Gustav Klimt - “The Kiss”

“The Kiss” is considered one of the most important and best-known works of our arthistory. It was painted by the famous netherlandish artist Gustav Klimt and belongs to Art Nouveau.

Gustav Klimt started to paint “the Kiss” in the year 1907 and completed it the following year. The work was created during Klimt’s so called “Golden Phase”, which took place between the years 1907 and 1909. As the name suggests, Klimt mainly worked with orange-yellow tones and real gold leaf in this period. His most typical and well-known paintings, such as the artworks of Adele Bloch-Bauer and, as already explained, the “Kiss”, also was painted in this period.

Name: The name of the world-famous work of art is now officially “The Kiss” (“Der Kuss”). Originally it was called “The Lovers” (“Das Liebespaar”).

Information about the painting: The square format of the painting is a special feature, as it was rarely chosen. The dimensions are 180 x180 cm. It’s a finely knotted canvas platewas used for the substrate, on which oilpaints and gold leaf were applied.

Residence: Since it was given to the Austrian Gallery Belvedere (in Vienna, Austria) in the year 1908, it gets admired there every day by thousands of art lovers.

Visual description of the painting: On the picture, there are a man and a woman, centrally located in the painting. It’s a couple, which is in love, located on a slope covered by a colourful meadow of flowers. The young woman, who is on the right side, kneels next to the man with her eyes closed (As is often the case in paintings, this symbolises gender rank. The woman is subject to the man, and this is represented in art by the different heights within the picture). She’s barefoot. Her head is not turned towards him, but tilted backwards so that the viewer can recognize her face. The lady’s cheeks and lips are strongly emphasized by bright red. With his hands, the man pulls the woman’s head towards him. The lady has her right arm wrapped around his neck, while holding his right hand with her left hand. The face of the man is only faintly recognizable, for he is turned towards the woman and at this moment he is giving her a kiss on the cheek. That this occupies the active role in the picture, and the woman the rather passive one, already becomes clear at a superficial sight. This distribution of roles is illustrated by the respective dress pattern of the two: the woman’s dress is colourful, soft and playful, while the man’s dress has much harder, stronger edges. But the lovers are surrounded by a uniform goldenborder, which is supposed to clarify the moment of the kiss, the commonness or the fusion. 


The kiss is therefore much more than only a short moment. Every color of the painting has a golden cast.
The background, which is supposed to represent the sky, is a golden-brown, irregularly applied surface, from which some light-goldenspots stand out. For the flower meadow, the artist mainly used green paint, out of which colourful, different colour spots stand out as flowers. On the right edge of the meadow Klimt chose predominantly yellow colour, which is why the yellow robe of the woman seems to spread out on the meadow. The man’s long cloak, which reaches to the floor, is also painted in golden-yellow tones, whereupon dark, sharp-edged squares spread.

Background and interpretation: “The Kiss” is a fabulous work, so there are accordingly many assumptions and theories concerning the meaning behind the picture. A wide spread assumption is that Gustav Klimt wanted to portray himself in his painting, together with his long-standing friendship and love affair
Emilie Flögge. This theory is described in the book “The Painted Kiss”, but there is no evidence for it and so this assumption does not convince every art historian.

It is possible that Klimt wanted to represent the allegory of love in thiswork. Accordingly, “the Kiss” should explain, illustrate, summarize the abstract concept of love in one picture. It is well known that in his career as an artist, Klimt often tried to capture the “perfect” love, the perfect couple, in a painting (see for example the work “Love” from 1895). Thus it is quite possible that Klimt did not want to represent any special people, but only the meaning of infinite, beautiful and unconditional love. Sure is in any case: The work says a lot about the strong power of love. The golden glow, that surrounds the couple, has a strong positive aura, it is almost divine. The suggested spiral forms also point to infinity, to the eternity of love.

The artist: Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt is one of themost famous artists of our history. He is also considered an essential representative of Viennese Art Nouveau and influenced the following artmovement, which is known today as “Fantastic Realism”.
Klimt was born in 1862 in Baumgarten, a suburb of Vienna in Austria. Already in his early years, Gustav trained as an artist. Together with some friends, he specialized in wall and ceiling painting and then opened his own studio. In the following years, he began to develop his own style, which did not please everyone and divided opinions. 


Women played a very important role in his life, which also had a strong influence on his art. He has had several affairs in his life, but he was never married. He was also strongly influenced by nature. Klimt got to know other artists, for example the expressionist Egon Schiele. He spent the last years of his life in his studio, quite isolated from the outside world, devoting himself entirely to his art. His death at the age of 56, in 1918, was the result of a stroke. He died in the General Hospital in Vienna and then was buried in the city.
Today Klimt is one of the most famous artists of our history and his artworks still fascinate millions of people.

Other famous artworks painted by Gustav Klimt are:
-Judith I
-“Die Jungfrau” (The virgin)
-Stoclet-Fries
-“Lebensbaum”