Gustav Klimt: The Kiss

AGNES HUSSLEINARCO ED.
WITH AN ESSAY FROM
STEFANIE PENCK AND
ALFRED WEIDINGER
GUSTAV KLIMT
The
Kiss
“Lovers”

12
AGNES HUSSLEINARCO, Director of the Belvedere in Vienna
FOR THE WORLD AT LARGE, Gustav Klimt’s
name is inseparably linked with that of
the Belvedere. There are a number of reasons
for this, but basically they can all be
traced back to the fact that the Belve dere,
or rather its predecessor institutions, the
Moderne Galerie and the k. k. Österreichische
Staatsgalerie, became a place for
contemporary Austrian art as the result
of an initiative by Carl Moll and a group
of artists around Gustav Klimt. In 1903,
there were already three paintings by
Klimt in the collection (After the Rain,
On the Attersee, and Josef Lewinsky). Five
years later at the Kunstschau in Vienna,
the museum acquired Klimt’s monumental
icon Lovers (The Kiss), which was still
unfinished at the time but which the
artist delivered on July 22, 1909 following
its completion.
We are indebted to a review published in
the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung of 1916 on
the occasion of the rearrangement of the
collection of the Moderne Galerie for a
contemporary assessment of the status of
Klimt and the presence of his main work:
“In view of the wall space which Gustav
Klimt commands, albeit still in embryonic
form, Goethe’s aphorism seems
appropriate: For children of the earth,
the greatest good fortune lies solely in
their personality! An art expert once
said that Klimt selects his course autocratically
like a meteor in the artistic
firmament. He comes from nowhere and
he may be heading for nowhere. So art
historians of the future will find it
impossible to ascribe the strange hymn
to love which the maestro celebra tes
in ‘The Kiss’ to any contemporary
school. A flaring up of splendor and
decorative magnificence; a passionate
blossoming and heady scents waft

intoxicatingly round the lovers in their
ecstatic dance, in which they bear the
burden of gleaming gold apparel like
crowned monarchs. Klimt celebrates
here the High Mass of passion. Only an
artist who is close to nature can dare
to attempt such a high degree of styliza
tion, however, without losing himself
in the purely decorative.”
Throughout Klimt’s life, his working
method was distinguished by his untiring
openness to new artistic achievements
and his constant absorption of inspiration,
which he then transformed into his own
personal style. This can clearly be seen in
Lovers, which reveals not only the design
principles of Japanese art, Byzantine
mosaics and medieval panel painting, but
also a study of the works of Auguste
Rodin, George Minne, and Edvard Munch.
Created at the height of Klimt’s Golden
Period, Lovers undoubtedly represents the
famous painter’s principal work. At the
same time, it is also the most important
masterpiece to be produced during the
Jugendstil era in Austria.
In spite of the numerous losses the Klimt
collection suffered, be it through restitution,
exchange or even destruction (the
faculty painting Medicine was destroyed
by fire in 1945), today the Belvede re owns
the world’s biggest collection by this most
famous Austrian artist, with a total of 24
paintings – portraits, landscapes, and
allegorical pictures. It is, however, not
least because of Gustav Klimt’s monumental
icon Lovers (The Kiss), that it is
the most frequently visited museum in
Austria.
13

“If the sexual
act is a full
stop, the kiss
is a comma.”
ALEXANDRE LACROIX
15
001 | GUSTAV KLIMT: GIRLFRIENDS | 1904 | DETAIL
Mixed technique and gold on vellum, 50 x 20 cm, Belvedere, Vienna

