Kiss - Kiss As Ritual

Kiss As Ritual

  • Joan of Arc kissing the "Sword of Liberation;" painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1863

  • Kiss on the crucifix in Christianity

  • Denis Thatcher, husband of Margaret Thatcher, kissing the hand of Nancy Reagan wife of US President in 1988

  • Kissing the Blarney Stone

Throughout history, a kiss has been a ritual, formal, symbolic or social gesture indicating devotion, respect or greeting. It appears as a ritual or symbol of religious devotion. For example, in the case of kissing a temple floor, or a religious book or icon. Besides devotion, a kiss has also indicated subordination or, nowadays, respect.

In modern times the practice continues, as in the case of a bride and groom kissing at the conclusion of a wedding ceremony or national leaders kissing each other in greeting, and in many other situations.

Read more about this topic:  Kiss

Famous quotes containing the words kiss and/or ritual:

    “Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part;
    Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,
    And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart
    That thus so cleanly I myself can free;
    Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
    And when we meet at any time again,
    Be it not seen in either of our brows
    That we one jot of former love retain.”
    —Michael Drayton (1563–1631)

    “The greatest honor that can be paid to the work of art, on its pedestal of ritual display, is to describe it with sensory completeness. We need a science of description.... Criticism is ceremonial revivification.”
    —Camille Paglia (b. 1947)