Thinking and Kisses

...or thinking about kisses!

I had a couple of hours to kill in DC last week and I ended up going to the National Gallery of Art. Funny, I've never been there, for all I've lived in this area since 1993. Anyway, the art was amazing. I want to go back. I didn't have enough time by half to look at all the things I wanted, but I did spend some time in the Rodin exhibit. I've always been drawn to the images I've seen of his sculpture "The Thinker" but this was the first time I've seen it up close. It was wonderful.

The "blurb" said that Rodin's rough finishes were unusual for the sculpture of the period and evocative of his contemporary impressionist painters. I really got that, looking at it, and I didn't even need the blurb to tell me what I was seeing. There was realism in the bronze, but also the "impression" of something, thoughts not quite defined but hinted at. It was wonderful - but I think I said that already.

It was also the first time I've seen Rodin's famous sculpture "Le Baiser" - The Kiss. It is a small piece, maybe a little more than a foot and a half high -- and it is infinitely powerful. There in metal is passion, love, union, romance. I imagined if I touched them they would be pliable and hot as fevered skin, maybe slick with sweat.

What an incredible artist to capture in these two sculptures the essence of humanity. The Thinker: complete in and of himself, absorbed in his own mind, alone, but somehow not lonely. An ideal I am desperately searching for myself. The Kiss: union - perfect and flawed as life truly is, focus so completely on each other that all the world is shut out.

I arrived at a certain conclusion after thinking about these two sculptures. It is natural, perhaps it is even a biological imperative, that I long both for understanding of myself and for making my way into such a union, such a partnership. Struggling against these desires is like fighting the wind.