The kiss klimt

The kiss is one of the best-known paintings of the 20th century. It was painted by an Austrian Symbolist artist named Gustav Klimt

But what do we know about its creation?

Here is the story behind the masterpiece :

A kiss full of history

While this painting is commonly referred to as a hymn to love, it can also be interpreted differently. Klimt painted it in 1908-1909, during the Viennese Secession. This movement 

, which broke with the artistic institutions of the time, aimed to lead an aesthetic revolution and put an end to the «end of the century» Vienna, which was experiencing its last hours of glory.

The world was then at the gates of war, and “The Kiss” is also a testimony of the last years of Europe’s carelessness-a very relative carelessness, as evidenced by the woman’s feet, which lie in the empty space to waver…

A dizzying void

In the center of the picture, the couple stands on a green expanse dotted with flowers. But looking to the right, we see that the meadow forms a kind of cliff in which everyone could swing at any time.

A composition that creates both a feeling of stability and fragility. In full embrace, the two characters seem as if they were frozen, but the painting is simultaneously subject to movement: that of the wind, the flowers and the golden flows that escape from the ankles of the woman.

The last work of the Golden Cycle

With this painting, Klimt completes a «Golden Cycle» initiated in 1902.

If the gold leaf brings light and brightness to the canvas, it is also loaded with symbols: by lining the artist's works with this unalterable metal, he envelops his characters in a cocoon that will know how to protect them.

Embedded in gold, his «Kiss» takes on a spiritual dimension, almost sacred, to become the embodiment of an immutable love and beauty despite the great upheavals that are already taking shape in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century.

In conclusion, watching the «Kiss» is accepting to be challenged before the power and purity of a timeless and unconditional love .

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The Kiss by Gustav Klimt, 1908-1909

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