The
Kiss
18
WHAT COULD BE MORE BEAUTIFUL than
the representation of love in the visual
arts? Leading into the nineteenth century,
love and eroticism, naked skin and fleshly
delights had a long tradition in art – but
only if the subject could be fitted into
an allegorical framework. The depiction
of Susanna bathing, naked and besieged
by the lecherous elders in Rubens’s
eponymous painting comes to mind.
But the moment this framework was
abandoned, such as when Manet placed
a naked woman on a picnic rug among
well-dressed gentlemen, and gave the
painting the succinct title The Luncheon
on the Grass, it was inevitable that there
would be a scandal.
But there was a paradigm shift between
the end of the nineteenth century and
the nineteen-twenties, and kissing then
became a fashionable subject in painting.
The kiss became the subject of numerous
paintings, both in a historical context and
in isolation as an expression of an intense
and intimate inner life. In both literature
and art, the kiss has inspired people for
millennia, from kisses denied to kisses
delayed, and from their fleetingness to the
pain of separating. A kiss can be part of

a parting or a greeting, can hurt or cause
people to rejoice, it can be desired or unwanted,
it can end in comedy or in tragedy,
and it can cause people to abandon themselves,
forget the rest of the world; a kiss
can open gates and draw people into new
worlds. The Kiss by Gustav Klimt has become
the icon of the Österreichische Galerie
Belvedere in Vienna in part because the
painting can speak to all of these things,
to the multilayered personality of a special
artist, and to the spirit of new beginnings
in Vienna around the year 1900; it speaks
to a break with artistic tradition, and also
– and most importantly – it speaks of love.
003 | GUSTAV KLIMT: PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY
FACULTY PAINTING | 1900 1907 | DETAIL
Oil on canvas, 430 x 300 cm Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt,
Vienna (destroyed by fire in May 1945 in Immendorf Palace,
Lower Austria)

22
005 | GUSTAV KLIMT:
IN THE MOTOR BOAT
ON ATTERSEE | 1905
Photographed by
Emma Bacher (née Paulick)
Silver gelatin print,
Private ownership
likely that the exorbitantly high purchase
price – the sum was to be paid to the artist
in two equal installments 5 – represented a
sort of compensation payment with which
reparations were in some sense made to
Klimt for the rejection of the so-called fac–
ulty paintings and the injustice that this
inflicted upon him. While the formalities
of the acquisition transaction were still
underway, Klimt traveled that summer to
Lake Attersee, as he generally did, and on
July 16, 1908 he wrote from his summer
residence to the ministerial secretary in
charge, Max von Millenkovich-Morold,
that he would “naturally immediately
complete the not entirely finished Lovers
after the end of the exhibition, and deliver
it in person to the k. k. Ministerium” 6
(fig. 6). This optimistic forecast by Klimt
is in hindsight revealed to have been a
premature statement, as the completion
of the painting and the payment of the
second installment of the purchase price
to which it was linked are not confirmed
until June 1909. 7 The physical incorporation
of Klimt’s Lovers into the inventory
of the collection of the Moderne Galerie
finally took place on July 22, 1909. 8

006 | LETTER FROM GUSTAV KLIMT TO MAX
VON MILLENKOVICHMOROLD | JULY 16, 1908
Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna

012 | GUSTAV KLIMT PAINTED THE
PICTURE “LOVE” FOR THE ARTISTIC
DESIGN COLLECTION “ALLEGORIES
AND EMBLEMS” | 1895
Color lithograph, Belvedere, Vienna
Klimt was interested in the representation
of lovers from a very early stage in his
career. He had, for example, already
worked on this subject in 1885 in the form
of a painting that was created in prepa ration
for a print in the Allegorien und Embleme
(Allegories and Emblems) series for
the Viennese publisher Gerlach & Schenk
(fig. 11 + 12). In 1894, he and his fellow
artist Franz Matsch were commissioned
to design the ceiling of the Great Hall of
the University of Vienna with allegories of
the four classical faculties: jurisprudence,
medicine, philosophy, and theology.
Now preserved only in the form of black-
31
011 | GUSTAV KLIMT: LOVE | 1895 | DETAIL
Oil on canvas, 60 x 44 cm, Wien Museum

