THE KISS – GUSTAV KLIMT’S MASTERPIECE

Austrian artist and symbolist painter Gustav Klimt is known for his ethereal, pattern-rich portraits. Today, several of these canvases are considered masterpieces, though This Kiss, a particularly exquisite piece, seems to float above the rest.

Featuring shimmering gold tones, stylized forms, and sentimental iconography, The Kiss has enchanted audiences since its completion in 1908. Today, the awe-inspiring piece is housed in Vienna’s esteemed Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, though its illustrious legacy transcends Klimt’s Austrian roots.

The Kiss is an oil-on-canvas painting with added gold leaf, silver and platinum. It was painted at some point in 1907 and 1908, during the height of what scholars call his "Golden Period". "The Kiss" is the final painting of Klimt's Gold Period, during which he incorporated gold leaf into his works. This practice reflects the strong influence of the gold-detailed religious art of the Middle Ages as well as the sacred works created by artists of the Byzantine Empire.

As a member of the Secessionist Movement and a pioneer of Symbolism—a European genre of art characterized by mystical motifs, a personal approach to the visual arts, and an aesthetic similar to the contemporaneous Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements—Gustav Klimt often took an avant-garde approach to painting. The Kiss is a close-up on the embrace. Like many of Klimt's works that depict embraces, it conceals the man's face and focuses instead on that of the woman. In this work, the young woman's facial expression and closed eyes simultaneously evoke feelings of abandonment, ecstasy and delight.

On a closer inspection The Kiss depicts an embracing couple kneeling in a grassy patch of wildflowers. Clad in a geometrically-printed robe and with a crown of vines on his head, the man cradles the woman’s face as he leans in to kiss her. The female figure—whose colourful, organically patterned dress contrasts her partner’s garment—wears flowers in her hair. As she wraps her arms around her partner’s neck, her eyes are peacefully closed, emphasizing the tranquillity and intimacy of the scene. Klimt often explored this theme of love in his work.

The Kiss is a combination of different schools of art. If the gold leaf hearkens back to Byzantine art works as seen in mosaics of the Church of San Vitale, the composition of the work reflects the influence of Japanese prints. The contrasting pattern of the two lovers’ cloaks reflect the art and craft movement of that era and overall Klimt succeeded in producing an excellent example of  his signature Art Nouveau style.

The use of gold harked back to Klimt's own past, to the metal work of his father and younger brother Ernst, who had both died a decade earlier.  Klimt learned the use of metalwork from them and later carried it to his style of working during his luminous “Golden Period.” Works produced during this time feature pronounced planes and delicate detailing made of gold leaf. During this time Klimt would use a lot of gold leaf paint to lift his paintings up to a new level. This boldness helped him to differentiate his work from others and is also why his career remains so memorable even today. Inspired by Byzantine mosaics, this gilding gives each piece a glimmering appearance that accentuates the ethereal nature of Klimt’s subject matter and style. In addition to The Kiss, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907), Judith and the Head of Holofernes (1901), and Water Serpents I (1904) convey this glimmering aesthetic.

The Kiss has a romantic feel with two lovers who are accompanied by the incredibly bold artistic style of Klimt. He added gold leaf paint into most of his paintings to add a highly stylish finish to them. He followed a similar style throughout his career after his initial period as a developing artist and quickly discovered that the style that both proved successful within the mainstream Austrian art world, and also was satisfactory to Gustav in terms of his own artistic development.

Klimt's Golden Period, of which this painting is the pinnacle, is believed by many to have been inspired from the artist's trips through Italy several years earlier. Amongst the locations of his visit was the city of Ravenna which continues to hold an impressive collection of mosaics from the Byzantine period. Artists Jan Theodor and Fernand Khnopff were also influential on Klimt through their symbolist styles which came from the Netherlands and Belgium respectively. Several earlier pieces show Klimt starting to use gold in his work whilst building up to the visual feast which was to be The Kiss.

The Kiss was originally called Der Kuss which reflects Klimt's upbringing in Vienna where he quickly established a reputation for himself as a creative young artist who held great ambitions for the future, and these were mostly to be achieved. Klimt managed to get customers of both fortune and power which helped him to build up an impressive array of work as well as allowed him a comfortable living in Austria.

This artwork was purchased even before the artist had fully completed it. The sale to the Austrian Gallery, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, underlines how it was much less controversial that some of his other paintings, and the speed with which was snapped up indicates how the painting struck a chord with the Austrian public and academics alike. Gustav Klimt was much loved as an artist for the intricate detail that he managed to put into most of his paintings, and typically he would use huge canvases in order to give him enough room to add detail even across the sprawling backgrounds that often incorporated pretty arrangements of bright flowers. The Kiss has a similarly complicated series of flowers plus also imaginative patterns on the clothing of the two lovers around which the painting is based.

The Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna contains the biggest collection of original Gustav Klimt paintings to date, making it a prized spot for the artist's fans and one of the major destinations for followers of 20th century art in the world. There are currently 24 artworks from his career on display here, including the likes of The Kiss, Judith, Avenue to Schloss Kammer, Sonja Knips, Adam and Eve, Cottage Garden with Sunflowers and Water Serpents I.

The Kiss is within the top ten of most popular painting and also is regularly reproduced as a copy of the original in all sorts of media, such handmade oil paintings, stretched canvases and posters.

Gustav Klimt undeniably is the most respected artist to have come from Austria. The Kiss and Gustav Klimt both hold unique positions within the art world and have both been gratefully embraced by mainstream art fans. They have held this magical artist amongst their most preferred. Gustav Klimt's bold use of gold leaf paint as well as the romantic scenes which he regularly depicted was two of the reasons which helped to make and keep him as a household name right across Europe and the rest of the world. Such is the popularity of this painting that it has its own website thekissgustavklimt.com

Gustav Klimt was a thickset and brooding man, usually photographed wearing his painter's smock, who never married and led an openly bohemian lifestyle. If Klimt preferred to allow his paintings to speak for him, then the message that The Kiss gave was extremely evocative - hinting, through their elaborate surfaces, at the workings of an enigmatic subconscious. It is no coincidence that Klimt's work is often linked to that of his Viennese compatriot, and near-contemporary, Sigmund Freud.

In January 1918, Gustav Klimt suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. He was subsequently hospitalized, and while there contracted pneumonia, of which he died on February 6, 1918. He is buried at the Hietzing cemetery in Vienna. When Klimt died at the premature age of 55, several unfinished works of a strikingly sexual nature were found in his studio, as if revealing the erotic undercurrent latent beneath much of his earlier work. The Kiss does what a great piece of art is supposed to do: hold your gaze, make you admire its aesthetic qualities while trying to discern what's beyond its superficial aspects.