I have purchased several art products recently and find that The Kiss has proven popular with most people whilst some other choices have not always worked! Artists like Picasso or Van Gogh are similarly brilliant, but this work really does satisfy most, which is crucial when picking a present for a loved one.

I recommend Art.com because of the quality of their products, my success with each item that i have purchased from them (mainly prints, plus two posters this year) and the fact that they reguarly offer great deals across their site. Only last week there was 30% Off everything on their site! And that is on top of their already really competitive prices.

The range of service is also good, with many framed prints available too. Lots of people prefer these and so the wide range on offer could be of interest to you. Shipping is also pretty reasonable too, and that is a common concern of mine when buying anything bulky online.

If you purchase something from Art.com please leave your comments here and i shall add any videos too that you use to discuss what you have received. I am entirely separate from them, so both good comments and bad comments alike will be included – no censoring!! This way, greater trust and honesty should lead to more confidence in buying from them. They are the market leader in art prints, for all the very reasons that i have included.

So, if you’re short for xmas ideas just click the link below to take a look at all the different prints that Art.com have to offer, normally at great prices and low shipping!!

Merry Xmas.

The Kiss – All Klimt Kiss posters and prints are currently available with different custom frames. 30% Off deals regularly available.

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt deserves special attention due to its unique style and huge popularity. Here we examine how it fitted into Gustav Klimt’s considerable art career and break down the painting into its bright gold and symbolic components.

The glowing themes of The Kiss painting by Klimt showed lovers intertwined into one being, symbolising the strength of this bond. Some art traditionalists rejected this for its use of eroticism, but others found it refreshing.

Gustav Klimt’s popularity and appeal across Europe with more modern-thinking art lovers helped him to sway the seas of discontent that erupted from the erotic nature of many of his paintings. His prominent role in the Viennese Society and links to several galleries and museums across Austria helped him to continue his style. Klimt fans loved his use of golden backgrounds, intensive colors & ornamental layouts.

The Museum of Applied Arts and the Belvedere house much of Klimt’s paintings after efforts were made to recover much of his art and return it to Vienna, Austria. The Kiss painting itself can be found there, plus in reproduction form right around the world.

Two lovers sit together in the painting, with decorative jewelry and both are bonded by contemporary patterns boldly added by this brave artist. Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze and Stoclet Frieze featured similar content and received similar praise and popularity.

Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movements are similar to the styles that Klimt uses in The Kiss. The painting also reminds one of the works of Edgar Degas too and some other modernist painters.

Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss remains the most impressive painting from this famous Austrian master and will go down in history as one of the most popular paintings ever.

The Kiss, 1886 – Rodin Sculpture Print The Giclee printing process delivers a fine stream of ink resulting in vivid, pure color and exceptional detail that is suitable for museum or gallery display. This art print is produced on a heavy 310 gsm, acid-free and watercolor textured paper. Order this Print The Kiss, 1886 – Rodin Sculpture Framed Print Custom framed Print with unique 2″ wide Allure wood frame in a matte finish and enhanced with a soft white mat. A durable overlay of premium acrylic glazing creates a crystal clear display of your print and protects it from damage. Order this Print

The Kiss is an 1889 marble sculpture by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Like many of Rodin’s best-known individual sculptures, including The Thinker, the embracing couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of reliefs decorating Rodin’s monumental bronze portal The Gates of Hell, commissioned for a planned museum of art in Paris. The couple were later removed from the Gates and replaced with another pair of lovers located on the smaller right-hand column.

The sculpture, The Kiss, was originally titled Francesca da Rimini, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalised in Dante’s Inferno (Circle 2, Canto 5) who falls in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta’s younger brother Paolo. Having fallen in love while reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, the couple are discovered and killed by Francesca’s husband. In the sculpture, the book can be seen in Paolo’s hand. The lovers lips do not actually touch in the sculpture to suggest that they were interrupted and met their demise without their lips ever having touched.

When critics first saw the sculpture in 1887, they suggested the less specific title Le Baiser (The Kiss).

Rodin indicated that his approach to sculpting women was of homage to them and their bodies, not just submitting to men but as full partners in ardor. The consequent eroticism in the sculpture made it controversial. A bronze version of The Kiss (74 cm high) was sent for display at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The sculpture was considered unsuitable for general display and relegated to an inner chamber with admission only by personal application.

Constantin Brancusi Introduction

Sculptor Constantin Brancusi (b. Romania, 1876-1975) was active mainly in Paris throughout his life. He preferred the technique of direct carving in stone — a process newly popular among French sculptors in the early 1900s — and was capable of reducing natural forms to near abstract simplicity. His work in both stone and bronze concentrated on variations of a small number of themes — heads, birds, and his renowned couple embracing The Kiss.

The Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) was a central figure of the modern movement and a pioneer of abstraction. His sculpture is noted for its visual elegance and sensitive use of materials, combining the directness of peasant carving with the sophistication of the Parisian avant-garde. After attending the Bucharest School of Fine Arts and learning of the sculpture of August Rodin, Brancusi traveled to Paris in 1904. Brancusi created his first major work, The Kiss, in 1908. From this time his sculpture became increasingly abstract, moving from the disembodied head of Sleeping Muse to the virtually featureless Beginning of the World and from the formal figure of the legendary bird Maiastra to numerous versions of the ethereal Bird in Space.

Brancusi’s sculpture gained international notoriety at the 1913 Armory Show in New York, a city that he visited four times and where his work frequently would be exhibited. In his Paris studio at 8 Impasse Ronsin Brancusi devoted great attention to the arrangement of his sculptures, documenting individual works and their installation in an important body of photographs. Isamu Noguchi worked as a studio assistant for Brancusi in 1927, and Brancusi taught him to carve stone and wood. In the 1930s Brancusi worked on two ambitious public sculpture projects, an unrealized temple in India for the Maharajah of Indore and the installation at Tirgu Jiu, Romania, of his Gate of the Kiss, Table of Silence and a 100-foot tall cast iron version of Endless Column. On his death Brancusi left the contents of his studio to the Museum of Art of the City of Paris, on condition that the studio be installed in the museum in its entirety.

About The Kiss Sculpture

His “Kiss” (1908), with its two blocklike figures joined in symbolic embrace, has a concentration of expression comparable to that of primitive art but lacking its spiritualistic power.

The Kiss Brancusi Sculpture – 9″ High – Alvastone with Aged Stone Finish – from the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Simple is beautiful. Look closer as these two young lovers embrace in a Brancusi kiss in what is perhaps regarded as the quintessential representation of love. As one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century, Constantin Brancusi preferred the technique of carving in stone and reducing natural forms to near-abstract simplicity. His work in both stone and bronze concentrated on variations of a small number of themes–heads, birds, and this renowned couple embracing, The Kiss (1916). Brancusi’s simplified sculptures are widely acknowledged as icons of modern art.

The canvases are mounted on a wooden framework and ready for framing or hanging. These are the same frameworks that artists use to stretch canvases for original canvas art.

Giclee prints can be found in New York’s Metropolitan Museum as well as galleries and auction houses throughout the world. Individual Giclee prints have fetched many thousands of dollars at auction.

Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss” is characteristic of his work: erotically charged, dazzlingly embellished and rich in gleaming gold tones. “The Kiss,” created in 1907-1908, is one of Klimt’s most transcendent images. Only the faces and hands of this couple are visible; all the rest is great swirls of gold, as if to express the loss of self that lovers experience. Klimt, (1862-1918) an Austrian iconoclast, rose from childhood impoverishment to become an artist of enormous significance to the Viennese Secession and Art Nouveau movement styles.

We encourage you to write to us about any Klimt exhibitions that you know of and that we haven’t covered. We’re happy to include photos of past events too, just send them in.

“… To celebrate 2008 as European Capital of Culture Tate Liverpool is delighted to present the first comprehensive exhibition of Gustav Klimt’s work ever staged in the UK.

The exhibition focuses on the life and art of one of the world’s most influential and revered artists. It will explore Klimt’s role as the founder and leader of the Viennese Secession, a progressive group of artists and artisans. The work and philosophy of the Secession embraced art, architecture, fashion, dazzling decorative objects and furniture in their search for identity.

Major paintings and drawings from all stages of Klimt’s career will be shown alongside the work of Josef Hoffmann, the architect and designer and a close friend of the artist…”

“… The Upper Belvedere houses the impressive collection of Austrian art dating from the Middle Ages to the present day. At the heart of the displays of “art around 1900” is the world’s largest Gustav Klimt collection. The glittering highlights are Klimt’s golden pictures “The Kiss” and “Judith”, and masterpieces by Schiele and Kokoschka. Prominent works by the French Impressionists and the outstanding collection of Viennese Biedermeier paintings are further attractions at the Upper Belvedere…”

There is an art exhibition in Korea 2009. I include the details below. Unfortunately here in China the main site is blocked but the following information is courtesy of Art N About.

“… Exhibition: ‘Gustav Klimt in Korea 2009′ …Over 30 paintings and 60 drawings (etc.) of Gustav KLIMT from the Belvedere Vienna and other collections from around the world.
Seoul Art Center ( Hangaram Museum ), 1 February 2009 – 15 May 2009…”

All information on Gustav Klimt exhibitions contained in this blog are courtesy of Tate Online, Belvedere and Art’n'about in Korea.

Like all of Gustav Klimt’s work, “The Kiss” glows with gilded erotic imagery amid swirls of flamboyant ornamentation. One of Klimt’s most inspired works, “The Kiss” submerges most of the couple’s bodies in vast golden waves, representing the melding of selves experienced by lovers. An Austrian iconoclast, Klimt (1862 – 1918) rose from childhood poverty to become an artist who significantly impacted the Viennese Secession and Art Nouveau styles.

