The Kiss

Here is "The Kiss" a painting by Gustav Klimt. I so fell in love seeing this when we discussed about Ekphrasis in our HUMAART class last year. We all have out own interpretations of what is the story behind this wonderful masterpiece. Below is a short story interpretation of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and under it is my own interpretation of both the story and the painting through a very short essay. ENJOY!

"Short Story on a Painting of Gustav Klimt"
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(1976)

They are kneeling upright on a flowered bed
He
has just caught her there
and holds her still
Her gown
has slipped down
off her shoulder
He has an urgent hunger
His dark head
bends to hers
hungrily
And the woman the woman
turns her tangerine lips from his
one hand like the head of a dead swan
draped down over
his heavy neck
the fingers
strangely crimped
tightly together
her other arm doubled up
against her tight breast
her hand a languid claw
clutching his hand
which would turn her mouth
to his
her long dress made
of multicolored blossoms
quilted on gold
her Titian hair
with blue stars in it
And his gold
harlequin robe
checkered with
dark squares
Gold garlands
stream down over
her bare calves &
tensed feet
Nearby there must be
a jeweled tree
with glass leaves aglitter
in the gold air
It must be
morning
in a faraway place somewhere
They
are silent together
as in a flowered field
upon the summer couch
which must be hers
And he holds her still
so passionately
holds her head to his
so gently so insistently
to make her turn
her lips to his
Her eyes are closed
like folded petals
She
will not open
He
is not the One

When we kiss someone, we are enveloped in a thousand of fantasies. There is no time. There is no space in between. All there is is the feel of each other. All there is is an emotion—engulfed. Like a painting, there are no words said. All there is are things to be captured by our senses.

Love is love. Where love is there is spring. And where spring is, there is the slow disintegration of life around you—fall comes. Later in life you feel no more [love] and you walk away the bed of flowers you both once laid on.

The fundamental nature of love is represented with a kiss. Like the kiss of the man in the painting (faceless and unidentifiable), we get lost when we are in love. We give in to the feel of love. When we fall in love, most of the time we are not ourselves. We do not know who we are same as what we do. If I were to interpret the poem given, it as if the man is deeply in love with the woman. The woman as seen on the other hand looks as if she refuses to be smothered by the kiss of her lover but is aloof by it. He is a picture of a love so insistent while she, an image of a woman of warmth and a term called “pakipot”. With these characteristics they make an ideal couple in harmony with everything else in the picture. But it seems like there is a problem with the woman in the picture and in the poem. While the man is deeply in love with the woman, the woman is just a picture in remote—IN DISTANT WITH THE FEELING OF LOVE.

Is she really in love with him or is she just only in for the feel and sensation that love brings?