The Kiss

About this work

Klimt painted "The Kiss" in 1908, after a journey to Ravenna where he saw the sixth-century Byzantine gold mosaics. The gold that entered his painting afterwards came from there. The picture was bought before it was finished and has never left Vienna since.

For Klimt the gold is a layer of paint. Mosaic has no layers — every glint is a single stone set at an angle, and the shimmer comes from direction rather than material.

Rami Alon chose a square of 100×100 cm and held Klimt’s proportions inside it exactly: Klimt painted 180×180 cm, and every figure, every field of gold and every bed of flowers sits in Rami’s work in precisely the relation Klimt gave it. The result is remarkable — a reduction that does not read as one.