Exegetes of the Brancusi works did not agreed on the number of pieces, which compose the ensemble, and also on the name of ensemble and of its components. The three sculptures - Table of Silence, Kiss Gate and The Endless Column - are disposed on an axis oriented West-East, with a length of 1275 m.
Table of Silence is worked in limestone with the following sizes: table 2.15 m diameter and 0.43 thick, the leg 2 m diameter and 0.45 thick. Initially the 12 chairs were much closer to the table and disposed in pairs.
Kiss Gate, the second monument from the ensemble, is made from Banpotoc travertine. The carvers in stone helped Brancusi: Ion Alexandrescu from Bucharest and Golea from Dobrita. The sizes of this work are 5.14 high and 5.45 length. The pillars have 1.69 m width. The whole work is disposed on a steel axle in a concrete foundation having 5 m on each side.
The Endless Column, considered by Sydnei Geist "the top point of the modern art",
is at the East end of the axis formed by the Heroes street.
With 29.33 m high, the column is built from 17 rhomboidal cast iron modules initially brassed.
The modules with 1.80 m high and approximately 860 kg weight are assembled on a steel axle
embedded in a concrete foundation having 5 m on each side.
The elements of the column were made in The Central Workshop from Petrosani.
The engineer Stefan Georgescu-Gorjan technically coordinated the whole assembling process.
The ensemble was ready on October 27, 1938.
As the entire work of Brancusi, disseminated in the whole world, the ensemble from Targu Jiu determined many interpretations from its exegetes. Here are only the words of Constantin Brancusi from a letter addressed to Areta Tatarescu after the inauguration, and from later documents.
The whole ensemble is homage to the heroes from the First World War. The Table of Silence represents the dinner before the fight. To this explanation is added a mythical-philosophical component that the table is a time mill. The grounded time is put in the clepsydra-chairs, which measures it. All is in silence. The only tonic element is given by the flowing of the Jiu River nearby.
The chairs alley represents those who participate without any implication, waiting for the end; they represent the imposed order and the circumstances.
The Kiss Gate is the gate to cross through another life. The kiss motive present on the pillars of the gate could be also the eye, which looks inside.
The Heroes Way is the way of the "heroes souls", is the road from the beginning till the end of the life.
"Sfintii Apostoli" Church is placed very well in this ensemble, being it's the religious component.
The Endless Column represents a "spiritual testament" of the great artist, a veritable axis mundi to hold for ever the sky.
Constantin Brancusi was born on February 19, 1879 in the village Hobita. He goes to primary school in Pestisani and Bradiceni. At 11 years old he runs away from home, for the first time, till la Targu Jiu. Second time he runs farther to Slatina, and next Craiova, where he works in several places, till 1894 when he begins the Art and Vocational School, which he finishes in 4 years instead of 5.
After the graduation he goes to Bucharest to The Belle-Art School. He results in the years of study in Bucharest, under the guidance of Vladimir Hegel, are very good - several bronze medals and a silver one. From this period are the works Vitellius, Georgescu-Giorjan Portrait and Ecorseul
In 1903, a year after graduation goes to Munchen, and from here, by foot, to Paris. Here he works to support himself but in 1905 he is admitted at the Ecole Nationale des Beauz-Arts, in the Antonin Marcier studio. He makes Stephane Lupescu's Portait, Child, Vainglory etc. He meets Rodin. In 1910 begins the cycle of its Birds and of Miss Pogany. In 1914 has his first individual exhibition in New York. The period between 1919 and 1939 is the most creative of his activity. That was the time of his masterpieces. He has had many individual and 57 collective exhibitions in several countries. In the winter of 1937-1938 he travels in India.
In 1937, by the initiative of Areta Tatarescu, the president of the National League of the Women of Gorj County, he begins the sculptural ensemble from Targu Jiu.
After 1939, Brancusi works less then before, but his fame and influence on the contemporary sculpture is increasing.
Towards the end of his life, old and ill, he has said: "I am no longer of this world, I am far from myself, detached from my own body. I am among the essential things."
He dies on March 16, 1957, in Paris.
"Constantin Brancusi" Memorial House
from Hobita, Pestisani village
organized in 1971
on the palce of the house
in which the artist was born, in 1876.
