Description
A masterpiece of the early modern period, Gustav Klimt's The Kiss is a deceptively simple portrayal of desire and love. Yet beyond its shimmering gold leaf, the work is full of fascinating facts.
The Kiss, Klimt's most famous painting, was created between 1907 and 1908, the high point of his Golden Period, during which he painted several works in a similarly gilded style.
The inspiration for this golden phase is thought to have come from a visit to Ravenna during his travels through Italy in 1903, which introduced him to the world of Byzantine mosaics. For Klimt, the flatness of the mosaics and their lack of perspective and depth only heightened their golden brilliance, and he began making unprecedented use of gold and silver leaf in his own studio.
The Kiss is housed in the Austrian Gallery at the Upper Belvedere Palace in Vienna.
The painting shows a couple embracing in a field of flowers. The man leans over the woman, who clasps him tightly as she awaits his kiss. In terms of ornamentation, the male figure is defined by square and rectangular forms, while soft lines and floral motifs dominate the female figure.
Klimt portrays the couple enclosed in intimacy, while the rest of the painting dissolves into a flat, extravagant, radiant pattern.
The pattern shows clear ties to Art Nouveau and the organic forms of the Arts and Crafts movement. At the same time, the background evokes the tension between two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality intrinsic to the work of Degas and other modernists.
Paintings such as The Kiss were visual manifestations of the fin-de-siècle spirit, capturing a decadence conveyed through opulent, sensual imagery. The use of gold leaf recalls medieval "gilded" paintings and illuminated manuscripts as well as earlier mosaics, and the spiralling patterns in the clothing recall Bronze Age art and the decorative tendrils seen in Western art since before classical antiquity.
There have been numerous attempts to identify the woman portrayed in The Kiss. Among those suggested are Klimt's lifelong companion, Emilie Flöge, as well as Adele Bloch-Bauer. The subject's well-proportioned features bear a resemblance to many of the women Klimt painted, but ultimately cannot be attributed unequivocally to any one person.
The Kiss ranks No. 5 on the list of famous paintings