Gustav Klimt (German Gustav Klimt) - Austrian artist, graphic artist, book illustrator (July 14, 1862, Baumgarten, Austria-Hungary - February 6, 1918, Vienna, Austria-Hungary).
His painting "The Kiss" has become a national treasure of Austria. She excites the imagination of impressionable natures with her obvious erotic orientation and makes them puzzle in attempts to solve the riddle - whom the author portrayed more than 100 years ago on this canvas of exceptional beauty.
Art scandal
In 1894, the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was commissioned to complete an order to paint three paintings that were supposed to decorate the ceiling of the hall of the University of Vienna.
In 1900, the first of them, "Philosophy", was shown at the exhibition of the Vienna Secession and made a splash with a minus sign. Klimt was violently attacked, because, according to the conservative public and university professors, the picture smacked of pornography. Instead of the expected allegorical depiction in the traditional manner, the artist filled the canvas with naturalistically painted nude bodies. What caused discontent and was perceived as immorality.
The same picture, in the same 1900, the artist exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris. There she also made a splash, but now with a plus sign and even received a gold medal. Klimt's second painting, Medicine, also won the admiration of the Parisian art community.
Meanwhile, the dispute between Gustav Klimt and the customers has grown into a serious one and has grown to the so-called "art scandal". What was its result?
First, the third picture - "Jurisprudence", Klimt is written in an even more defiant way.
Secondly, August Lederer bought all three "faculty paintings" from the university in 1905, the patron, patron and friend of the artist.
Thirdly, “there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped”: Klimt stopped accepting government orders. He changed accents in his work: he painted landscapes and portraits. Thanks to this circumstance, such masterpieces of the "golden period" as "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer" ("Golden Adele"), "Judith I" and "The Kiss" appeared.
Klimt was seized with confusion after such an unpleasant story with "faculty paintings." The artist's reputation and popularity were significantly shaken. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: "Either I am too old, or too nervous, or too stupid, but there must be something wrong." In this state, in 1907, he began to create a painting, which in the future will become, perhaps, his most popular work and a national treasure of Austria.
With this work of his, he immediately hit the mark. The Kiss was bought at the Galerie Belvedere, Wien for a fabulous sum for those times even before it was finished. The gallery paid 25,000 kroons. For comparison: earlier in Austria the highest price for a painting was only 500 kroons.
The action taking place in the picture. Opposing opinions
If we talk about the audience's perception of the action that takes place in "The Kiss", then everything is not unambiguous.
Undoubtedly a picture of erotic content. This is indicated not only by the hug and the kiss itself. Art critics believe that the pattern of a man's attire resembles a phallic symbol, and the ornament on his beloved's clothes, in turn, is a female intimate organ. The couple is showered with a golden shower, similar to that which Danae was showered with by Zeus.
Art historian Albert Elsen notes: "His model does not pose … She looks conscious that she is alone with a man who is deeply attracted by her not as a poetic image, but as a woman."
Most fans of the picture perceive what is happening on it as a romantic scene: a couple of lovers are absorbed in each other in their universe, passion flares up, a woman melts in the hands of a man.
But there is another opinion: some do not see a voluntary consent to a kiss on the part of a woman. The man suppresses her with his dominance and clearly used physical strength. The woman fell to her knees and stopped resisting in the obviously unequal struggle. She is unable to dodge the kiss, limp limp, her limp hands do not try to hug her beloved. One hand, like a whip, hangs around his neck, and the other weakly holds the powerful hand of a man absorbed in hot feelings.
Who is depicted in the picture. Guesses
A connoisseur of the artist's work and the author of a book about him, Alfred Weidinger, believes that in the painting "The Kiss" Klimt portrayed himself and his long-time girlfriend Emilia Flöge. But this contradicts the statement of Klimt himself: “I have never painted self-portraits. I am much less interested in myself as the subject of a painting than other people. " As for Emilia, there is also no certainty that this is her. Both of them left no explanations for The Kiss. Their correspondence could shed some light. But Flöge burned the letters after Gustav's death. And the found postcards that they sent to each other did not clarify anything even in their personal relationship.
Some believe that Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of the Viennese industrialist Ferdinand Bloch, whose portrait - "Golden Adele", he painted in 1907, served as the image for the beautiful lady from "The Kiss".
Still others saw in the guise of the heroine of the picture the red-haired Hilda Roth - a model that he painted in such works as "Danae", "Goldfish".
There is also a completely melodramatic, unconfirmed romantic story. It looks something like this: a certain rich man ordered a picture of Klimt with a request to depict him in a kiss with his bride. Seeing the finished work, he asked the artist why there was no kiss of mouth on it. To which he allegedly replied that he wanted to show love, the heady intensity of a growing desire, anticipating further events. The customer and his beloved were satisfied with this interpretation. But in fact, Klimt supposedly hid the real truth and did not admit that he himself fell in love with a girl. Therefore, he did not want to portray her kissing another man, but in the image of a man embracing her, he portrayed himself, therefore he hid the face of the hero of the picture. Here's an interesting plot.
In reality, there is no unequivocal opinion about who is depicted in the creation of Klimt. All attempts to reliably identify the images of the picture with specific people have so far been unsuccessful.
The journalist Adrian Bridgbassi, in an article on the 150th anniversary of Gustav Klimt, assessing the scale and significance of The Kiss, wrote that this picture exceeds all expectations, in contrast to the tiny and overwhelming Mona Lisa. Casting a shadow over a painting more revered in the world, he explained that The Kiss does what a great work of art should do: it holds the gaze, makes you admire its aesthetic qualities, inspires a desire to understand what lies behind its outer side.
