By the end of the 19th century Vienna, an uptight, stuffy and conservative city was changing.
A group of artists, architects, musicians and social scientists were experimenting in ways which would
transform their individual fields. On the one hand Vienna was the traditional city of academic art,
Johann Strauss and the Habsburg empire, but on the other, it was the home of radical artists
such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, who were shocking audiences with explorations of sexual themes.
Architects Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos were challenging imperial design, while Gustav Mahler
was transforming the musical life of the city. And Sigmund Freud was about to change forever
the way we think about the human mind. Vienna was experiencing a new 'golden age'.
It was a city at the forefront of modernity, and it would shape the 20th century.
In 1857 Emperor Franz Josef ordered the building of the Ringstrasse. It is a series
of tree-lined boulevards that circled the city. The Bourgeoisie of Vienna rushed to build huge
mansions on the Ringstrasse alongside new public buildings. These ostentatious palaces
needed to be decorated and Gustav Klimt and his brother were very successful mural painters.
Gustav Klimt became one of the world's most famous artists without the usual personality cult we expect.
We know very little about him except that he never married but was a prodigious lover and
left behind 14 children by as many women. He lived with his mother his whole life and was terrified
of mental illness. Almost a classic case study for Sigmund Freud. And like Freud he placed sexuality
at the forefront of his work. Klimt didn't go to a fine arts school, but rather an arts and crafts school.
A more practical education, where he learned skills and techniques. His lifetime goal was to
demolish the snobby distinction between fine art and craft. At the age of 20, Klimt and his younger
brother were creating allegorical murals for the new public buildings in Vienna. Their friezes were
conservative mythological images - in keeping with 19th century academic painting. But it is in his
background as a decorative artist, that we find the roots of Klimt's later more radical work.
When both his brother and father died suddenly, Klimt's art would take a dramatic and darker turn.
He would still use allegory and symbolism, but he would transform it into a new language that was
more overtly sexual and for some more disturbing. He was commissioned to decorate the university of
Vienna. The paintings would cause a huge public scandal with their sexually provocative themes
and Klimt was accused of producing pornography. Women were advised to stay away from his work and
the paintings were rejected by the university. Klimt formed a radical new society called the
Vienna Secession with other young artists. Their aim was to bring art, craft, architecture and design
together - in one great movement. The secession broke away from the pompous historical painting
fashionable in the late 19th century, and gave contemporary art its first dedicated space.
In a nation still very traditional this can be
seen as the formal beginning of modern art in Austria.
Ironically, a painting that is seen as a romantic ideal by man, was painted by a man who was never
romantically involved and was afraid of intimacy. A man who had an obsession with sex, bedded most of
his models - as well as his subjects - but went home each night to the mother he adored and
two unmarried sisters. The painting is square - at six foot by six foot, it is practically life-size,
making us connect to it on a human scale. It is self-contained and deceptively simple.
It shows Klimt as the consummate draftsman, an artist who drew every day from life models.
There are several things which make the kiss unique - the deliberate contrast
between the realistically rendered flesh and the two-dimensional abstract ornamentation, creates
an effect almost like photo montage. The bodies are painted with a cool contemporary sensuality.
They are encased like an ancient Egyptian mummy in cascades of gold and abstract patterns.
And everything appears to float in a golden cosmos - outside of time and space. The background
is Klimt's new technical invention. He covered the entire canvas with sheets of gold leaf and then
painted over the gold with a dark wash, which he then flicked with flakes of gold on top.
If we look at where the background meets the meadow - which is primed
in the conventional way - we can see how the artist was playing with different textures .
He used eight different types of gold in The Kiss. He also builds up texture underneath the gold leaf
to give it a three-dimensional aspect - to catch the light - in the same way Byzantine mosaics do.
It is gold that we think of when we think of Klimt. His father was a goldsmith and Klimt had
a lifelong fascination with the precious metal. He traveled to Ravenna to see the Byzantine mosaics,
a major influence on his 'Golden period.' The Kiss, with the dazzling glow of an altarpiece
has become an icon for the post-religious age, and the Gold surrounding them almost hints at a halo.
Gold leaf is fragile and comes in gossamer thin sheets. For the relief sections Klimt would use
gesso, which is a mixture of animal glue and chalk dust. He would paint the thick mixture on in the
required pattern and then apply the gold leaf. The excess was then discarded. Apart from Gold,
the other precious metal we see here looks like silver, but is in fact Platinum, more expensive than Gold
but unlike Silver it doesn't Oxidise. There is more pure Gold than you think in The Kiss. If we look
at this ultraviolet scan. All of the parts which are dark, including the background, have a layer of
pure Gold leaf - only the white patches reveal where there is no Gold. Even after applying Gold leaf to
the surface we can see how Klimt is happy to paint over the gold and mix both materials and textures.
He doesn't use Gold for its realistic qualities. It is too shiny and reflective of light - but rather as
an object of desire. Gold is an indicator of wealth, and its resistance to tarnishing has
ensured it was used to decorate the tombs of Gods and in religious paintings for centuries.
Klimt uses Gold to confer status on the Nouveau rRche women of Vienna - to suggest opulence, wealth
and beauty. The theme was not new but the overt eroticism was. Klimt knew Edvard Munch's painting
from over 10 years before, and both artists were aware of Rodin's even earlier sculpture.
