Artnit

The famous marble sculpture The Kiss from 1882 by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin represents a sensuality that shocked contemporaries. The embracing couple depicted in the sculpture was originally part of a group of reliefs adorning Rodin's monumental bronze portal known as The Gates of Hell, commissioned for the planned Art Museum in Paris. This couple was later removed because it depicted a positive state contradicting the overall tone of the Inferno gates. Rodin transformed the group into an independent work which the public called The Kiss and exhibited it with his Monument to Balzac in 1898. Today, the sculpture The Kiss is in the Rodin Museum in Paris, and it is still one of the most famous and most adored sculptures in the world.

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt depicts the two lovers outside of time and space through their passion and desire for one another. There is much debate about the identity of the man and woman in this painting. According to a widespread explanation, the man with a beard is Klimt's attempt to paint himself, which he rarely did. Some believe the woman may be Emilie Flöge, a close friend and his longtime companion. Others have posited that woman was salon hostess and society woman Adele Bloch-Bauer. There is another version that the sitter is very much similar to a famous model nicknamed Red Hilda. Some historians believe that The Kiss depicts the kiss between Apollo and Daphne or Orpheus and Eurydice in the Greek myths.

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt is one of the most iconic paintings from the Art Nouveau period. Klimt reached the apex of his signature style—a fusion of the linear compositions of Art Nouveau, the organic forms of the Arts and Crafts movement, and his interest in human passions. The couple on painting are entwined and their two figures and encompassed by a golden shroud, covered in gilded, Art Nouveau style patterns, creating a very sensual, atmospheric composition. Several other schools of art were an inspiration for this painting.

Gustav Klimt painted the final painting of his Gold Period, during which he incorporated gold leaf into his works, The Kiss in 1908 at a critical moment in his career. He had just received scathing criticism for his University of Vienna ceiling paintings, Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence, and breaking away from the Secession. The Kiss was presented for the first time to the Viennese public at The Kunstschau exhibition organized around Klimt and colleagues which was received with fierce criticism and ended in financial disaster. Despite this, the exhibition initiated the astronomical success of The Kiss. The Viennese government bought the painting before the exhibition had ended, as it was deemed a national interest. Today, the painting is in the Austrian Gallery Belvedere in Vienna.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard's best-known painting The Swing, originally known as The Happy Accidents of the Swing, is encapsulating humor and joie de vivre of the Rococo. The identity of the patron who commissioned this painting has eluded art historians. French dramatist Charles Collé noted in October 1767 that artist Gabriel-François Doyen had met an unnamed 'gentleman of the Court' "in his pleasure house with his mistress". He was commissioned to paint his young mistress on a swing, pushed by a bishop with himself admiring her legs from below. Doyen, uneasy about taking on such an indecorous subject, suggested Fragonard who readily agreed. As it was, Fragonard replaced the bishop with the more traditional figure of a cuckolded husband, but otherwise fulfilled the commission almost to the letter.

The Swing, also known as The Happy Accidents of the Swing from 1767, is the most famous painting by the French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard. It is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the Rococo era painting. The combination of carefree attitude and playfulness in the reflection of eroticism, pastel swirls, and pastoral landscape create an image of the beauty of youth and a forbidden love affair. Today, this painting is in the Wallace Collection in London.

Raphael and members of his workshop, among them Giulio Romano, Gianfrancesco Penni, Vincenzo Tamagni, Perin del Vaga and Polidoro da Caravaggio, executed the cycle of the Bible stories in a loggia on the second floor of the Palazzi Pontifici in Vatican. The episodes were painted in the ceiling vaults, within differently shaped frames. The fresco Isaac and Rebecca Spied upon by Abimelech in 1518-1519 is a part of these Bible episodes. Rembrandt van Rijn based his drawing Isaac and Rebecca on a 1607 etching by Italian artist Sisto Badolocchio which itself derives from this ceiling fresco which was created in High Renaissance style.

The most popular theory today is that the painting The Jewish Bride by Rembrandt van Rijn depicts the Old Testament figures of Isaac and Rebecca. This is supported by an earlier drawing by Rembrandt (pen and brown ink) Isaac and Rebecca Spied upon by Abimelech from about 1662 that is considered to be a study for double portrait The Jewish Bride. Rembrandt probably choose the subject after he had seen a print after a fresco by Raphael. A drawing is now in a private collection in the United States.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of a Couple as Isaac and Rebecca from around 1667, commonly known as The Jewish Bride, is an example of the aging Rembrandt at his finest. This double portrait acquired the title of The Jewish Bride in the early nineteenth century when an art collector in Amsterdam interpreted the painting as a Jewish father who hung a necklace to his daughter on her wedding day. Nowadays many art historians disagree with this interpretation. Some believe the two figures portrayed are lovers or a married couple and others think it represents a biblical couple. Also, some have suggested that the painting shows Rembrandt's son Titus and his wife. The painting is now housed in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Shortly after his return after eight years in Italy, the 32-year-old Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens married the 18-year-old Isabella Brant on 3 October 1609. The same year he painted a double portrait Honeysuckle Bower where the artist has a self-portrait and a portrait of his wife. The full title of this painting from 1609-1610 is The Artist and his First Wife, Isabella Brant, in the Honeysuckle Bower. This painting is entitled Honeysuckle Bower and housed in the Alte Pinakothek Gallery in Munich.