The Divine Kiss, in Three Parts

What is a kiss from a god?

    This is a question that veers into blasphemous territory, and one without a straightforward answer at that. Perhaps a kiss is a sign of divine favour, an indication that one has been blessed. Or perhaps a kiss is not really a kiss but a “gift of holy love, [a] sacrament of endless union with God,” as Bernard of Clairvaux believed (Walsh, 344). And then again it may not be an act of purely spiritual desire, but one of fleshly desire as well.

    In my effort to answer this question I will look briefly at three texts: The Life of Christina of Markyate, the Song of Songs, and Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs. I will examine the three different narratives of the “divine kiss” brought to light in these texts, each in correspondence with an artistic depiction of a divine kiss. Artwork concerning relationships between humans and gods is nearly infinite in number, but for brevity’s sake I have chosen three particularly well-known works: Titian’s Danaë, Canova’s Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, and Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam.

I: The Kiss Of Desire

    In Titian’s Danaë, the eponymous subject occupies most of the frame, recumbent in a picture of languid sensuality. Her gaze is directed upwards, at a faint glimmer of gold in the air above her bed: this is the god Zeus, who, hearing of her beauty, has come to see it for himself. 

    Christina of Markyate would have understood the feeling. In a similar composition to Titian’s, Christina, looking up at the “mother of the Most High,” “gazed upon her beauty the more fixedly and was the more filled with delight as she gazed” (Talbot, 111). And just as Zeus frees Danaë from her prison because of her beauty, so does the queen of heaven grant Christina’s wish to live with her mentor Roger as a reward for her exceptional piety. Taken together, these two works suggest that a kiss from the divine is a blessing reserved for the most extraordinary humans.

II: The Kiss of Passion

    Canova’s Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, depicting the god Cupid’s resuscitation of his human lover Psyche, is perhaps the closest of this collection to an actual kiss. Cupid bends over the reclining Psyche, one arm around her chest, the other hand on her upturned face. With both arms she simultaneously reaches up to grasp the back of his head. The pose is acutely reminiscent of the earthy eroticism of The Song of Songs. One might imagine Canova’s tender Cupid a mirror of the Song’s narrator’s musings: “O that his left hand were under my head/and that his right hand embraced me!” (The Song of Solomon, 2:6). 

    As a prominent artist of the Neoclassical movement, Canova looked most often to classical Greek art for inspiration. But, as this was a man who dedicated his entire estate to building a Catholic temple, perhaps it would not be too presumptuous to assume that the echoes of the Song of Songs in his work were purposeful. In the Song, and in Psyche, the divine beloved assumes tangible form and speaks in human language. Or, as Psyche remembers: “My beloved speaks and says to me:/‘Arise, my love, my fair one/and come away’” (Solomon, 2:10).

III: The Kiss of Life

    I will conclude with The Creation of Adam, which recalls the moment at which God breathed life into Adam. It is a strikingly physical depiction of God, his extended arm bared and muscular, one forefinger reaching for Adam’s.

    The twelfth-century CE abbot Bernard of Clairvaux likely would have embraced the Creation: it was Bernard who defined the divine kiss as not “an adhering of the lips” but a “marvelous and indistinguishable mingling of the divine light with the enlightened mind” (Walsh, 345). Indeed, he believed Christ to be the “one sole instance the mouth of the Word was pressed” (Walsh, 346). Michelangelo’s Adam is a similar figure: a kiss from God to the first human, a precursor to Christ. 

    Yet the instant of creation is not without fleshly sensuality, and both the ecstasy of Bernard’s sermon and the gesture of the Creation suggest a desire beyond the spiritual. Bernard seems at times overcome by an all-consuming passion, as when he writes: “even the very beauty of the angels can only leave me wearied. For my Jesus utterly surpasses these in his majesty and splendor” (Walsh, 346). With a similar expression does the exquisite Adam look, arm stretched out and fingers curled in languorous perfection, to his Creator.