Art: England's Rodin

Of all the statues in London's Tate Gallery, none is more famed than Rodin's The Kiss. Rodin had three carvings made of his white-marble couple, and the one at the Tate is the last and best. There was a public furor in 1913 when its owner, a private collector named Edward Warren, lent it for exhibition in a Sussex town hall: local puritans draped a sheet over the nude figures. But since 1939, The Kiss has stood in prominent and honored display in the Tate's hall of sculpture. Britons are used to it now—and proud of it. Last month they learned...