Love and the Kiss in Klimt, Dunn, and Prince

Introduction: The Kiss as a Universal Symbol

Love is a universal theme that can be found in multiple art forms, including painting, poetry, and music. One of the most common romantic expressions and symbols of love is the kiss. In 1907, Gustav Klimt painted The Kiss, perhaps his most famous work — characterized not only by its subject of a man kissing a woman but also by its use of gold paint and Art Nouveau style. In 1939, poet Stephen Dunn published "The Kiss," which conveys a similar eroticism to Klimt's painting. Finally, in 1986, Prince produced one of his most famous songs and videos, "Kiss." All three of these kiss-themed works convey the theme of erotic and sensual love, one of the most enduring themes in the humanities.

Klimt's Painting: Visual Eroticism and Ambiguity

The earliest of these three works is Gustav Klimt's painting The Kiss. This painting is unique because it almost appears like a collage — the couple seems superimposed upon a gold background. One of the most striking visual elements is the way the bodies of the man and woman blend together. There is no distinct line between them, suggesting that the two have "become one" through their love, symbolized by the passionate embrace and kiss.

However, Klimt also shows that the two individuals remain separate by giving their garments different patterns. The man's garment is comprised of black and white rectangles on a yellow-gold background, while the woman wears floral clusters in multiple jewel tones. Her dress matches the flowerbed on which the couple kneels together, suggesting she is grounded in the natural world. Both figures have flowers in their hair, but the man's are green against his dark hair while hers are multicolored against lighter hair. The couple is also encircled in a gold halo that rests against a darker gold background, making them stand out so that the viewer's eye cannot look away.

It is interesting that although the woman has one arm around the man's neck and her other hand grasping his, she turns her head away from his kiss — and we can see that her lips are not kissing him back. Does her limp posture suggest exhaustion, or that she does not feel as passionately as he does? If the couple were not encircled in that gold halo, their bodies so closely entwined, it might appear as though the man is being aggressive. Klimt's image is, in this sense, more ambiguous than it first appears.

Dunn's Poem: Erotic Sensation and Intellectual Desire

The man's yearning for his beloved is echoed in Stephen Dunn's poem "The Kiss," in which the narrator writes, "How many years I must have yearned for someone's lips against mind." The poet deliberately uses the word "mind" instead of "mine" — as stated in the poem's opening lines, the narrator explains, "She pressed her lips to mind. A typo." The narrator, likely male like the poet, yearns for a woman who understands him completely — one who knows exactly where to kiss him: "Nothing like a woman who knows / to kiss the right thing at the right time."

As with Klimt's painting, the kiss Dunn describes is clearly erotic, suggesting sexual union. The narrator states: "She kissed me again, reaching that place that sends messages to toes and fingertips, then all the way to something like home." Where Klimt conveys sexual love by merging two bodies into a single form and using sensual lines, colors, and flowers, Dunn conveys sexuality through the erotic sensations that kisses "send to toes and fingertips." Though working in different media, the painter and the poet ultimately say much the same thing.

Conclusion: The Kiss Across Art Forms

Kissing is a common symbol of love, which is one of the most universal and ubiquitous themes in the humanities. Through visual art, music, and poetry, an artist can use the symbol of a kiss to convey love, sexuality, or both. For Prince, the kiss is a sign of love that transcends the boundaries of race and gender — he wants only "your extra time and your kiss," and it does not matter whether you are rich or fashionable. For Dunn, the ideal beloved is also intelligent: intelligence is the "wisest tongue," a phrase that refers simultaneously to wit and to the physical act of kissing.

In Klimt's The Kiss, no tongue is visible, and the woman even turns her head away — yet the man kisses her with unmistakable passion. The message in the painting is more ambiguous than in either Dunn's poem or Prince's song, and it remains possible that Klimt is depicting a man who is aggressive toward a woman who is not fully reciprocating. Regardless of interpretation, the kiss remains the central feature of the image, and the two bodies remain inextricably entwined — a visual metaphor for love's power to dissolve the boundaries between individuals.