![]() "The Kiss" is the final painting of Klimt's Gold Period, during which he incorporated gold leaf into his works. In 2003, the Austrian Mint issued a 14-gram, 100-Euro gold coin showing Gustav Klimt's head and on the flip side, an etching of "The Kiss."Ħ. The artist and the work are legal tender. The painting is oversized, measuring approximately 6 x 6 feet.ĥ. The New York Times noted at that time this was "the highest sum ever paid for a painting."Ĥ. Kimt's less renowned (though still quite famous) Adele Bloch-Bauer I soldįor $135 million in 2006. currency - was five times higher than that of than any painting previously sold in Vienna.īut that price turned out to be a bargain. The sale price of 25,000 crowns - roughly $240,000 in contemporary U.S. The Belvedere Museum of Vienna, Austria, was the purchaser.ģ. Despite the public outcry it generated, "The Kiss" sold before the artist had completely finished it. The post-Victorian society of the early 1900s perceived "The Kiss" as pornographic, even though both figures are fully robed.Ģ. Gaze, make you admire its aesthetic qualities while trying to discern what's beyond its superficial aspects."ġ0 Facts You Might not Know about "The Kiss"ġ. After throwing shade on the more famous painting, Brijbassi explained, " does what a great piece of art is supposed to do: Hold your When re-assessing The Kiss for Klimt's 150th birthday, journalistĪdrian Brijbassi wrote, "The Kiss by Gustav Klimt surpasses expectations," unlike that tiny and underwhelming Mona Lisa by "The Kiss" is Klimt's artistic response to the Byzantine mosaics at Ravenna, Italy, which so profoundly affected him. 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. It is noĬoincidence that Klimt's work is often linked to that of his Viennese compatriot, and near-contemporary, Sigmund Freud. 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. Records reveal that Klimt was a thickset and brooding man, usually photographed wearing his painter's smock, who never married and led an openly bohemian lifestyle. ![]() Through two figures, depicted not naked, but draped in densely patterned cloths, Klimt succeeded in evoking a moment of intense sensual pleasure, within a sharply stylized and Here, Klimt's loosening of naturalism, in favor of a personal symbolic language suggesting the workings of unconscious mind, in particular its erotic urge, The triangular fronds also recall water imagery from paintings such as Vestments of artistic creation golden rain blesses the fertile earth, similar to the descending roses in "The Beethoven Frieze". Softened by the feminine organic scrolling, reminiscent of "Tree of Life." In comparison, female energy is shown as spinning circles of bright floral motifs and upward-flowing wavy lines. The dominant male force is signified by the powerful coat of masculine black and gray blocks, Each work aids final comprehension of the allegory, which represents the mystical union of spiritual and erotic love and the merging of theīoth figures are fully realized and symbolically blended as they face the golden abyss of perfection. The Kiss representing the apex of his "Golden Period," this concludes similar thematic studies during his career, such as The Beethoven Frieze, and Symbolized a move towards greater stability, through static, inorganic forms suggesting a search for refuge after the artist's exploration of the instinctual powers of archaic Greece. Klimt's interest in the Byzantine period also 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. In 1903, Klimt traveled twice to Ravenna, where he saw the mosaics of San Vitale, whose Byzantine influence was apparent in the paintings of what would become known as his "Golden Period". At a remarkable 72in x 72in (180cm x 180cm), its powerful presence resoundsįrom the wall as the life-size figures, wrapped in gold, embrace.
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