The kiss (lovers)

Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss (1908) is one of those rare works that transcends its moment to become a visual shorthand for intimacy itself. The painting’s overwhelming use of gold leaf—a hallmark of Klimt’s so-called Golden Phase—doesn’t just decorate the lovers; it encases them in a kind of secular reliquary, elevating their embrace to something between sacred ritual and private obsession. What’s often overlooked, though, is how the geometric patterning on the man’s robe (those stubborn rectangles) clashes subtly with the organic swirls adorning the woman’s, a tension that undercuts the surface harmony. You could argue it’s Klimt’s sly nod to the inevitable friction lurking beneath even the most idealized unions.
The figures themselves are less individuals than archetypes—their faces obscured, their bodies dissolving into ornament. Klimt wasn’t interested in portraiture here; he was building a hieroglyph of desire. Art historians love to cite Byzantine mosaics as an influence, but the real kicker is how he subverts that tradition: instead of saints, we get lovers; instead of divine light, there’s the glow of earthly passion. The woman’s kneeling posture might recall devotional imagery, except her fingers are digging into her partner’s neck with a urgency that’s anything but pious. Funny how Klimt, who spent years scandalizing Vienna with his erotic drawings, managed to make one of his most explicitly sensual works also his most widely palatable—proof that gold leaf is the ultimate respectability filter.
Critics in 1908 were predictably divided, some calling it decadent kitsch, others a masterpiece. Today it feels like both: a painting that’s somehow too much and just enough. Klimt reportedly said he preferred his landscapes to his figure works, which makes The Kiss all the more fascinating—it’s as if he channeled everything theatrical in his sensibility into this one gilded crescendo. The private collector who now owns it (rumored to have paid over $100 million) is really just its temporary caretaker; the image long ago escaped into the wilds of popular culture, reproduced on everything from coffee mugs to subway ads. Not bad for two faceless people locked in a very expensive, very awkward embrace.