The Kiss

Klimt painted it in Vienna in 1907 and 1908, in what is called his golden period, when he worked real gold leaf into his canvases. The idea owes something to the Byzantine mosaics he had seen in Ravenna. A couple kneels at the edge of a meadow of flowers, wrapped in robes of squares and circles against a field of gold, his face hidden, her eyes closed. The Austrian state bought it, still unfinished, when it was first shown at the Kunstschau exhibition of 1908. It has been in the Belvedere ever since.

Medium

Oil and gold leaf on canvas

Size

180 x 180 cm

Where

Belvedere, Vienna

Photo from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.