The most famous KISS in the history of ART? The kiss by Gustav KLIMT [ANALYSIS] 

Each work tells a story. A story that perhaps does not concern us closely or a story that on the contrary belongs to us. For me it is so with today's work. A golden kiss that drags me to another dimension. What attracts me may be the museum, therefore the physical place that hosts it: the Belvedere in Vienna, where I have been many many times and which I love. Or it can be that abstract place that belongs to us during a kiss.
This mix of sensuality and richness of this work tells the whole essence of Gustav Klimt's work. In fact, Klimt is fascinated as much by the theme of the sensuality of women in particular as by the theme of the human embrace and returns to it in several works, but this is probably the most famous.
In the center of the canvas a man and a woman find themselves embraced. He on the left of her holds her and caresses her face. She looks rapt, with her eyes closed.
In fact, the couple is very close and both protagonists are captured by each other almost unaware of what is happening around them. Together they form a real shape at the center of the work. And they are wrapped in a golden covering that emphasizes their union and protects them from the outside world.
They wear very particular and somewhat colorful clothes. And they hug each other on a patch of green lawn that makes the scene even more delicate and makes us wonder if they have realized that they are risking falling off the cliff behind them at any moment. What many have wondered is whether Klimt is perhaps suggesting that both love and passion are precarious, and perhaps dangerous.
The Kiss, however, does not seem like a passionate kiss, more a serene kiss, between two lovers who are not only overwhelmed by passion but who have a very sincere feeling for each other. In fact, he wraps her with his firm, large and gnarled hands. And she lets herself be kidnapped, in ecstasy.
Another of the themes of Klimt's works that we also find in this one is the landscape. In fact, Klimt in some of his writings tells of relaxing a lot by painting them. And his landscapes are by no means standard and conventional. In fact, he focuses mainly on areas full of flowers and bright and vibrant colors.
The inspiration for these landscapes comes from the garden of his studio, which allows him to see nature with his own eyes and be able to represent it in his style. But some works are also reminiscent of the floral decorations found in some tapestries.
In Klimt's Kiss, the area full of flowers at the feet of the two lovers seems to be their happy island. A splash of color that blends perfectly with the gold of their clothes and makes the atmosphere of the work much lighter. The interesting thing is that in his own way, due to the choice of flowers, this garden looks as unreal as the golden background.
But the question that I think we all have at least once seeing this work live, on posters, on bags everywhere is but who are these two? The main protagonists of the work are undoubtedly the man and the woman. The man's face is almost completely hidden. He wears a crown of ivy which is a sacred plant in mythology and associated with the Greek god Dionysus and all his followers, the satyrs. These symbols associate the figure of him with the concepts of virility and lust.
The woman has her eyes closed and is captured by the atmosphere. She hugs the man with her arm and she has a lighter and almost gray complexion compared to him. This suggests that Klimt was inspired by the theme of the severed head, which was widespread in Symbolist art of the period.
However, there are many hypotheses about the protagonists of the work. There are those who see Zeus and Era on Mount Olympus from which the descendants of the Gods are generated. There are those who, on the other hand, in the two lovers on this cliff see the transformation of the nymph Daphne after the kiss of Apollo. The models in reality appear to be Gustav Klimt himself and his partner Emilie Floge. But since there don't seem to be any archival documents to confirm this, some scholars have speculated that the woman is instead the same model as Danae. I have placed next to the Kiss the photo of Floge and Klimt's Danae, in my opinion it is true that she resembles Danae for the color of her hair and the cut of her eyes but she is more like Floge.
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00:00 Intro
00:38 Theme
02:06 Details
05:07 Characters
07:18 Influences
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Art and the Cities is my personal blog and RU-vid channel about art and travel. Or better than art trips. I'm not only talking about art history but also about travel, museums, galleries, art market, love stories, books, exhibitions and much more.
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Clelia
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