Giotto – L’Incontro di Anna e Gioacchino alla Porta d’Oro –
The Meeting at the Golden Gate
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies
Giotto, 1303 -1305
Scrovegni Chapel , Padua
Where there is love there is life.
Expelled for being barren or infertile (and therefore not blessed by god) the partners reunite. Their kiss symbolizes that precious spark of procreation and the blessing of a child. But this was no ordinary child, for this kiss is the first symbolic step in the creation of a baby girl – a girl that becomes the blessed Virgin Mary – for Joachim and Anna were the parents of the mother of god.
Imagine you are childless – despite many years of trying for a child. You feel condemned by God – for God is the source of fertility, and life is his and only his gift. Society has shunned you – you believe your blood is contaminated. In Medieval Europe women would be blamed for infertility – although this was not always the case. Then a miracle, you meet your partner at the Golden Gate with a kiss. This kiss is no ordinary kiss for a star is born – blessed by God – for your child is the Virgin Mary. Chosen by God to bear his only son Christ.
Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267–1337) was an Italian painter and architect during the late Middle Ages, and he is considered one of the pioneers of the Italian Renaissance. The title translates to “The Meeting of Anna and Joachim at the Golden Gate”. Anna and Joachim are recognized as the parents of the Virgin Mary. The scene of their meeting symbolizes the joyous reunion of a couple after a heartbreaking period of childlessness.
The Poem of Pillow
(Uta Makura)
Kitagawa Utamaro
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
An innovative and powerfully sensual kiss. The low viewpoint places the viewer in the same room, the shock of seeing the naked flesh and their entwined legs under a see-through gauze, the emotion of the moment, the tender touch of their fingers and the exquisite nape of the woman’s neck make this a masterpiece.
Utamaro is particularly celebrated for his depictions of beautiful women, known as bijin-ga, and he played a significant role in elevating the genre to new artistic heights.
Here are some key details about the “Poem of the Pillow” and Kitagawa Utamaro:
Written on the fan is a suggestive verse by the comic poet Yadoya no Meshimori. Yadoya no Meshimori (宿屋女将) refers to a character from classical Japanese literature, particularly in comic poetry known as kyōka (狂歌). Kyōka is a form of humorous and satirical poetry that emerged during the Edo period (1603–1868) in Japan. It often involves wordplay, parody, and witty commentary on various aspects of society.
The “Poem of the Pillow” (Uta Makura) is famous work of Japanese ukiyo-e art created by Kitagawa Utamaro, who was a prominent ukiyo-e artist during the late 18th century in Edo-period Japan. The ukiyo-e genre primarily focused on woodblock prints and paintings that depicted scenes from the “floating world,” capturing the lives, pleasures, and entertainments of the urban populace.
The “Poem of the Pillow” is a series of erotic woodblock prints, created around 1788-1801, showcasing the theme of intimate moments between lovers. The title “Uta Makura” translates to “Poem of the Pillow” in English, and it is also sometimes known as “Utamakura.” The prints in this series are recognized for their sensuality, exquisite details, and intricate designs.
Each print in the series features a couple engaged in various acts of lovemaking, often accompanied by suggestive poems. The scenes are not merely explicit but are designed with a degree of elegance and refinement, typical of Utamaro’s artistic style. The use of symbolism and subtle expressions adds depth to the intimate narratives portrayed in the prints.
It’s important to note that the “Poem of the Pillow” faced censorship during its time due to its explicit content. The series is considered a masterpiece in the ukiyo-e genre and is highly regarded for its artistic and cultural significance.
Title: The Kiss
Artist: Francesco Hayez
Date: 1859
Milan
A politically charged kiss that united a nation
A passionate and intense kiss. The girl leans backward, while the man thrusts his left leg to support her. Mystery and intrigue surround them both.
“The Kiss” by Francesco Hayez is one of the most famous Italian Romantic paintings, created in 1859. This iconic artwork captures a passionate and romantic moment between a couple, and it has become a symbol of love and national identity in Italy. “The Kiss” by Francesco Hayez is not only celebrated for its artistic beauty but also for its cultural and historical significance in Italy. It remains an enduring symbol of love and national identity and is displayed in the Pinacoteca di Brera gallery in Milan.
“The Kiss” depicts a tender and intimate embrace between the young couple. The setting is a balcony or terrace, with a partially drawn curtain creating a sense of privacy. The couple is bathed in warm, golden light, emphasizing the emotional intensity of the scene.
Pygmalion and Galatea
Artist: Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904)
Date: 1890
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
A story of transformation, a blossoming through a kiss
Galatea is a snow-white ivory statue of such perfect proportions and beauty that Pygmalion, the sculptor, falls in love with his creation. Pygmalion kisses Galatea and her lips burst into life, he then touches her breast and the ivory melts, becoming softer and warmer. With every new touch and kiss, Galatea blossoms into life.