023 | GUSTAV KLIMT: BEETHOVEN FRIEZE | 1901/02 | DETAIL
mixed technique, overall length: 34.14 m, height: 2.15 m, Casein paint, gold leaf,
semi-precious stones, mother of pearl, plaster, charcoal on stucco grounding,
Belvedere, Vienna (on loan in the Secession, Vienna)
A pair of lovers in a passionate embrace is accompanied by a “choir of angels
of Paradise.” In this symbolic union we find Klimt’s interpretation of Schiller’s
poem “Ode to Joy,” which Beethoven set to music in the fourth movement of his
Ninth Symphony: “O ye millions, I embrace thee! Here’s a joyful kiss for all!”
42
It is possible that Klimt formulated his
own solution regarding the idealized
“eternal” lovers from Rodin’s creations.
Just as Rodin saw himself as the lover
in a large proportion of his works, so
Klimt was intent on depicting himself
as the male figure. His face is, however,
almost entirely obscured, as had already
been the case in the Embrace scene of
the Beethoven Frieze (fig. 24) in 1902,
and again in Fulfillment, part of the
material frieze for the dining room of the
Palais Stoclet in Brussels. In addition,
he imbues the representation with the
air of antiquity through the addition of
an ivy wreath in the man’s hair.
024 | GUSTAV KLIMT:
BEETHOVEN FRIEZE |
1901/02 | DETAIL

50
031 | GUSTAV KLIMT: JUDITH | 1901
Oil, gold leaf on canvas, 84 x 42 cm,
Belvedere, Vienna
Klimt uses the Old Testament story of
Judith and Holofernes as a pretext for
presenting a modern woman.

032 | GUSTAV KLIMT: SALOME | 1909
Oil on canvas, 178 x 46 cm, Galleria
Internazionale d´Arte Moderna,
Ca´ Pesaro, Fondazione Musei Civici
Venezia, Venice
In the context of Gustav Klimt’s passionate
explorations of relationships between
the sexes, which he clearly underlines
in his visualizations of pairs of lovers
and in paintings such as Judith (fig. 31)
and Salome (fig. 32), literature is another
significant source for his artistic
creations. With Lovers in particular, he
draws – if only subtly – on the subject of
Heinrich Heine’s “ Lorelei.” This can be
viewed as archetypal for the war between
the sexes (postulated primarily by the
man). Heine’s character inspired many,
including the French painter Gustave
Moreau, whose master piece Oedipus and
the Sphinx (fig. 33) was first introduced
to the public in 1864, and which Gustav
Klimt will certainly have been familiar
with. The marble Sphinx, a frightening
and simultaneously attractive creature
with the body and claws of a lion and the
head and breasts of a woman, transforms
herself into a woman. She allows Oedipus,
who cannot resist the charms of her lips,
to kiss her.
033 | GUSTAVE MOREAU: OEDIPUS AND THE SPHINX | 1864
Oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
51

038 | GUSTAV KLIMT: THE GOLDEN KNIGHT | 1903
Oil and gold on canvas, 103.5 x 103.7 cm,
Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya

Klimt had already executed the background
of his 1903 painting The Golden
Knight (fig. 38) in a very similar manner.
The same background composition – a
combination of the materials metal leaf, a
mixture of gold and bronze, and oil paint
on a zinc-white primer – also points to
the 1907–08 portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer I
(fig. 39), however, as well as the painting
Hope II (fig. 40), which was created
at approximately the same time. It is
entirely possible that the flower-strewn
throne that grows out of the ground
refers to the lakeshore by Villa Oleander
in Kammerl at Lake Attersee; the algae
familiar from the paintings Freundinnen
(Girlfriends; fig. 41) and Wasserschlangen
(Water serpents; fig. 42) can be seen in
the lower part of the meadow of flowers,
close to the water’s edge.
59

1
Vienna
“To the age its
72
050 | GROUP OF ARTISTS
INCLUDING GUSTAV KLIMT | CA. 1903
Silver gelatine print, Private ownership
VIENNA, CIRCA 1900: this has long been
associated with the splendid tissue of
such contradictory pairs as dream and
reality, death and Eros, and with great
names from European cultural history.
Great achievements in architecture,
painting, literature, and music were
concentrated here with extraordinary
density.

