All Articles The Kiss
| The Kiss |
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| Written by Eve Woolven |
| Tuesday, 19 May 2009 02:13 |
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The Kiss By Eve Woolven One of Gustav Klimt’s most famous paintings is The Kiss, a beautiful representation of two figures, male and female, in a close embrace. Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was one of Austria’s most famous members of the Vienna Art Noveau movement, and a Symbolist artist. The Kiss embodies Klimt’s unique style; he uses brush strokes as well as shapes and symbols to create his images, and bright natural colours against earthen, golden backgrounds. I had never seen any of Klimt’s work until a few months ago when a friend showed me The Kiss, which was her favourite painting, and since then I seem to be seeing Klimt’s work everywhere I look, this painting in particular. I was struck by the painter’s style that at times makes his work look more like Byzantine mosaics or murals than paintings. There is an irregular aspect to some of his paintings, especially The Kiss, which makes one look closer, trying to figure out exactly what is happening in the picture. The aesthetic charm and inscrutability apparent in Klimt’s work, however, is what makes it so interesting; it is pleasurable to simply gaze at his paintings and absorb the intricate workings of colour, shape, aspect and mystery. Most of Klimt’s paintings depicted images of women, posing in erotic ways, exposing their bodies and making alluring gestures. Although Klimt was a well-known and respected artist in his day, many of these kinds of paintings were considered scandalous pieces of artwork. The artist himself was known to live a promiscuous lifestyle, bedding many of the prostitutes he painted, living up the stereotype of the sexually charged artist. Klimt kept to himself, however, and was discreet about his more risqué activities. The Kiss, though, is one of the most unusual but beautiful representations of that affectionate embrace that I have ever seen. The artist perfectly captures the essence of a kiss, in the way the two figures have been painted. The woman appears to be kneeling against the man, with her cheek pressed to his and her eyes closed as he kisses her. One arm of each holds the other around the neck, while their hands are clasped tightly together. What Klimt has captured is the unifying nature of the kiss; he shows the meaning that is conveyed in this action in a tangible way. A deep golden yellow is used for both the figures’ bodies, melding them into each other, illustrating the unitive nature of the love that is expressed by the kiss, while the different shapes and symbols differentiate their bodies and the faint line between them, which simultaneously expresses union and autonomy. The golden halo that springs from the bodies of the two lovers and then surrounds them also expresses the unity of their love and adds to the sense of transcendence they communicate through the kiss. A kiss unites two people in a moment, physically, emotionally and spiritually, while they remain two separate people. The love they are communicating brings them together in an act of self-giving and the kiss they share is a foreshadowing of the ultimate act of self-giving between a man and woman in marriage and the physical expression of this shown in conjugal love. The Kiss has become one of my favourite pieces of artwork for the beauty and subtle meaning it conveys, and the silent passion speaking through the man and woman in the painting. If only post-modern artistic representations of love could be as subtle and beautiful as The Kiss.
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