How a classic painting such as Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" has changed with modern media.
The definition of kiss by Merriam Webster is "to touch with the lips especially as a mark of affection or greeting." While this is accurate, words cannot express the emotion behind a kiss. There are different "kisses." There’s the kiss between family members or friends, one of affection and admiration. The kiss between two lovers is quite a different thing, filled with passion and emotion that words cannot describe. The most passionate of kisses had at one time been reserved for private times between the lovers.
For me visual cues that artists enhance can more properly reveal the emotion behind a kiss. There are some very famous images of kisses. Even if you've never seen the movie "From here to Eternity," you have surely seen the famous seen of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr's passionate kiss on a beach. If you are familiar with the comic book style reproduction used by Roy Lichtenstein, you may be familiar with one of his benday dot patterned kiss paintings. There is the famous Time Life photo in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaedt of a sailor kissing a nurse in 1945. But the most famous kiss image must be the painting "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt from around 1907-1908. Although there are many interpretations of the exact meaning behind Klimt's painting, every viewer can read the expression of passion and love from this visual representation.
But Klimt's kiss is from a much simpler time, a world with boundaries and romantic notions of love and the affections that came with it. Now PDA's or Public Displays of Affection are completely common. Klimt's passionate embrace may not even be given a second look by today's youngest generation. Society has rapidly changed in the past century. Mass media and the rapid advances in technology have had a serious affect on society and relationships. For children and adults alike, exposure to the intimate content, particularly involving relationships has made the most private interactions of relationships public. What was once unacceptable in public is now expected. As Kathleen McDonnell expresses in her article the "The hurried child," children are exposed to aspects of adult life that used to be hidden from them. In her book "Honey, We Lost the Kids" she explains that "the lines that used to distinguish between adulthood and childhood are growing blurred, and the evidence is all around us: six-year-old girls dressing up in navel-baring outfits. Eight-year-old boys playing computer games that simulate mass murder. Kids hearing frank sex-talk on primetime, and listening to music with raw language that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Childhood used to be a protected sphere, a walled garden where adult gatekeepers could control what and when children learned about the grown-up 'facts of life'. But the mass media have changed all that. Mass media has made it impossible for us to keep what the renowned social critic Neil Postman calls the 'cultural secrets' of adulthood from children." In 2008, an article in Time by Alice park explains how "sex on TV has come a long way in the past few years. Anyone who saw the first episode of 90210 — a pair of students engage in oral sex in the first episode of the new sequel to Beverly Hills 90210 — can attest to that." How much of an impact could a painting filled with hints of erotic passion such as Klimt's compete against such blatant portrayals of sex?
And this is not just in America; it is worldwide. An article by Callie Watson from Australia's newspaper the Advertiser discusses the debate over a school's hug ban and how media has accelerated children into more adult relationships. Watson quotes Steve Portlock President of the SA Primary Principals Association as saying "The social world that students live in, in terms of mobiles and MSN, means they have an incredible amount of contact and boyfriend and girlfriend relationships develop earlier because of the technology. The school's not going to change its need; they need to respond to it. For some of our parents, they still think about school when they were there. The world is different now." In Pakistan "the kiss" controversy erupted over an email that began circulating in response to a senior student witnessing two students kissing during the holy month of Ramazan. Her email was met with mixed emotions and commentary over Twitter from two different practices in cultural beliefs by the students at the Pakistani University; students that "reconverted" to Islam, sided with her, and others poked fun.
I enjoy the painting "The Kiss" because I appreciate art that can express what can't be said. I am still unaccustomed to the PDA's that are acceptable on TV and the internet. It's sad to think that a work of art that expresses so much emotion, is a tame and boring visual in a media world where nothing is sacred.
* Note: This blog was inspired by the painting the "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt, but will also be incorporated into my current assemblage collage, a modern interpretation of "The Kiss."
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