I am hardly an expert on love considering that I have never been in love. At this point in my life I am not willing to make myself that vulnerable, although, I suppose one never chooses when is a good time to fall in love. It will hit me when it hits, and hopefully when it does it will not be of the unrequited variety.
In spite of, or perhaps because of, my lack of experience with love, and lust as well to a certain extent, I am obsessed with the work of the late 19th-century Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. While some, if not most, of his art captures women in sexual poses which tend to be objectifying and degrading, I find some of his art to be more sensual than sexual, which prevents it from being inherently insulting to any self-respecting woman.
I was initially exposed to Klimt through his renowned masterpiece "Le baiser." The fact that this particular painting can be found plastered in miniature on mugs, magnets, and other random trinkets is a testimony to its popularity. Although I am guilty of buying into this popularity in the form of a "Le baiser" magnet I am not obsessed with it merely because of said popularity. I am drawn to the painting because it makes me think, although I didn't like it at first. This is because the woman in the painting appears to be completely passive and it is unclear whether or not she has given her consent to being kissed by the man who could easily physically overpower her. However, upon a second glance (or rather careful perusal) of the painting I noticed many subtle nuances (yes redundant) which had initially escaped me. The woman is indeed kneeling on the edge of a cliff desperately hanging on with her toes, but this does not necessarily mean that the man has literally pushed her to her knees in order to take advantage of her. Is the man aggressive or even forceful or is the woman merely nervous about the falling part of falling in love? It could be interpreted either way, but I personally am more inclined toward the latter. While the fingers of the woman's right hand are nervously clenched they are also curled around her partner's neck, perhaps in order to draw his face closer to hers. With her other hand she is clutching the man's hand which appears to be gently cupping her face. Her eyes are closed which could mean one of at least two things: a) that she is pleasantly overwhelmed by the intoxicating sensations of his kiss or b) she is attempting to distance herself mentally from what is happening to her body because the man is violating her. (Interpretation b seems a bit extreme to me...Although the woman does appear to be passive I think it is quite a stretch of the imagination to claim that the man is attempting to violate her in any way.) My current reading of this painting is that it is a reflection of the woman's inner conflict: she is both pulling away from and leaning into the kiss, which is true of many a first kiss. Despite my self-proclaimed innocence, I have personally experienced the phenomenon of the "first kiss" and it is simultaneously scary and exciting. As much as I love reading sex politics into art, sometimes it is not really there. Maybe, on some level, the painting does promote a more traditional patriarchal image of love in which the man takes the lead and the woman is always on the receiving, aka passive end, but I think this painting is more about the internal confusion and excitement that ensues in a first kiss than about the relationship between gender and power.
I have no idea what inspired me to write about this particular topic tonight. However, I would love to hear other ideas and opinions about this painting and Klimt's work in general. I actually don't know much about the man or his other art, which may make this entire post a bit pretentious, but I have done a little bit of reading and it seems like he may have been a bit of a shady fellow who used his art as a means of expressing his sketchy sexual proclivities to the public. While some of the nude and very sexualized paintings/sketches of female models turn me off to his work, the insightful qualities of "Le baiser" indicate to me that Klimt was more than just a bohemian pimp...and if he was a pimp within the art world, he was at least a very interesting man.
Check out: http://www.iklimt.com/index.html.
No comments:
Post a Comment