ROTE LEARNING – IS THIS THE VILLAIN OF OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM?

After the introduction of the New Education Policy once again there is a barrage of criticism against rote learning and how it is not allowing our students to grow into genuine thinkers. The policy makers have ignored teacher absenteeism, inadequate teacher’s training, poorly funded government schools, too much interference with private schools and a lack of understanding of the very purpose of education and pointed towards ‘rote learning’ and shouted “Eureka! Here is the villain!!” So I thought it was important to understand whether rote learning is really all that bad and what are the other smarter alternatives.

What is Rote Learning?

Rote learning is a method involving repetition and memorization. “Practice leads to perfection” is the tagline for rote learning. Students repeatedly read and learn the same topic several times to memorize it by heart. It is an integration of repetition, drilling, memorization and proper practice in a certain interval.

It is an effective means of motivation of getting basic knowledge in early stages of learning. Our religious schools of Buddhism and Islam have been using this system since time immemorial. They can afford to do so and stagnate but can modern education system afford to do so?

Rote learning is beneficial when we focus on factual (facts) questions. It is also good for learning lists of information that does not require any context. It boosts up our confidence and also motivates us to learn newer things. At early stages of learning, a child learns so many new things, i.e. rhymes, days, months, basic spellings, table, counting, basic facts, different useful sentences in day to day life. Parents and teachers motivate the child to practice several times. It becomes an active habit of learning. 

Are there any advantages of Rote Learning?

Surely there are and some undeniable ones. The fact that rote learning is way of developing a level of understanding through memorizing is an undeniable one. But we must not overplay its role.

Academically weak students gain confidence through rote learning techniques. They learn definition, day and dates, mathematical formulas, historical points, scientific fact, general rules and regulations, differences, certain points and regurgitate them in their examination. Rote learning is a means to cross the barrier. It is one of the best learning style in an examination oriented educational system but is passing examination the only purpose of education?

Disadvantages of Rote Learning

In primary and secondary education, you are learning building blocks, small pieces of facts and figures that you will expand upon when you go on to higher education. Rote memory will work to memorize these facts and figures, but once you move on to higher education, you will be unable to learn complex concepts in this fashion. It doesn't prepare you for higher learning or on the job memory applications. 

Rote memorization doesn't work for students because there is no engaging pattern or effort made to relate the content to students' lives. Rote memory allows for the memorization of base information, but it doesn't put that information into any sort of context. The lack of context for complex subjects means that the student has not learned anything about what they are studying. Likewise, an employee might be able to memorize a list of features of a product, but be unable to sell it effectively because they are not putting those features into a context that can be easily explained as benefits to the consumer.

Rote memory works primarily with short-term memory. When you repeat information again and again to memorize it, you are committing it into your short-term memory banks. To retain this information for longer than a few hours, you will have to commit the memory to long-term memory banks. This will require its repeated use. The more you access and retrieve the information from your memory, the more likely it will be that you will remember it long term. So I remember the Gayetri mantra because I recite it daily but have forgotten the Pythagoras theorem and Ohm's law because I have no use of them.

In our daily life, rote memory also has its place. You can memorize phone numbers by using rote memory, as well as other numbers such as your credit card number, PAN number, passwords, but you have to keep on using them otherwise you will forget them. Forgetting passwords is so common if you have to recollect after a very long time. 

Rote learning also does not allow for complex connections between previous and new knowledge. It can also be very difficult to understand a concept by only using rote memory. Rote memory doesn't give you knowledge. Rote memory will give you base facts and figures that you may remember for a short time but are likely to forget with disuse. To truly learn something, you must be able to make connections to your past experiences and the world around you. Without that context, the facts that you are memorizing are just facts, dates, vocabulary, or numbers. They do not represent true knowledge.

Other alternative forms of learning

Some of the alternatives to rote learning include meaningful learning, associative learning, and active learning.

Meaningful Learning

Meaningful learning is a learning strategy that gives deeper meaning to concepts and subject matter. The more meaning that is given to information, the more likely it is that you will remember that information long term. Information that is learned through meaningful learning is often remembered for years rather than only months such as with rote memory. This is because meaningful learning also promotes understanding over memorization, which helps with overall comprehension. It relates new information to prior knowledge and encourages active learning techniques. All of these points are proven to help one remember the information for years to come. An example - we are going to read a text about Nelson Mandela and before we read the text we show a picture of Mandela and we ask learners what they know about him.  We also ask them what they’d like to know about him. So we are trying to co-relate the new information to the already present knowledge

Associative learning

Associative learning is a theory that states that ideas reinforce each other and can be linked to one another. Close your eyes and try to remember how your mother’s left eyebrow looks like. Difficult, isn’t it. You will remember her face, her eyes and then perhaps her eyebrows. Our brain is not designed to

recall information in isolation; instead, we group information together into one associative memory. That's why it is difficult to recall just one eyebrow without seeing the whole face. Our ideas and experiences reinforce each other and can be mentally linked to one another. Associative learning help students connect with information more deeply and recall that information with greater accuracy. Thus Australia can be associated with South Australia, which can then be associated with Barossa Valley which in turn can be associated with good wine!

