MASTERPIECES OF ART IN THE CENTURIES / VIENNA – Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna: The Kiss (Lovers), by Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt, an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement, a successful painter of architectural decorations in a conventional manner. He was born near Vienna, and lived in poverty while attending the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. In 1888, he received the Golden Order of Merit, from Emperor Franz Josef. In 1894, he was commissioned to create three special paintings, to decorate the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna, but you can not admire they, because all three paintings were destroyed by retreating SS forces in 1945. Klimt’s Golden Phase, was marked by positive critical reaction (many of his paintings from this period included gold leaf). He travelled to Venice and Ravenna (both famous for their beautiful mosaics), most likely inspired his gold technique and his Byzantine. Looking his paintings, you need to remembers what he say: “There is nothing special about me. I am a painter who paints day after day from morning to night. Who ever wants to know something about me… ought to look carefully at my pictures”.

It was painted soon after his three-part Vienna Ceiling series which created a scandal. The Kiss (Lovers), a masterpiece of art was created in around 1907 by an Austrian painter: Gustav Klimt. This painting (a 180 × 180 cm) oil on canvas, in accordance with the canons of the Art Nouveau style, is made of canvas, with decorations and mosaics, gold-colored background. The two figures are situated at the edge of a patch of flowery meadow. The man wears a robe with black and white rectangles irregularly placed on gold leaf decorated with spirals. Klimt depicts the couple locked in intimacy, while the rest of the painting dissolves into shimmering, extravagant flat pattern. The use of gold leaf recalls medieval “gold-ground” paintings and illuminated manuscripts, and earlier mosaics. The work is composed of conventional oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf, an aspect that gives it its strikingly modern, yet evocative appearance.

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