The Kiss (section)

Two lovers kneel at the edge of a blooming meadow, wrapped so tightly in a blanket of gold that they almost seem to become one shape. This is a detail from Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss," painted between 1907 and 1908 during the stretch of his career known as his Golden Period. Klimt used actual gold leaf here, a trick he fell in love with after seeing shimmering Byzantine mosaics on a trip to Italy. The two figures wear very different patterns, which is easy to miss at first glance. The man is covered in bold black and white rectangles, while the woman is dressed in soft circles and flowers, a subtle nod to how different the two of them are even as they draw close.

Klimt belonged to the Vienna Secession, a group of Austrian artists who wanted to break free from the stiff rules of the past and make something more decorative and daring. The gamble paid off, and this painting was so admired that the Austrian government snapped it up before Klimt had even finished it. It now lives at the Belvedere museum in Vienna, where visitors still line up to stand in front of it. Many people wonder if the man is Klimt himself, though the truth remains a mystery, and no one knows who the woman really was.