“Eternal Springtime” by Auguste Rodin was modelled in clay during the same period as “The Kiss” in 1884. This sculpture depicts a pair of lovers caught in a floating embrace. Their outstretched and graceful limbs are in sharp contrast to the compact, inward focused sculpture of “The Kiss”.

This sculpture has a weightless, floating quality and is a perfect ode to springtime love. At the time of the creation of Eternal Springtime, Rodin was in a romantic relationship with Camille Claudel. It is claimed that that traces of Camille can be discerned in the women of this masterpiece and in other female figures prominent in the works Rodin created in the mid-1880s. This work was reproduced several times in bronze and marble.

Essential Facts:

• Title:                      Eternal Springtime
• Year:                      Modelled in clay 1884; cast in bronze 1898 – 1918
• Place of Origin:   France
• Material:              Bronze
• Museum:              Rodin Museum, Philadelphia

Artist Essential Facts:

• Name:               François-Auguste-René Rodin
• Born:                1840 – Paris, France
• Died:                 1917 (aged 77) – Meudon, France
• Nationality:     French
• Notable work
  • Eternal Springtime, 1984
  • The Hand from the Tomb, 1914
  • The Gates of Hell, 1880 – 1917
  • Two Hands, 1909
  • The Cathedral, 1908
  • The Thinker, 1880 – 81

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“I invent nothing, I rediscover.” Auguste Rodin

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Photo Credit: By GordonMakryllos (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons