4): 24–28. http://search.ebscohost.com.cabrillo.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,url,cpid&custid=cabcol&db=a9h&AN=126481328&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
“The Kiss.” The Kiss | Rodin Museum, www.musee-rodin.fr/en/collections/sculptures/kiss.
“KLIMT & RODIN: An Artistic Encounter: Famsf-Digital-Stories.” Famsf, digitalstories.famsf.org/klimt/#surface-meanings.
Vincent, Clare. “Auguste Rodin (1840–1917).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rodn/hd_rodn.htm (October 2004)
Murrell, Denise. “African Influences in Modern Art.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aima/hd_aima.htm (April 2008)
[1] Vincent, Clare. “Auguste Rodin (1840–1917).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rodn/hd_rodn.htm (October 2004)
[2] Agee, William C. 2019. “Brancusi and America.” Art in America 107 (5): 74–81. http://search.ebscohost.com.cabrillo.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,url,cpid&custid=cabcol&db=a9h&AN=136065694&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
[3] Gibson, Eric. 2017. “The Necessity of Rodin.” New Criterion 36 (4): 24–28. http://search.ebscohost.com.cabrillo.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,url,cpid&custid=cabcol&db=a9h&AN=126481328&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
[4] Murrell, Denise. “African Influences in Modern Art.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aima/hd_aima.htm (April 2008)
[5] Gibson, Eric. 2017. “The Necessity of Rodin.”
[6] Gibson, Eric. 2017. “The Necessity of Rodin.”
[7] Vincent, Clare. “Auguste Rodin”
[8] “The Kiss.” The Kiss | Rodin Museum, www.musee-rodin.fr/en/collections/sculptures/kiss.
[9] Agee, William C. 2019. “Brancusi and America.”
[10] “KLIMT & RODIN: An Artistic Encounter: Famsf-Digital-Stories.” Famsf, digitalstories.famsf.org/klimt/#surface-meanings.