In Jean-Léon Gérôme’s “Pygmalion and Galatea,” the artist brings to life the classical myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who falls deeply in love with his own creation, the statue Galatea. The painting captures the pivotal moment when Pygmalion’s fervent wish for his sculpture to come to life is granted by the goddess Venus.
The composition is rich in detail, showcasing Gérôme’s meticulous approach to historical accuracy and academic realism. The setting is likely a studio, and the atmosphere is filled with an ethereal glow, creating a sense of divine intervention.
Gérôme both a painter and a sculptor, is, known for his skill in rendering textures, and captures the contrast between the smooth, polished surface of the snow-white carrera marble and the lifelike qualities of the transformed Galatea.
Gérôme’s “Pygmalion and Galatea” exemplifies the artist’s ability to blend classical themes with academic precision, creating a captivating portrayal of a timeless myth. The painting reflects the fascination with mythology and the idealized beauty that characterized much of 19th-century academic art.
The Kiss
Gustav Klimt
One of the most powerful images in the history of art – an image that shines when seen in person -against which Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa pales.
The backstory
Klimt never married and lived a bohemian life in the bustling metropolis that Vienna was in the 19th Century. He was a prodigious lover – 14 children – sexuality was at the forefront of his art. He loved the erotic – “all art is erotic” he said and he left many shockingly erotic paintings behind when he died.
One of his first works and one that catapulted him to fame was Mu- which scandalized Viennese society as it was deemed almost pornagraphic in its details and imagery. The University of Vienna paintings caused a huge public scandal with their sexually provocative imagery and Klimt was basically accused of ponargraphy.
Before he painted the kiss he also painted five canvases of society women wrapped in fur.
He loved clothes and costumes and designed fashion clothes – such was his obsession with fashion and costumes.
Klimt had another obsession which is clearly visible in the Kiss – he had justed travelled to Venice and Raveena – there he admired the beautify Byzantine mozaics.
The Birthday
Bliss in a Kiss
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Marc Chagall, 1915
Will you serve in cups of gold these lips, with nectar, mixed by love with all delights
Marc Chagall called “love” the primary color of his paintings. The central source of the love in his life was his wife, Bella. They met when Bella was a teenager in their hometown of Vitebsk, Belarus. In 1915, Chagall finally married Bella, despite the opposition of her parents, who wanted a better match for their daughter.
Marc Chagall (1887–1985) was a Russian-French modernist artist known for his dreamlike and symbolic paintings that often drew inspiration from his Jewish heritage, folklore, and personal experiences. Chagall’s works are characterized by vibrant colors, imaginative compositions, and a unique blend of fantasy and reality.
The Birthday was painted by Chagall in 1915 just a few weeks before he and Bella married. The painting is a wonderful expression of the amazing, flowing, and powerful love these two shared. Chagall is pictured floating and dream-like, circling above Bella. His head is unrealistically craned upside down and backward as he twists around to kiss his future wife on the mouth.
Bella is depicted holding a cheerful bouquet and also floating in the air as if just lifting off. The couple is suspended in loving bliss in a bright living room setting dominated below by a vivid red carpet.
The Birthday, the kiss of the lovers is executed mostly in the Cubist or Expressionist styles. The painting is a marvelous creation that powerfully conveys that feeling of euphoric love between young lovers in a blissful yet ordinary setting that seems to ooze happiness out of every square inch of canvas
Rene Magritte
The Lovers II
You are born alone, you die alone – everything in between is a veil, a story we tell ourselves, woven out of fabric. The truth is that two lovers are separated by an unbreakable gulf, unable to touch, unable to know. We close this gap with a narrative, a story as thin as a piece of cloth, a beautifully crafted veil.
The fabric is rendered with a skillful use of chiaroscuro, for it seems to be carved out of marble, delicate and yet unpenetrable. The painting asks the question can you ever know your partner – their secret loves and desires. In reality you are alone and cannot ever know the thoughts and beliefs of your most intimate partner. You are forced to act your true personalities hidden from view, unable to fully unveil yours or your partner’s true nature. Your life is hidden from the view of even your closest companions. Magritte, as a surrealist, had a strong interest in masks, disguises, and what lies beyond or beneath visible surfaces.