9009
art.
To art its freedom.”
Long-standing traditions, ideas, and
political and economic structures were
suddenly called into question: the end of
the nineteenth century, with its understanding
of representation with pomp
and circumstance, was suddenly considered
to be degenerate, and historicism
was no longer modern but antiquated.
In its traditional ideas, it provided
fruitful ground for new ideas: Sigmund
Freud’s psychoanalysis, the enthusiasm
for experimentation in the applied arts,
the breathless music of Gustav Mahler,
the grandiose and highly controversial
new architecture of Adolf Loos, and the
argument and discussion with and about
the artists of the Viennese Secession
(figs. 50 –54).
73

056 | VIENNA SECESSION
Photograph, ca. 1902
In 1897, Vienna – which until then had
been very conservative – woke up. Klimt
and a group of young, ambitious artists
had had enough of the rigid academic
focus of the Künstlerhaus and established
themselves independently by founding
their own artists’ group, the Vienna
Secession. The fifty founding members
included not only their president Gustav
Klimt, but also painters, architects, and
interior designers, such as Josef Hoffmann,
Koloman Moser, Joseph Maria
Olbrich, Otto Wagner, and Alfons Mucha
(fig. 58 – see next double page). All of
them stood in opposition to the conservative
guidelines of the Künstlerhaus
and the historicism-orien ted attitudes
prevalent there. Olbrich designed the
Secession’s exhibition building, which
was crowned by a dome made of 3,000
wrought-iron laurel leaves, an incarnation
of the plant dreams of Viennese Jugendstil
(fig. 57).
80

057 | VIENNA: EXHIBITION
BUILDING OF THE SECESSION
ARTISTS’ GROUP | 1897/98,
Architect: Josef M. Olbrich,
view of the exterior.
The motto of the Secessionists
is proclaimed in golden letters
above the entrance.
81

Artis
The
s
Gustav Klimt
As a young man, Klimt was still entirely
rooted in the nineteenth century. He
was remarkably successful at a young
age, thanks in part to his network from
the Künstlervereinigung. Together with
his brother Ernst, he received well-paid
decoration and design commissions for
palaces, theaters and public buildings
(fig. 63). As early as 1904, the journalist
Berta Zuckerkandl wrote that,
88
063 | KARL SCHUSTER:
GUSTAV KLIMT | 1892
Silver gelatin print, Belvedere Vienna

t
064 | GUSTAV KLIMT: SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE THEATRE, CEILING PAINTING | 1886 87
Grand staircase on the Volksgarten side, Burgtheater Vienna.
The picture, created in accordance with the classic academic tradition, is the only picture in the Burgtheater
on which Klimt does not depict a classical theme, taking instead the tomb scene from Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet. Here we find the only painted self-portrait of the artist. He immortalized himself
together with Ernst Klimt and Franz Matsch on the right-hand side of the picture, beneath the box.
“The start of Klimt’s artistic career gave no
hint of the struggles which would accompany
his later development.... If Klimt had remained
caught up at this point of his creative work,
if he had not suffered the inner transformation,
he would doubtless have been rich in material
honors and property.... But Klimt was made
of sterner stuff. Nothing could lessen the inner
unrest of his artistic soul.”
89
BERTA ZUCKERKANDL
Zeitkunst. Wien 1901–07, Vienna 1908, quoted from 150 Jahre Gustav Klimt, Vienna 2012, p. 11.

