"Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which nature herself is animated."
The quoted words are by French sculptor Francois-Auguste-Rene Rodin (1840 - 1917). The sculpture, also by Rodin, is called Rose Beuret.
The words are by American writer Pearl S. Buck (1892 – 1973), who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on this date in 1938. The photograph is mine.