Active Learning

Active learning involves actively engaging students with the course material through discussions, problem solving, case studies, , peer teaching, debates, role plays and other methods. In active learning teachers are facilitators rather than one way providers of information. Interacting with content through active learning

has some compelling advantages over 'delivery mode' lectures. It helps to maintain student concentration and deepens learning towards the higher-level skills like critical thinking. It also helps to engage students who might otherwise struggle. The active learning process produces the students on having a lot more creative thinking by implementing into their basic skill of talking, listening, reading, reflecting as well as writing.

So yes, there are other modalities of learning which seem to be smarter but we cannot throw away rote learning lock stock and barrel. Rote learning is path to reach the destination of understanding, but not the destination. This is where our education system is failing our students. Rote learning is a ladder for starting from lowest point of learning to highest point of understanding and our students are not reaching that point.

THE JOYS OF BLOGGING

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A blog, short for web log, is just a website designed to put your opinion or expertise online. You may have different reasons for starting a blog and it invariably leaves you enriched. With a creative control over your own little corner of the internet is a great way to learn new things and express yourself. With so many free blogging services it's fairly easy to set up a professional-looking website. Many blogs take the form of an online diary, with pictures, audio and even video.

Why do we blog?

There could be many reasons for starting a blog like-

1.   Blogging makes you a better writer and thinker.

2.   You meet thousands of new people & followers through comments, social media or email.

3.   You can share your adventures and experience with far-flung family and friends.

4.   You can run a club of special interest groups like cooking, gardening, fishing and golfing.

5.   It is a way to keep everybody informed in an informal way and is replacing the old fashioned newsletter in many institutions

6.   You help and inspire others through your blog.

7.   You can promote your own business or services through blogging.

8.   You become popular and more confident.

Whatever is the reason, the point is a blog can be a very powerful tool for achieving various goals. Understanding your end-goal will help you decide what kind of service to use to create your blog.

Why is it easy?

You don't need a writing degree or web design skills. There's a wide range of places for you to web-publish your creation. They all have designer-created templates to make your work look polished and professional. All you have to do is add your ideas in your own words.

Who's your audience?

1.   Are you an expert giving advice to novices or are you writing for people with the same level of knowledge as you?

2.   Is your audience there for a good time or are they more of a serious crowd?

3.   Are you spreading awareness about a group or publicizing a cause,

4.   Do you want to build an online community for your profession and profit?

If it's just for you and immediate family and friends, your focus should be on keeping it fresh, interesting and satisfying. On the other hand if your aim is to get readers from far and wide to take notice of your skills and highlight your profession then it has to be formal and efficiently organized.

How do you reach your audience?

Be a member of multiple social media groups in multiple social media platforms – Facebook, WhatsApp, WeChat, Instagram, Twitter. Write briefly about your new blog and post it in these groups along with the hyperlink to your new blog.

Follow other discussions whenever you find time and if you have written on the same topic then write a comment with a hyperlink to your relevant blog.

If your clinic help / nurse is sitting idle then give your phone to her and request her to pass on your blog information to all your WhatsApp contacts.

How do you keep your audience with you?

There are a few tricks which I will share with you:

1.   Treat them with respect. Just because they are likely to be less knowledgeable than you about a subject (which is why you're writing the blog) doesn't mean they're not as smart. Put yourself in their shoes. How would you want something explained to you? Assume your readers are just as intelligent as you and go from there.

2.   Always answer or acknowledge questions and comments with respect. If your readers see that you respond to their comments promptly there will be more comments and your blogs will be more popular.

3.   Be regular and consistent with your blogs. Consistency is more important than frequency. Irregular blog contributions can frustrate your readers. Two articles on the same day followed by a two-month break look disorganized and unprofessional.

4.    Stick to your style. You don’t have to be like any other successful blogger, be yourself. Don’t be shy. Let your personality shine through. Very soon your audience will know what to expect from you.

What do you write about?