“If my work, which has cost me so
many years, is to be finished at all,
I must first regain my pleasure in
doing so. This I shall lack utterly
as long as I must regard it as a
state commission under the present
circumstances.”
GUSTAV KLIMT
Letter to the Ministry | April 1905
Klimt did not, in other words, accept the
criticism of his artistic design. He withdrew
the paintings and decided never
again to accept another public commission.
He completed the works as individual
pieces as it would no longer be possible to
exhibit them as a continuous composition.
The paintings were removed to Schloss
Immendorf in Lower Austria during the
Second World War. The Nazis set fire to
the castle at the end of the war, and all
of the works of art in storage there were
destroyed. The paintings can be studied
only in the form of sketches and black-
and-white photographs today. The only
color reproduction to have been made
during Klimt’s lifetime was a detail of
Medicine (fig. 69).
The rejection of Klimt in academic and
aristocratic circles stood in opposition
to unlimited admiration from the intellectual
middle classes. Why was this the
case? The floundering Habsburg Empire
was unimpressed by his un-academic art.
Klimt’s appointment as professor at the
Academy of Arts was blocked by the ministry
on four occasions, and the dispute

069 | GUSTAV KLIMT:
MEDICINE UNIVERSITY
FACULTY PAINTING
1900/07
DETAIL: Hygieia
color lithography,
Belvedere, Vienna
95

“Alma is beautiful, intelligent,
witty; she has everything that a
discriminating man can expect of
a woman, in full measure. I think
that wherever she goes and looks
into the world of men, she is
mistress, ruler; perhaps she found
this too dull; perhaps she wanted
a novel ... but even as a dalliance
I thought it could be dangerous
and so it would have been up
to me to be sensible, given that
I have the experience. And that
is where my weakness begins …
Can you not understand that
there are moments where she is
concerned, where one’s brain
functions somewhat irregularly,
confusedly?”
106
GUSTAV KLIMT
in a letter to Alma’s stepfather Carl Moll, May 19,1899

079 | GUSTAV KLIMT:
MARGARETHE
STONBOROUGH
WITTGENSTEIN | 1904
Pencil on paper,
Private ownership
080 | GUSTAV KLIMT:
MARGARETHE
STONBOROUGH
WITTGENSTEIN |
1904 | DETAIL
Oil on canvas, 180 x 90,
Neue Pinakothek, Munich

085 | ATELIER D´ORABENDA:
EMILIE FLÖGE | FEBRUARY 1909
Silver gelatin print, Private ownership
083 | GUSTAV KLIMT:
EMILIE FLÖGE | 1902
Oil on canvas,
181 x 84 cm, Wien Museum
110
084 | JOSEF HOFFMANN:
SCHWESTERN FLÖGE
|1904
Together with her sisters
Helene and Pauline, Emilie
managed the Viennese
haute-couture shop
Schwestern Flöge, designed by
the architect Josef Hoffmann.
Virtually all of the women who were an
important part of Klimt’s life are also to be
found in his work. Among them, one undoubtedly
played the leading role: Emilie
Flöge (1874–1952), his sister-in-law and
friend, to whom he was connected by a
very close relationship. Together with her
sisters Helene and Pauline, she managed
the Viennese haute-couture shop Schwestern
Flöge (Flöge Sisters) from 1904
(fig. 84). She presented model dresses in
the style of the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese
Workshop) in this salon designed
by the architect Josef Hoffmann. Klimt
himself designed so-called reform-style
dresses for Emilie. Unconventional and
revealing, they underlined women’s new
confidence; they eschewed the corset,
which had until then been standard, and
flowed freely in comfortable, wide cuts.

Or does love
conquer death
by proving
more powerful,
overcoming
the chasm and
becoming a
golden eternity
of love and
eroticism?
120
096 | EMILIE FLÖGE AND
GUSTAV KLIMT IN THE GARDEN
OF VILLA OLEANDER IN
KAMMERL ON ATTERSEE | 1910
Silver gelatin print, Private ownership