Benefits for your purchase of The Kiss Poster include value-added services, including framing and mounting, provide customers with the option to enhance the appearance of their poster or art print. Our framing service allows customers to choose from a variety of high-quality frames, mats, and glass. Our unique mounting service, permanently bonds prints to a durable hardboard backing. Both services produce high-quality, attractive finished products at a reasonable price.

Each The Kiss Print or Poster can be ordered in a wide selection of sizes and with many different styles of frames. Simply click through from one of the links below, we are sure that you will find exactly what you are looking for in the shop. Other Gustav Klimt posters and prints are also available there, simply use the search facility.

For Klimt The Kiss – Framed – See below

Especially his later work is defined by the use of intensive colors, golden backgrounds, ornamental layouts, erotic elements and heavy symbolism. Although his work was controversal, he had a strong influence on the cultural world of his time and established himself as a very popular painter in the Viennese society.

In Vienna’s museums you can admire some of his most famous works. The Museum of Applied Arts is proud of its collection. At the Belvedere you can take in ‘Der Kuss’ (The Kiss) in all its glory. The Kiss is probably now one of the most famous pictures in the world and is to be found everywhere from apartments to hotel lobbies.

Much of the above information is courtesy of aboutvienna.org.

The Kiss comes in at 1908

Gustav Klimt was a controversial figure in his time. His work was constantly criticized for being too sensual and erotic, and his symbolism too deviant. Today, they stand out as the more important paintings ever to come out of Vienna.

1862 Birth of Gustav Klimt in Baumgarten, near Vienna, Austria. His father is a gold engraver but unsuccessful in business. The family lives in poverty.

1876 At the age of 14, Klimt enters the Vienna Public Art School. Noticed for his talents, he receives his first commissions while studying.

1883 Klimt, his brother Ernst and Franz Matsch form the Känstlercompanie (Company of Artists) and start a productive cooperation. Works for theaters, churches and museums were ordered by several patrons.

1886-1892 Klimt executes mural decorations for staircases at the Burgtheater and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. He contributes for a series called Allegories and Emblems. Its success leads to a second large order, containing Klimt’s painting “Tragedy”, announcing all of his stylistic characteristics: gold paint, areas of detail and areas of abstract space, symbolism, the female figure.

1891 He becomes a member of the Co-operative Society of Austrian Artists.

1892 Death of his father and brother Ernst. He moves to a larger studio.

1893 Klimt and Matsch are commissioned to decorate the ceiling of the Great Hall of the new University of Vienna. Due to a falling-out between Klimt and Matsch, the works are greatly delayed. The series of paintings, “Philosophy”, “Medecine” and “Jurisprudence”, provoked widespread controversy. He is never to accept a public commission again.

1897 As Klimt feels his integrety as an artist is under threat, The Secession Mouvement is formed, focusing on exposure for young, unconventional artists, bringing quality foreign art to Vienna and publishing a magazine.

1898-1905 The first large exhibition of foreign work organized by the Secession attracts 57.000 visitors. “Ver Sacrum”, its monthly magazine, starts to publish. The Secession completes its own exhibition building and rapidly becomes the leading Artist Association in Vienna. Klimt will remain at the center of Secession activity until 1905.

1898 Klimt paints “Sonia Knips” at the Dumba Palace Music Room.

1900 His first painting for the University of Vienna, “Philosophy” is exhibited unfinished at the Paris World Fair and wins the Grand Prix. He paints the portrait of Rose von Rosthorn-Friedmann.

1901 Klimt paints “Medicine” and “Judith and Holofernes”

1902 In the Secession Building, the statue of Max Klinger, “Beethoven”, is accompanied by Klimt’s “Beethoven Frieze”. He also paints the portrait of Emilie Flöge in a dress that she designed.

1903 Klimt travels to Ravenna and Florence and paints “Jurisprudence”.

1904 Klimt paints “Water Snakes” and is commissioned to paint the series of mosaic murals (1905-1909) for the Palais Stoclet, an opulent private mansion in Brussels.

1905 Several artists and Klimt himself resign from Secession and form a new association called “Kunstschau” (Art Show). The artist paints “The three ages of Woman”.

1907 The works “Danae”, a very erotic work depicting the conception of Perseus by Zeus, and “Adele Bloch-Bauer” are painted.

1908 Klimt paints “The Kiss”, in which Gustav Klimt celebrates the attraction of the sexes. Enjoy this blog which celebrates the Kiss and its influences.

1909 Klimt paints “Judith II” and “Hope” in which he juxtaposes the promise of new life with the destroying force of death.

1911 Klimt travels to Rome and Florence, paints “Death and Life”.

1913 Klimt paints “The Virgin”.

1914 Klimt paints “Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt”.

1917 Klimt paints “Baby” (unfinished). Paints “Schönbrunn Landscape” among other landscape scenes.

1918 On January 11th, Klimt suffers a stroke in his apartment and dies on February 6th from pneumonia.