Choosing your topic is vital because if you are not passionate about it, it shows. Some bloggers are wedded to their topics. So you might find people writing only about the economy like Mr. Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar or only about politics like Mr. Manoj Joshi or Mr. Pawan Verma or only about Travel like Ms. Mridula Dwivedi or only aboutsports like Mr. Boria Majumdar and Mr. Aiyaz Memon. You will like to follow them only if you too are interested in their respective topics of interest. A bigger challenge is to write randomly about everything under the sun. I personally find this encasement of mind very stifling and suffocating and so my topics are varied because that is how I am, passionate about many things. So I have written about

·        Travelogue and travel related topics – Kailash Mansarovar, Kerala, Window Seat, Waiting for your bags

·        Food – Breakfast the world loves, Biriyani, From a Street Food Junkie

·        Art – Monalisa, Dali, Mario Miranda, The Birth of Venus, The Scream, The Creation of Adam, The Kiss, Lost Forever

·        Literature – Lost Forever, Book Reviews, Upapandavas

·        Lifestyle – Farming, Fishing, Public Speaking, Monkey Caps, Working from home, Value of Solitude, Midlife – Where is the crisis?

·        Medicine – Acid Attacks, Transplants, Medical Education, Corona, Synthetic Biology, Performance Anxiety

·        History – The Vanquished Never Write History, History Books are not serving the purpose

·        Education – Why Education is pulling us back? Madarsa Education, Higher Education – open the deadlock

·        Politics – Need a new political party, Marooned in fantasy island, Abrogation of Article 370, Huge fan of Trump Comedy, Reservation-now in Y axis

·        Religion – Navratri, Durga Puja and Women Empowerment, Kali Puja

·        Recent Advances – Phytoceauticals, Anti Aging, Simulation and Lab Training

What are the hallmarks of good blogging?

A good blog is one that leaves the reader enriched, pleased and wanting for more. They are used to the style of the blogger and know what to expect from him/her and hate to be disappointed. They have the attention span of a butterfly and so they need the information promised by the blog title as quickly as possible. There are some mistakes a blogger should never make:

Accurate article titles

Don't get caught dreaming up attractive, snappy titles that have little to do with the article's content. Your readers will figure it out pretty quickly and leave.

Web search engines will also pick up on this trend and mark you down as an unreliable source for that particular search phrase or topic. This means you get fewer readers over time. Give your blog posts an intriguing title, but keep it relevant and honest.

Do not leave the core subject

Aim for one core topic or focus, with a smattering of related content to keep things fresh. A blog about golfing will appeal to golfers, but if you include your passion for red wine and love of Hawaiian shirts you'll struggle to find readers interested in all three. If you want to discuss a wider range of subjects, find a link between them.

For example, food and travel go well together because people like to read about different foods from interesting places. Once you can easily balance those two, you might add fine wine into the mix, as it's often specific to a region and goes well with food.

If you have lots of information and opinions on different subjects you might even consider creating separate blogs.

Have a strong lead

The lead is the sentence that introduces the subject matter and hooks the reader. Put it in your first sentence, not several paragraphs lower. The readers can lose interest and leave before they get to the good stuff.

Show the good stuff early

After your introduction (complete with a good lead), put the most important information next. Most people never read an entire web article, so to make sure they easily find the information they came for, put it up top.

You can always put supporting information after the main parts, for those that need it.

Keep paragraphs short

These days it is likely that most of your blog traffic will come from people using a Smartphone. So, keep paragraphs short or your reader will have to scroll forever on their tiny screen. Try to limit your paragraphs to two-to-four sentences if you can.

Text type and size

Larger, more spacious fonts work better online. Calibri and Arial are good staples, as are Verdana and Georgia. Avoid fancier fonts such as Lucida Handwriting and Forte; they're harder to read and slow down your readers. And avoid Comic Sans.

It's hard to nominate a specific font size for online – just make sure your text doesn't have the tiny lettering. Easy reading is the key for the casual online audience. Templates will have typefaces and sizes already set, so go with what they give you, at first anyway.

Use subheadings

Regular subheadings act as anchor points. They help the reader keep track of where they are and what topic they're reading about. They also visually break up large slabs of type.

Make your subheadings directly relevant to your content rather than overly clever and 'punny'. This will both help your readers keep track and make your blog post turn up better in web search results.

Self-editing your blog

Edit as you go for spelling, grammar, correct context and conciseness. This will make subsequent edits easier. For the final edit, leave your blog post alone for a few hours, if not a day. Then come back to it with fresh eyes. If you don't, you risk missing obvious mistakes that your eyes have become accustomed to glossing over. By producing half cooked half baked blogs with silly mistakes you insult your readers and they will soon abandon you.

Copyright considerations

You can't just pinch images from other websites willy-nilly. It's illegal to use copyrighted words or images from other websites without express (preferably written) permission by the copyright holder, unless it falls under 'fair use' provisions.

However, you can freely use many materials, such as images, that have a Creative Commons license. This lets you distribute, remix, tweak and build upon the original work (depending on the nature of the license) so long as you give credit for the original creation.

What do you want to achieve?

First, work out why you're starting a blog. To me it was ‘Swantah Sukhaya’. I love communication with people and sharing my experience and benefiting from theirs’. I now have a very large pool of friends from all over the world with whom I can remain in constant touch with absolute geographical neutrality. 