The loss of a mother at an early age creates a lifelong trauma. A drama that will shadow you all your life – the scars of which may never heal. The key event in Magritte’s life was the suicide of his mother, which occurred when the artist was only twelve years old. René Magritte’s mother threw herself into the Sambre River. When her body was recovered, her face was hidden by her nightgown. Magritte’s father gave a last kiss to his wife. That tragic event shook the artist’s life forever. The male figure: dark jacket, white shirt and tie, simple and neat, like a witness to a tragedy. Magritte creates a link between the red of the wall and the red of the woman’s shirt. This red which stands out, but still in the background compared to the light of the white of the sheets, and recalls the red of blood and therefore of death, another reference to the mother’s suicide.
The image is unsettling—the first in a series of four variations of Les Amants that Magritte painted in 1928. The cinematic cliché of a kiss is subverted. The draped cloth or veil conceals the figure’s identity – as a surrealist, Magritte may also have painted the kiss of the Veiled Lovers, as a metaphor for desire, in the psychoanalytic sense of the term, in connection with the unconscious, the object of expression of surrealism. Unrequited love creates an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue and it has become an iconic painting for platonic lovers.
Kiss V
Museum Charles Simonyi, Seattle
The most powerful weapon on earth is when the soul is on fire
Inspired by comic book illustrations a stylized image of a man and a woman kissing, portraying romance and passion in popular culture.
Kiss V belongs to Roy Lichtenstein’s most celebrated series – his mesmerizing 1960s portraits of women. Lichtenstein took these women from the pages of romantic comic books, helping to define the age of Pop Art.
Roy Lichtenstein’s images of girls defined a time when art was released from the refined surroundings of the art establishment’s galleries and museums and became part of the wider public consciousness, along with Andy Warhol’s celebrity portraits and Campbell’s Soup Cans. Lichtenstein produced Girls during a relatively short burst of creativity between 1961 and 1965, and they have become among the most recognizable Post-War artworks. They reflected his formal interest in representation and the cultural dichotomy between male and female stereotypes. They are among the most desired 20th Century art works, and are housed in the world’s major art museums and prestigious private collections. This unique piece of history captures the remarkable aesthetic and cultural zeitgeist of the New York art world at a time of revolutionary change.
However, Roy Lichtenstein, the renowned pop artist, was also known for appropriating images from comic books in his artworks. “Kiss V” (1964) is one such example where Lichtenstein used a source from a comic book. The source for “Kiss V” is widely believed to be a panel from the DC Comics’ war comic “All-American Men of War” #89, originally drawn by artist Russ Heath.
Lichtenstein’s approach to art often involved taking images from popular culture, such as comic books, and transforming them into large-scale paintings. While he borrowed heavily from the work of comic book artists, he added his artistic elements, emphasizing the use of bold colors, Ben-Day dots, and thick black outlines to create a distinctive pop art style. Lichtenstein’s work sparked discussions about the boundaries between high and low art and the nature of artistic originality.
He based them on images he found in romance comic books, producing works that combined the “high-art” genre of painting with the “low-art” world of the comic book, and in doing so he perfectly captured the era’s zeitgeist. “At that time,” Lichtenstein recalled, “I was interested in anything I could use as a subject that was emotionally strong – usually love, war, or something that was highly charged and emotional subject matter to be opposite to the removed and deliberate painting techniques. Cartooning itself usually consists of highly charged subject matter carried out in standard, obvious, removed techniques”
Love on the Road
Ron Hicks (1965)
Milan
Love is what makes the ride worthwhile
A couple on a road, symbolizes the journey of life and love. The painting suggests that the key to a happy and successful relationship lies in the willingness to embark on a shared journey facing the unknown together.
Ron Hicks grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and was introduced to art at an early age under the influence of his artist mother. Continuing to pursue drawing through grade school and high school, Hicks later attended the Columbus College of Art and Design on scholarship. After graduating, the artist moved to Colorado, where he graduated from the Colorado Institute of Art and then began to study at the Arts Students League of Denver. During this time Hicks trained with Rene Bruhin and Quang Ho, whom he credits with changing the way he perceived the oil painting process. Hicks’ first professional job as an artist was working as a freelance illustrator, which he balanced with working as a manager for a satellite-dish company. With the encouragement from a gallery dealer who admired his work,
The Kiss
Pablo Picasso, 1969
The ultimate fusion – two intimate lovers become one during the kiss. Towards the end of his life – the kiss and the fusion of two people’s physical bodies into a single soul became a profound obsession for Picasso.
“The Kiss” from 1969, is part of his final works. Pablo Picasso demonstrates a departure from detailed realism, opting instead for a more abstract and simplified approach. The canvas is filled with bold, expressive lines and geometric shapes, showcasing Picasso’s mastery of distilling complex scenes into essential elements.
