The Kiss

The story of The Kiss

A man bends to kiss a woman who kneels at the edge of a flowering cliff, and the two of them are wrapped in a single cloak of gold so that they read as one shape. His robe is patterned in black and white rectangles, hers in circles and flowers, and her face, tipped up with eyes closed, is the only fully visible one. Klimt painted it in 1907 and 1908 with real gold leaf, at the peak of what is called his golden period, and the Austrian state bought it before the paint was dry. It hangs in the Belvedere in Vienna, and it is the most reproduced painting of the twentieth century.

On a wall, The Kiss is warm gold with a flush of color at the bottom. The dominant tones are gold and bronze, the flat golden ground, and a meadow of small flowers in green, violet, and red at the figures' feet, so it brings warmth and shimmer to any room. It suits a bedroom above all, and also a living room, a dressing room, an entryway, or a bathroom, and it fits Art Nouveau, glamorous, warm-modern, and jewel-toned interiors. It is a square image. We offer it up to the Large at 24 × 24 in, the size that lets the patterns in the robes read, and the Medium at 16 × 16 in is right above a nightstand or in a pair with another Klimt.

Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I is the other gold-period icon, Tree of Life is the spiraling gold frieze from the same years, and Danaë is the same intimacy without the gold. More from Gustav Klimt.

Printed in our studio from a public-domain photograph of the Belvedere canvas; real gold leaf cannot be printed, so the gold is rendered as warm metallic tone rather than reflective foil.