This painting is titled “The Kiss” (German: Der Kuss), and it is an oil-on-canvas painting with added gold leaf, silver and platinum by the Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt.[
It was painted at some point in 1907 and 1908, during the height of what scholars call his “Golden Period”.
The painting depicts a couple embracing each other, their bodies entwined in elaborate robes decorated in a style influenced by the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement.
The painting now hangs in the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum in the Upper Belvedere Palace in Vienna.
It is considered a masterpiece of Vienna Secession, the local variation of Art Nouveau, and is likely Klimt’s important work.
A.G. Munson