The figures engaged in the kiss are intertwined in a passionate and sensual embrace. Picasso, known for his ability to convey intense emotions through art, captures the essence of the moment with a minimalistic yet powerful composition. The use of geometric shapes might suggest a Cubist influence, where forms are broken down and reassembled to depict different perspectives simultaneously.
The color palette is likely to be subdued or dominated by a few key tones, emphasizing the interplay of light and shadow within the composition. Picasso’s later works often feature a harmonious balance between abstraction and representation, inviting viewers to engage with the artwork on both emotional and intellectual levels.
“El Món Neix en Cada Besada”
“The World Begins With Every Kiss”
Will you serve in cups of gold these lips, with nectar, mixed by love with all delights
Barcelona has replaced the “shot heard around the world” with “The sound of a kiss is not as loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer“. For the kiss is more powerful than the shot as it speaks to creation rather than destruction. We are all sons and daughters of a kiss.
Approaching the Kiss of Freedom mural in Plaça d’Isidre Nonell you’d be forgiven for assuming it’s a large graffiti. As you get closer, you’ll realise that it is a mosaic made up of thousands of tiny ceramic tiles. Each tile is printed with a photo of a person, a place, a moment, an event, or something which in some way represents an expression of freedom. This mural has become a rallying point for Catalan separatists and a symbol of freedom from tyranny.
But what does a kiss sound like? Loud? Soft? Deafening? The Freedom of the Kiss mural by Barcelona photographer Joan Fontcuberta has become one of the most popular spots in the Gothic Quarter, specifically the Moll de la Fusta (Wooden Pier) by the waterfront. This giant photographic mosaic, which posed a challenge to the artist and is like a jigsaw puzzle for the viewer, is made up of 4,000 tiny tiles printed with different images of moments of freedom arranged in 50 rows of 80 pieces each. When seen from a distance, the tiles, which resemble individual Polaroid photos, combine to form an image of two people kissing. Fontcuberta worked with the ceramicist Antoni Cumella, who comes from one of the foremost ceramics dynasties in Catalonia.
This vast mural is 8 metres wide and almost 4 metres high and is the result of an initiative launched by a local newspaper that asked its readers to send in snapshots based on the question: “What does living in freedom mean to you?” It was one of the many interventions in Barcelona in 2014 to mark the 300th anniversary of the military siege of the city in 1714. The artist draws one conclusion: love can also come from defeat. The mural is located in Plaça d’Isidre Nonell, which is named after one of Pablo Picasso’s most admired artists.
The mosaic captures a diverse range of individuals, reflecting the idea that the world is created anew with every kiss.
The installation aims to celebrate the value of freedom, a concept worth fighting for and that even in defeat the triumph of love will endure. Because it was a community project with many different interpretations of freedom is also honors the benefits of diversity, love, and the universal nature of human connection. As the use of photographs of local people from various backgrounds emphasizes the idea of the power of community. It’s not only an artistic representation of love and unity but also a testament to Barcelona’s commitment to independence in a besieged community.
A Nympth’s Kiss
Suen Castelao 21st C
Prado, Madrid
One of the greatest-ever representations of the kiss. An intimate, sensuous and momentous kiss.
A water nymph emerges dreamlike, from a dark pool. Her parted lips of pillowed petals glisten with drops of early morning dew. Her rosebud lips are blushed in anticipation of a kiss from a mythic creature that is part man, part flower. The swirling water adds ecstasy to the moment, for the nymph Daphne, is a daughter of Venus, a river goddess, floating weightless and at one with water. The kiss heralds the moment of creation – for we are all sons and daughters of a kiss, all swimmers in a stream.
Daphne is a naiad, a nymph that lives among the fountains, wells, springs, and streams. She scents her water with an intoxicating perfume, which causes a profound transformation, as her scented natural waters hold the magical power to reveal a hidden truth submerged deep in our subconscious.
The pool of water represents purity and the virgin birth, for to swim is to experience how we first experienced life in the womb. The erotic smell of daphnes represents a rite of passage, a crossing of boundaries, a breaking of taboos, and a metamorphosis.
The viewer is placed at the same level as the lover – a frog’s-eye view of the kiss which adds to the intimacy of the moment. The kiss is the first step in creation. Our moment of creation started with a kiss, our life began in the swirling scented waters of the womb. Warm perfumed waters are a lingering memory of our moment of creation.
Suen Castelao is a fiercely proud and nationalistic Catalan – born in her beloved Barcelona. Her homeland is where the snow-white towers of the Pyrenees and the paradise of the Pirineus meet the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean Sea. A region which is called the Mountain of the Seas and has become a national park. She draws inspiration from the heat of the Mediterranean sun. Her work is only displayed in private collections and Torres Museum, Barcelona.
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