The shocking story of The Kiss

The shocking story of The Kiss

It must be one of the frankest - and most popular - images of carnal love in the history of art: Auguste Rodin's monumental marble sculpture of two naked lovers fused in passion, known simply as The Kiss. With sleek and supple bodies, which provide a striking contrast to the roughly chiselled rock on which they sit, Rodin's sweethearts appear timeless and idealised: a universal representation of sexual infatuation, oblivious to all else.

Three over-life-size marble versions of the sculpture were executed in Rodin's lifetime. The earliest is in the collection of the Musee Rodin in Paris, which reopened this month following extensive refurbishment, in its home, the Hôtel Biron, a magnificent 18th Century palace that the sculptor used as his Paris studio until his death in 1917.

The museum was always one of the most romantic destinations in the city. Now spruced up, with refurbished woodwork and parquet floors, it remains so; indeed, its appeal has been enhanced. And, appropriately enough for this mecca for young lovers, The Kiss occupies a prominent position, immediately visible as you enter the building, in the middle of a gallery on the ground floor.

Yet while The Kiss seems so buoyantly optimistic, simple, and carefree, the story of its creation and afterlife offers a knottier tale. For instance, did you know that Rodin's paramours actually represent a pair of doomed adulterers from Dante's Inferno?

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