But if you want to propagate your scope of practice then blogs on subjects like Face lift, Tummy Tuck, Breast Reduction, Laser rejuvenation etc can be of use to you. But please do not post your patient’s photograph without their consent.

Which blogs are popular?

Well written, well composed, well designed and well publicized blogs are popular. But you really do not know what clicks people’s imagination, Two of my most popular blogs each with more than 40,000 visits and over 300 comments are

1.   Letter from a father to his son who is getting engaged

2.   Never argue with the Anaesthetiest

These were both very personal blogs but somehow caught the attention of people from 6 continents!

An event which is currently in news will always be more popular and so all my blogs on Corona Pandemic were very well received. A blog on Kumbh Mela while it was on, one on Notre Dame inferno on the day it burnt down were hugely popular. I went to Turkey in 2010 and was mesmerized by the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul dividing the two continents but two weeks back I chose to write about Hagia Sophia because it was in news after its conversion into a mosque.

If you write for a target audience you usually get a favourable response from that group but not necessarily from others. Thus my blogs

1.   Reaching 60, time to start the second innings

2.   Why can’t adults make friends

3.   A dearth of PG teachers in Medical Institutions

4.   The Class Teacher’s Home Visit

were very popular with a section of my readership but not with all

 

Free Blogs vs Self Hosted Paid Blogs

There are 2 ways to make a blog - one is free and other is by paying around $100 (Rs 7500) for a domain name & hosting.

Popular free blogging sites

• WordPress.com
• Blogger.com
• Tumblr.com
• Strikingly.com
• LiveJournal.com

A free service is good if you're new to blogging and just want a way to express yourself, or let friends and family know what you've been up to, without incurring extra costs. Usually they will provide a free web address for your blog, such as ‘surajitbrainwaves.blogspot.com'.

Popular paid blog builders

• Squarespace.com
• Wix.com
• Weebly.com
• Wordpress.com
• Smugmug.com

Paid platforms give you more options and ready-to-go templates that do much of the heavy lifting for you. You can start off simple and expand your blog's website as you gain experience. Experienced users can also build everything from scratch. Payment is usually monthly or yearly.

So why should you go for the paid sites when there are free sites available? I am giving you 6 compelling reasons why you shouldn’t start a free blog.

• On a free blog site the domain name of your blog will look like surajitbrainwaves.blogspot.com or YourBlogName.wix.com which is too lengthy to read as compared to a paid blog that will read  surajitbrainwaves.com.
• You will face serious limitations incorporating many design changes.
• Monetization will become difficult affecting your revenue adversely.
• The whole process of shifting from free platform to paid one is very tedious and you might also lose some of the traffic & revenue.
• Your readers, advertisers and clients are not going to take you seriously if you are on a free site.
• Lastly, you are not in control of your content because everything is in the hands of the free platform you are using. If anything goes wrong with your blog, they will suspend your blog & you can't do anything.

Can you make money blogging?

The short answer is yes, you can make money from blogging. But no, it's not easy. Publishing your blog for profit is a whole different exercise that requires a systematic approach, consistent effort and a fairly steep learning curve.

The easiest way to start making money with advertising is through Adsense. Sign up for an account; enter in the ad settings you want like a 300×250 sized banner placed below the first paragraph of a post! It is a rude interruption for your readers but may be profitable for you. You should be able to make as much as $1 per 1,000 visitors to your site if you have enough placements, and while that won’t sound like much, once you reach 25,000 visitors a month, you can leave Adsense, join Mediavine and start making 10 times more money with advertising.

You can also earn through selling products and services on other’s behalf which is also known as affiliate marketing. Amazon Associate is one such example. Any time you mention a product on your site, you can search for the product through Amazon Associates, and then use that link in your post. Whenever your readers click on that link and choose to buy anything, you’ll receive a commission on that sale. Packing lists, in-depth reviews, and gift guides are great for monetizing through Amazon, so get started with those. But don’t over do it.

You may need to learn about online marketing, using social media platforms, blog directories, search engine optimization (SEO), ad services and affiliate programmes. You might even create an online store for selling your product, such as art, crafts, t-shirts and other stuff.

Top bloggers can make big money, but you might be happy if you can just cover your online costs, so that your hobby pays for itself. Web search "make money blogging" or similar for more info.

Keep it fun!

Making your blog should be interesting and fun, but if the pressure of regular, fresh content starts to pall, you might need to alter your approach, change your schedule or broaden your topic. Think about what you know and love best and start sharing.

Is it too late? Nope! Hell no. Seriously — it’s not too late. 

Enjoy this Instagram chat: 
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CDMMgQhpcL6/?igshid=ltft1uqwssds

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.