| Artist: | Klimt, Gustav |
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|---|---|---|
| Title of Work: | The Kiss | |
| Date of Work: | 1907-1908 | |
| Nationality: | Austrian | |
| Context: | Pre-WWI, Vienna | |
| Movement: | Art Nouveau/Jugendstil | |
| Medium: | Oil | |
| Subject: portrayal of a kiss expressed through two figures locked in an embrace. Elaborate surface with no focus on the inner self; an elegant example of the beautiful facade of Art Nouveau (or Jugendstil as it was called in German-speaking countries). A close-up of the surface pattern reveals two types of symbolic forms: erect phallic shapes in his cloak and circular, womblike spirals in hers. The "intercourse" of symbolic patterns played out abstractly in the surface design. The latent content is alluded to in the overall contour of the embracing couple, which together form a giant, phallus. A sensual image of eros, fertility, and regeneration. Style: the entire surface is covered with jewelled, ornamental filler and gold ground reflecting a space negating horror vacuii; the decorative overlay. Highly stylized and surface oriented; it is as if the ornamental frame has flooded the interior field. The hands, face, and feet are all that is left of the figure. Mosaic pattern of precious, metallic materials, recalling the influence of Byzantine mosaics from San Vitale in Ravenna that the artist had recently seen. Tension between the 3-D representational elements and the 2-D abstract surface elaboration. Body is filled with ornate, decorative motifs in a sensory overload. Airless repetition of pattern. Context: Vienna, the city of Freud, becomes the backdrop for Klimt's elaborate surfaces that mask over any repressed content. It was a city of beautiful facades with all kinds of repressed desires and anxieties lurking undercover; it was the city in which Freud discovered the unconscious and did his dream interpretations, looking past the manifest surface to the latent content. It was the city in which the beautiful facade would eventually give way to the psyche. | ||
