Gustav Klimt Large Porcelain Vase - The Kiss (1907-1908)

About Gustav Klimt Large Porcelain Vase - The Kiss (1907-1908)

This exclusive Goebel Gustav Klimt Large Porcelain Vase features the Vienna Secessionist artist's notorious work "The Kiss" (1907-1908) including gold-leaf decoration, in tribute to the artist's lavish use of gold-leaf, during his "Golden Phase". The Kiss depicts a couple locked in an embrace, located in an indeterminate and ambiguous place and time. The viewer is only able to see of the embracing couple, segments of their bodies and virtually nothing of the man’s face so as to emphasize the engulfing nature of this intimate and passionate moment. Aside from the figures, the rest of the canvas dissolves into shimmering, extravagant yet flat patterning. Klimt’s ties with the art nouveau movement are reflected in the patterning of the figures, which in itself reflects the visual conflict between two and three-dimensionality associated with other modernist artists like Edgar Degas. In The Kiss, the patterning also signifies gender contrasts – rectangles for the man’s garment, circles for the woman’ s. Yet the patterning also unites the two lovers into a single formal entity underscoring their erotic union. Scholars believe the kiss represents Klimt and his long-time friend Emilie Flöge, a member of the Viennese bohemian and fin-de-siècle circles. In the words of the poet Friedrich Schiller’s famous Ode to Joy: “Joy, thou gleaming spark divine… This kiss to the whole world!” Gustav Klimt's symbolist use of gold was inspired in Byzantine religious artworks and it is found in other notorious works of the artist, such as Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907). More details on Gustav Klimt Large Porcelain Vase - The Kiss (1907-1908):