The Kiss



"The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt

The Kiss was painted by Australian painter Gustav Klimt. It took about 1 year to paint, 1907-1908. He later became the president of a group called "Vienna Secession" in 1897 when he was 35 years old. The group’s goals were to have displays of different forms of artwork for soon-to-be artists. In 1894, Klimt got offered to experience to create 3 paintings to be on the ceiling of the Great Hall in the University of Vienna. The 3 paintings that he created, Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence later got concerned by people who saw them because of its extreme themes and materials. Because of that, the paintings could not be displayed in the Great Hall. All of the paintings got destroyed in May of 1945. But then came the “Golden Age”, or the time when his artwork had the most success, came. The most famous of his paintings at that time was the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer and The Kiss. But that success didn’t last so long. On February 6, 1918, Klimt died. He suffered from a stroke and lived through the Flu epidemic of 1918.  But he did not survive it. He died with a number of his paintings not finished. But now his paintings are worth a lot more than they have before.