Curatorial Assistant, Samantha Small: Hi, I’m Samantha Small, and I’m the Curatorial Assistant on Brancusi: The Artist and His Studio.
We are looking at one of many iterations on the theme of the kiss that Brancusi created over the course of his long career. And this version is carved out of volcanic rock, which is a really rough and porous gray stone. It has the barest marks used to create these two figures.
Brancusi’s incised lines carve out the waves of their hair. These horizontal bands at the center of the work are their arms, encircling each other. And you can see a small divot just above their arms. It crosses the central dividing line from one face to another, connecting in this kiss.
These figures could represent anybody, and that was something that Brancusi sought. He said, “I wanted to embody not only that unique couple, but all those pairs that lived and loved on this earth.”
Brancusi created his first Kiss in 1907. That was the year that he did a brief stint in the workshop of the sculptor Auguste Rodin. And one of Rodin’s most famous works is, in fact, called The Kiss. Brancusi leaves Rodin’s studio, saying, “Nothing can grow in the shade of tall trees.” Brancusi is moving away from Rodin’s methods of creating sculpture. And that is the use of studio assistants, where the final work is mediated by all of these other hands. Brancusi did not want to work that way, so the lines that we’re seeing in The Kiss here were carved by Brancusi’s hand.