Le Baiser (The Kiss) 1882 by Auguste Rodin, infront of Orangerie museum, Paris
For many years I have found great pleasure in looking at sculptures and what happens around them... Sculptures live their own lives. But sometimes strangers interfere in this life without noticing it... You just must wait a little and this will certainly happen...
The Kiss (Franch: Le Baiser) is an 1882 marble sculpture by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
The sculpture, The Kiss, was originally titled Francesca da Rimini, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalized 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 later discovered and killed by Francesca's husband. In the sculpture, the book can be seen in Paolo's hand. The lovers' lips do not touch in the sculpture, creating further tension within the work, alluding to the potentiality of either the imminent murder of Francesca in her lovers arms or the act of lust itself (her hamartia), existing fleetingly before her infidelity.
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 centimeters (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.
from WIKI