The Kiss

I wanted to witness this painting with my lover long before I knew anything about art. The yellow in it has a radiance that reflects on the viewer's face and lights their heart. Imagine standing in front of this, hand in hand with someone you love. I can bet, whether or not they know art, they will lean in for a peck on the cheek. Standing there, I felt the sudden, absurd impulse to compete with both of them — the man and the woman in the painting — to prove, right there in the gallery, that I could do better, and that I have got better. To out-kiss him, and to receive it better than she ever could.

The painting looks too dreamy. In fact it does not add up to real life. A woman kneeling in a lawn of flowers, kissed by a standing man. Although him leaning is a point to be noted — how long is her upper body? But geometry here is a mystery, dissolved by the heavy cape that covers them both.

Is it all romantic? That question went through my head. Was he forcing a peck on her cheek? But the longer I sat with it, I knew them. She is shy — her blush is evident. She is holding his left hand, not to push him away, but to confirm to herself that it is him leaning in. And her right hand around his neck: brave enough to embrace, shy enough not to grab. Her kneeling position. The way the cliff edge appears beneath the flower bed, suggesting she is at a precipice. The fact that we never see her face fully. These details hold the tension you felt before you dismissed it.

It is a tender narrative. And it is tender because she is in disbelief — not the disbelief of surprise alone, but the disbelief of someone who has wanted this for a long time and had quietly stopped expecting it. It did happen. It is happening. He gave in. And not as a hint, not as a suggestion, but as a complete sweep — unexpected, total, no room left for doubt. Her assumption of being lesser, of kneeling while he stood, is broken the very moment he leans in. Because he is not looming over her. He is folding himself down like he is lifting her up. Like she belongs with him and the distance between them was always the thing that was wrong, not her place in it.

A woman who looks up to a man wearing a wreath, covered in flowers, comforted and cuddled in an open land. More like a declaration by him. She is happy but also shy, still in a trance, still sinking the fact that the man she kneels to has bent down to kiss her. She is embracing it without having fully absorbed it yet.

With a murky mustard background, Klimt did take a risk. A bright blue sky or a lake would have been the natural choice — an easy elevation. But a dull background could demean the painting. Instead, that dulled shade made the yellow pop and radiate. Except the radiation is not yellow. It is gold. And the gold was not just painted — gold leaves were applied to the canvas. Like how they do in Tanjore art. Except Klimt was inspired by the Byzantine mosaics he saw in Ravenna.

The dream of anyone who has seen this painting, if they have a romantic heart, is to kiss in front of it. To show that we have got that too. Klimt achieved a depiction of a dream — and made it in gold, because it deserved nothing less.