Emily Mitchell

January 20th, 2017

Period 7

Compare and contrast: #128 and #129

The Kiss is a sculpture created by Romanian sculptor Constantin Brncui in 1907 during
the Expressionism era and culture. The sculpture, made primarily from plaster and limestone
depicts a block of man and woman fused together in a kiss. The tall block of stone is vertically
separated down the center, the woman distinguished from the man. Made for John Quinn, The
Kiss was modelled after a previous work of art by Gustav Klimt. However, it is not a direct
carving but rather a sophisticated adaptation of it. Unlike Klimts work, the couple in this piece
seem to be a mutual, embraced kiss with the two hairlines unified into a single arc and the two
eyes combined to make one almond-shaped eye. Brncuis style emphasizes simple geometrical
lines balancing forms in his materials with the symbolic allusions of representational art.
The Kiss by Gustav Klimt was created between 1907 and 1908, the highpoint of his
Golden Period, the period in which he painted a number of works in a similar gilded style. In this
piece, their bodies entwined in elaborate robes embracing decorated in a style influenced by
both linear constructs of the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the earlier Arts and Crafts
movement. In this piece, however, the does not appear to be giving all of her attention to this
event while the man touches her fact into a presumed forced kiss. The work is composed of oil
paint with applied layers of gold leaf, giving it a strikingly modern, but evocative appearance.

Both works depict the act of an embrace, but quite differently with one as a wholesome unity and
the other a sporadically spaced forced embrace.