events that turned this affectionate demonstration into an event of public interest

The first kiss in the history of cinema. This filming directed by William Heise, was produced by Thomas A. Edisonbrilliant inventor of the light bulb or the phonograph and also creator of the kinetoscope who immortalized this romantic scene in 1896 starring actors John C. Rice and May Irwin. The film precisely titled “The Kiss”, despite lasting no more than a minute, has gone down in history for being the first to show this fiery moment.

AUGUSTE RODIN’S KISS THAT CROSSED THE GATE OF HELL

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The well-known sculpture by Auguste Rodin, ‘The Kiss’, was originally conceived within the sculptural group ‘The Gate of Hell’, which represented the lovers Paolo and Francesca, murdered by the latter’s husband, when he surprised them kissing.

Characters from Dante’s ‘The Divine Comedy’, its author makes them wander through hell for their great sin committed. However Rodin realized that the joy and sensuality that resulted, once transmuted into sculpture, did not fit well with the main theme of the work, so he decided to exhibit it separately. Being very well received by the public, who baptized it as ‘The Kiss‘.

The French Ministry of Fine Arts commissioned an enlarged version, which took the sculptor almost ten years to present; he did not do so until 1898. Exhibited at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, it received very favorable reviews. Despite not being one of the author’s favorite works, it has gone down in history as one of his best-known works, perhaps because it transmits all the happiness and all the feeling of a universal language such as the kiss.

THE TIMES SQUARE KISS THAT CELEBRATED THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The iconic image of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square has several names (“Japan’s Victory in Times Square”, “Victory Day” or, simply, “The Kiss”).

It was mid-August 1945 when a sailor had specially ironed his uniform, as he had a first date with “the most beautiful woman he had ever seen” and he went with her to the movies. However, they could not finish watching the movie, because the lights turned on announcing that World War II had ended.

The joy overflowed, people took to the streets and the sailor went to a pub to drink a few drinks of alcohol, with his date, to celebrate such a great event. It would be such joy that he felt, such liberation… the victory of his country, the end of the war in which he himself was fighting, the overflowing energy in the streets, the alcohol… that he grabbed a woman by the waist. nurse and kissed her. It was not his date that day – the one he later married.

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That moment was captured by the photographer Alfred Eisenstadt and later published in Life magazine, becoming a universal icon of joy, spontaneity and the desire to live.

The protocol kiss that illustrated the Berlin Wall. Starring in 1979 by Erich Honecker (leader of East Germany) and Leonidas Brezhnev (leader of the Soviet Union), the kiss occurred during the latter’s visit, on the 39th Anniversary of the German Democratic Republic.. This kiss, a symbol of the considered “socialist solidarity”, It ended up becoming the iconic and critical graffiti of the Berlin Wall that Honecker himself planned to build in 1961.. This historical image had subsequent versions, one of the most recent was printed on the canvas of the 2022 Primavera Sound festival, starring Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho, as a symbol of the Madrid/Barcelona twinning.

The kiss of the first homosexual marriage in history. In 1989, Denmark became the first country in the world to officially recognize gay marriage. The spouses who made history were Axel Lundahl-Madsen and Eigil Eskildsen, both adopting, as their surname, the result of the union of their names, Axgil. When this marriage was celebrated, the happy Axgils had already been a couple for forty years and were known in their country for being activists for the rights of the LGTBI community. The article that the Encyclopedia Britannica later dedicated to them recognized that “Their social and political efforts finally paid off when, in 1989, Denmark became the first country to legalize same-sex civil unions.”.

THE LONGEST KISS IN HISTORY THAT GAVE RISE TO INTERNATIONAL KISS DAY

58 hours, 35 minutes and 58 seconds was the mark registered by the couple who managed to enter the Guinness Book of Records in 2013, with the longest kiss. Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat, a couple from Bangkok, were the brand new winners of a contest organized in Thailand that resulted in a world record. This particular feat, which no one has surpassed since then, occurred on April 13, constituting since then another D-day on the calendar. The International Kiss Day that is celebrated every year.

So far this journey through some of the kisses that made history, each one for its particularity or for becoming true icons. It is curious that this gesture, which is expressed with such a minimal area of ​​our body, is so powerful and exerts such fascination in human beings. Well, at the end of the day it is considered, above all, the maximum expression of love, so it is not strange that it was dedicated to the kiss on D-Day.

By Carmen Jiménez EFE-Reports.