Cyssan. That was the Old English word for ‘kiss’ derived from Proto-Germanic kussjan. The Old Saxon was kussian, Old Norse kyssa, Old Frisian kessa, Old High German kussen. No one cares for etymology but everyone wants to be made immortal with a kiss. But, be careful. Do not go kissing around. Look at the rule books. You cannot kiss on French railway stations. No, they were not being prudish. The railways’ guys just got tired of the delays caused by couples kissing long farewells on platforms. In Indiana, a man with a moustache is prohibited from habitually kissing human beings (can they kiss horses, then?). In Colorado’s Logan County, a man cannot kiss a woman while she is asleep; in Hartford (Connecticut), men are prohibited from kissing their wives on Sundays. Kissing can be a tricky lip service. Be careful.
On Valentine’s Day, let’s look at the most unforgettable kisses.
Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss:
On a 6x6ft canvas, a man and woman dressed in heavily defined robes are wrapped in a tight embrace. The man with a powerful coat of black and grey blocks, the female in floral motifs and upwards flowing vines. Painted by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, the canvas is heavy with gold and sensuality. Klimt does not depict a lip-lock, the man is kissing the woman’s right cheek. But it is a kiss like no other. The world’s most famous kiss on canvas created an uproar in the post-Victorian society of the early 1900s with many calling The Kiss as pornographic, even though both figures are fully clothed.
The Kiss remains on exhibit at the Belvedere (Vienna).
(Gustav Klimt, Kiss, 1908/1909. Copyright: Belvedere, Vienna)
Shot in midtown Manhattan on August 14, 1945, by acclaimed Life photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt, the black and white photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse on V-J day is probably the most famous kiss photograph. The faces of the uniformed sailor and the nurse whose back is arched dramatically are obscured but their passion is palpable in their locked lips. Such has been the popularity of the photograph that for years face-recognition specialists, photography experts and forensic anthropologists have tried to determine the identity of the couple. In 2012, George Galdorisi and Lawrence Verria even published a book on it - The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo That Ended World War II. The identity debate rages on.
Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss:
It must be one of the most stark images of carnal love sculpted in marble - two naked lovers fused in sensual intensity. Commissioned by the French state in 1888, Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss originally represented Paolo and Francesca, two characters borrowed from Dante’s Divine Comedy: slain by Francesca’s husband who surprised them as they exchanged their first kiss. Rodin decided to depict the lovers at the moment of their first kiss. Look closely at the monumental sculpture and you can see Dante’s book slipping from the man’s left hand. The Kiss was an instant hit with the public but its sexual frankness offended puritanical locals who feared that it would incite lewd behaviour.
(Photo courtesy: A. Rodin, le Baiser, agence photographique musée Rodin, J. Manoukian)
A Kiss in the Rain from The Notebook:
It is a kiss in the rain that changed everything for Noah and Allie in The Notebook, a 2004 film directed by Nick Cassavetes. “I wrote you 365 letters – I wrote you every day for a year.” With that sentence, Noah (Ryan Gosling) breaks the tension between him and Allie (Rachel Adams) and what followed was an unforgettable kiss on 70mm. The rain machines were brought in to heighten the sensuality of the scene. And what a kiss it was!
In 2005, Gosling and Adams won the MTV Award for Best Kiss. When they accepted the award, the two recreated the kiss from the movie. They set the stage on fire and also started an MTV tradition: now at every award show, the Best Kiss winners kiss when they accept the award.
Kiss between Lolita and Humbert Humbert in Lolita:
"Hardly had the car come to a standstill than Lolita positively flowed into my arms… I had finally willed into being — not daring really kiss her, I touched her hot, opening lips with the utmost piety, tiny sips, nothing salacious; but she, with an impatient wriggle, pressed her mouth to mine so hard that I felt her big front teeth and shared in the peppermint taste of her saliva. I knew, of course, it was but an innocent game on her part….”
From Anton Chekov’s The Kiss:
“At first he was tormented by shame and dread that the whole drawing-room knew that he had just been kissed and embraced by a woman. He shrank into himself and looked uneasily about him…. Something strange was happening to him. His neck, round which soft, fragrant arms had so lately been clasped, seemed to him to be anointed with oil; on his left cheek near his moustache where the unknown had kissed him there was a faint chilly tingling sensation as from peppermint drops, and the more he rubbed the place the more distinct was the chilly sensation; all over, from head to foot, he was full of a strange new feeling which grew stronger and stronger. . . . He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to laugh aloud…”
World’s Longest Kiss: This seems an awful lot of lip service. The world’s longest kiss, according to Guinness Book of World Records, lasted 58 hours, 35 minutes and 58 seconds. The Thai kissing couple named Ekkachai Tiranarat and Laksana Tiranarat achieved this feat in Pattya (Thailand) in February 2013. They romped home with cash prize and diamond rings. Perhaps seriously sore lips, too.
Largest Mural Of Kisses: On June 1, 2019, too many kisses happened in Pennsbury High School (Pennsylvania, USA). There were a total of 41,692 smooches, to be exact. All of them put some lipstick and smacked kisses on little pieces of paper that later became the world’s larger mural of kisses. 41,692 kisses on a 63x11 ft mural.
The Kiss Quotes
- Kiss me, and you will see how important I am (Sylvia Plath)
- The sunlight claps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me? (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
- Make me immortal with a kiss (Christopher Marlowe)
- Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead. I shall feel it (Victor Hugo)
- I didn't want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you good night — and there's a lot of difference (Ernest Hemingway)
- A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous (Ingrid Bergman)
- Where should one use perfume?" a young woman asked. "Wherever one wants to be kissed (Coco Chanel)
- May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air (Franz Kafka)
- A kiss may ruin a human life (Oscar Wilde)
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