Is the woman unconscious? Could the man’s embrace be violent? A new film invites us to challenge our preconceptions about the gilded masterpiece
ome paintings become so iconic that it is difficult to remember that they are in fact paintings, not just posters on the walls of dorm rooms stained with Blu-Tack. Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss is a prime example. Because we encounter it most often in tattered poster form, or on mugs or keychains or some other kind of tat, it has ascended into a realm entirely unrelated to the context in which it was made.
The subjects of the painting, dripping in molten gold, are two figures entwined. The male figure clasps the female figure around the neck and kisses her cheek, his own face invisible to the viewer. The female figure’s eyes are closed and she has a strangely blank expression. Her hands drape around his neck and clutch at his hand at her throat. She kneels on the ground in a meadow full of flowers, with her bare feet drifting off the edge of the ground towards an unknown abyss.
There is something domineering and violent about the male figure’s embrace, and something powerless, desperate, almost pathetic about the woman. Is she unconscious or are her eyes closed in bliss? Is she returning the man’s embrace or trying to claw his hands away? Many possible narratives have been mapped on to the scene by scholars and viewers.
Though this work has become symbolic of Klimt’s style, he did not always paint in such a stylised, gilded way. Born in 1862 to a lower class family in Vienna, Gustav and his brothers Georg and Ernst all pursed careers as artists, with their parents’ support. Klimt studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna from 1876 to 1883, where he was given a traditional academic training.
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