The Kiss Gate or Kissing Gate
The Kiss Gate or
Poarta sarutului, which is situated on alley from the entry to Targu Jiu 's Central Park is chiseled from porous stone extracted from
quarries located in the surrounding areas. Its columns are thick, rectangular, which supports a architrave wider than the columns,
having width of 6.45 m, height 5.13 m and being 1.69 m thick. The longitude and latitude of where the Kiss Gate is located is45° 2' 18.07? N, 23° 16' 9.79? E.
The Kiss Gate, built of Banpotoc stone which is a type of marble,
is the gateway through which the transition to another life is being done. Motif of the Kiss, currently on the gate's pillars, could
be interpreted as eyes that look inside us. Brancusi was assisted in the execution of the two pieces by stone carvers Ion Alexandrescu
from Bucharest and Golea from Dobrita. The entire work is structured on a steel shaft embedded in a concrete foundation with sides
of 5 m.
On the faces of each column the symbol of the kiss is found, two halves of a circle, characteristic detail of the work
of great Brancusi. On the top of the monument there are encrusting that look like the gate has a roof, as if the gate would
be covered with shingle. Gate's arch has a delicate linear decoration: is a continuity of small arches and above the three horizontal
lines, we meet the continuation of identical oval shapes, as if they represent the face and the shoulder contour.
The Kiss Gate
is a temple of the kiss, the place without doors and without stopping points of the ancient ceremony of loyalty, where a man finds
a woman, his soul mate, and form together a sacred union. This union is not only the union of the man and his woman but also in the
eyes of the artists it represents the entire universe. The Kiss Gate is Love’s Arch of Triumph, kiss and fusion.
The Kiss Gate
looks like a triumph arch, symbolizing the triumph of life over death. Brancusi started to build it in 1937 and finalized it in 1938.
The Kiss Gate was was commissioned as part of a memorial monument to the fighters of World War I, called Calea Eroilor or
The Heroes' Street. Other parts of the Sculptural Ensemble include The
Table of Silence and The
Endless Column.
Bibliography
The travel guide of Romania - Publisher Publirom, 2008
Institutul de Memorie Culturala "Poarta catre patrimoniul
cultural românesc" 2009. Institutul de Memorie Culturala 26 Dec 2009
http://www.cimec.ro