The first time Klimt painted an embrace, he shows a romantic couple about to kiss. The artist who
avoided any form of romantic relationship, places the disembodied figures of old-age,
disease and death above the young couple. Passion he tells us, is fraught with uncertainty.
The Beethoven frieze was part of a successful group show of the Secessionists inspired by Beethoven's
9th symphony. A watershed in both Vienna's AND Klimt's artistic evolution. The freieze by
Klimt features an embracing couple, similar in both composition and aesthetics to The Kiss.
'Love' here is surrounded by demonic creatures. The Stoclet frieze, a privately commissioned mosaic, features
an embrace of an erotic nature - a similar motif to The Kiss. As in the Stoclet frieze, Klimt suggests
the couple in the kiss are naked under their garments. It is worth reminding ourselves what the
average Viennese couple were wearing at the time, to understand why it was considered so provocative.
Klimt was an admirer of Aubrey Beardsley, and the clothes were inspired by his Art Nouveau style,
as well as the organic forms of 'The Arts and Crafts Movement.'
The clothes are a visual metaphor for the emotional and physical expression of erotic love.
His robe is emblazoned with upright black rectangles, a symbol of thrusting masculinity.
Her robe is studied with whirls and spirals said to symbolize the Ova. I don't think it's an accident
that the shape of the entwined couple is itself a Golden Phallic symbol. Klimt's figures often
have a stiff 'statue-like' appearance, and he was said to be inspired by the Belgian sculptor George Minne,
who used what was called the perfect "Gothic" body - slim, expressive and youthful. Minne was also
influential for younger Austrian artists like Egon Schiele and Oscar Kokoshka - both followers of Klimt.
Like Monet and van Gogh, Klimt collected Japanese prints, which were hugely influential. 'Japonisme' can
be seen in the very simplified composition, but also in the tight cropping - with the man's head
painted very close to the top of the canvas. A departure from traditional Western art.
Klimt's complicated feelings towards 'love' come out in The Kiss, and the figures are
pictured on a patch of flowery meadow BUT they are teetering at the edge of a cliff.
Despite the religious comparisons with icons, the lovers, with garlands in their hair, have a
distinctly 'pagan' look. The man wears a crown of vines and the woman wears a crown of flowers,
suggesting that this is the consummation of some kind of ritual. One theory is that
in this picture Klimt is representing the myth of Apollo and Daphne from Ovid's metamorphosis.
Most artists when depicting the story show the moment Daphne is running from Apollo, as she begs
the Gods to transform her into a Laurel tree, to protect her from Apollo's advances. But the last
paragraph of Metamorphosis refers specifically to "a kiss" AFTER she has transformed into a tree,
which is rarely portrayed. The legs of the woman in The Kiss seem to be sinking into the ground,
as tendrils of Golden Laurel leaves, emanating from her body, root themselves into the meadow,
and suggest Daphne's transformation into a Laurel tree. The man's face is not shown to the viewer.
Klimt almost exclusively painted women, and when men did feature in his paintings they were just an
accessory. He is bent downwards to press a kiss to the woman's cheek, and his hands are cradling the
woman's face, which is turned towards the viewer, Her eyes are closed like a trance or in ecstasy.
She has one arm wrapped around the man's neck, the other resting gently on his hand, and her face
is upturned to receive the man's kiss... or is it? One of the great mysteries of The Kiss is who
are the models? It is suggested that this is a portrait of Klimt and Emilie Flöge.
She was a businesswoman, and an avant-garde fashion designer. A woman way ahead of her
time, and a companion to Klimt for 27 years. It seems that the relationship may have begun
as an infatuation - on his part. But matured into an extremely close friendship that was
intellectually and emotionally intimate rather than physical. The actual life model was more
likely to be a woman known as "Red Hilda" who she bears a strong resemblance to. She was the model
for many of his paintings and one of Klimt's many lovers. There has been endless debate about what
exactly is the relationship between the couple. Is it romantic? Is she bending to receive the kiss
or turning away? If we do take it as an allegorical portrait of Klimt and Flöge, then the ambiguity
of the relationship in the painting is a perfect reflection of their own ambiguous relationship.
The man tries to kiss her but she turns her head away, there is a tenderness there an acceptance
of affection, but she is not compliant. Her eyes and mouth are firmly closed - unusual for Klimt's
paintings, where the woman often has an open 'sexualized' mouth. Could The Kiss, long thought
to be the most romantic painting in history, actually be a depiction of a platonic relationship?
When it was shown in Vienna, it was immediately bought by the Austrian government. Klimt's work,
once considered pornographic and deviant, was put on display in one of the Imperial palaces.
Gustav Klimt would be part of the last cultural explosion before the demise of
the Austro-Hungarian empire, a political entity that was ridiculously antiquated in its day and
was to die in the same year that Klimt did - 1918. Egon Schiele would die just a few months later.
And just like that, an intense period of creativity and vitality drew to an end.
Klimt is often dismissed by critics today, as an artist who simply produced 'decorative artifice.'
But his work served as an important role in bridging academic realism and the coming world of abstraction.
He pushed the boundaries of what Freud called "the misunderstood and much maligned erotic."
And depicted the human figure as never before.
And then he gave us 'The Kiss', one of the most compelling and truthful images of the 20th century.
We don't really know about Klimt's thoughts on 'The Kiss',
but maybe we don't need to. As he once said: "If you want to know about me - just look at my paintings"