Kiss of Death (1930, El Pet de la Mort in Catalan and

El Beso de la Muerte in Spanish) sculpture by Jaume

Barba

The grave belongs to a textile manufacturer named Josep

Llaudet Soler. It was created in 1930 by sculptor Jaume
Barba in Barcelona’s Plenou Cemetery, while the family
was mourning of their son’s death. There is an
inscription in the tomb underneath that says:
“His young heart is thus extinguished. The blood in
his veins grows cold. And all strength has gone. Faith
has been extolled by his fall into the arms of death.
Amen.”

Elements of arts were obviously present in the

sculpture. The Kiss of Death shows a movement of both
a.) the robust figure of a naked young man on his knees
in the act of dying while b.) a winged skeleton with
wings supports the body as it places a tender kiss. The
aesthetic sculpture is the whole realm of expressive
three-dimensional form, obviously tangible as well as
visible. The coloring of the sculpture is natural and
is made of marble. Sculpture cannot appeal to the
illusion of space by purely perceptible means or invest
its forms with atmosphere and light as two-dimensional
arts can, but it does have a kind of reality, a vivid
physical presence that is denied to the portrayed arts.
The softness of the stone by looking at it and the
incredible details makes the sculpture to shine
through. Truly, the author’s intention is audacious
that one feels a philosophical depth, a certain
inconsistency in the modeling of images.

Photo and Words by: Serendipity11