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The Painted Kiss: A Novel |  | Author: Elizabeth Hickey
Publisher: Atria
Category: eBooks
This item is no longer available
Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 113510
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B000FCK2DS
Publication Date: April 5, 2005
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Product Description
In her passionate and atmospheric debut novel, The Painted Kiss, Elizabeth Hickey reimagines the relationship between Gustav Klimt and the woman whose name he uttered with his dying breath. Vienna in 1886 was a city of elegant cafés, grand opera houses, and a thriving and adventurous artistic community. It was there that twelve-year-old Emilie Flöge met the con-troversial libertine and painter Gustav Klimt. When Klimt is hired by Emilie's bourgeois father to give her some basic drawing lessons, he introduces her to a subculture of dissolute artists, wanton models, and decadent patrons that both terrifies and fascinates her. The Painted Kiss follows the developing relationship between Klimt and Emilie, who blossoms from a naÏve girl to a sanguine woman, becoming mistress to one of the twentieth century's most fascinating artists and the owner of an exclusive fashion house, which Klimt helps design. Fin de siÈcle Vienna glitters with wealthy, beautiful women for Emilie to dress in her salon and for Klimt to undress in his studio. It is a world overflowing with the greatest artists, composers, and writers of the era, and yet doomed by the imminent collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although she is never sure of her place in Klimt's life, Emilie is a constant presence, supporting him through tragedy, self-doubt, triumph, and scandal -- and ultimately serving as the model for his greatest masterpiece. The Painted Kiss is a moving love story that is as sensual and compelling as a work by Klimt himself.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 29
 For lovers of art and history alike! September 4, 2010
LilaBird
This book was so wonderful. I love art history and historical fiction and this is some of the best of it! This book is told from an insider's perspective and lets us see into the live and loves of Austrian artist, Gustav Klimt. To be more accurate, the story is actually about Klimt's sometimes-lover, Emilie Floge. We get to follow her throughout her life and see how it intertwines with Klimts, how she falls in love with him, has her heart broken by him again and again, and ultimately has her name on his lips with his dying breath. The scene created by Hickey of Vienna in the 1800's is rich and full of life. She shows us art, culture, society, poverty, loves and losses, failures and triumphs. She truly paints a beautiful picture of the lives of Floge and Klimt. Highly recommended for lovers of art and history alike!
Stunning & captivating! July 3, 2010
BookWorm (Denver, CO)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Painted Kiss was a beautiful, stunning window into the life and loves of Gustav Klimt and his rumored-to-be lover, Emilie Floge. I love, love, love that this book is good, well-researched historical fiction, with an acceptable amount of improvised fiction. You know how sometimes you can read "historical fiction", but be very aware that the author must not have given a crap about research, but then other times you can read historical fiction and it feels so real that it's just breathtaking? Well this book is one of those "other times". It is set in the late 19th century, in Vienna. This is during the Vienna Secession and so we get to see all the famous artists, authors, sculptors, etc. that flourished during that time and see how they all interacted with one another. We get to sit in on private dinner parties, artists' painting sessions and dress shop openings. We get to see intimate moments and public ones. We truly get to see the spirit of who Klimt and Floge really were. It is a beautiful portrait of a wonderful time in history and a truly great artist. I highly recommend this book.
 trite May 5, 2010
barbara coffman (dundee, new york)
I am surprised by how trite and superficial this book is. the details are shallow and seem like they came from skimming history books. when the lead character talks about sewing it is clear the author is not a seamstress. the conversations between artists are never about the work of painting but are summaries of techniques and opinions. this is nothing like GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING. the true struggle of artists in vienna at that time is not engaged by the author. and one more "spunky " young woman is boring. show me, don't tell me.
BC, Dundee NY
Great Art, Great Storytelling June 1, 2009
Rather Be Reading (The O.C.)
This is historical fiction at its best. The author does a fabulous job of recreating a time and place and creating a story around two historical figures that rings true with every word. The relationship between Gustav and Emilie is enthralling, but where the author really shines is in describing the creative processes of the artists in this mesmerizing story. Beautifully written. Highly recommended.
 He's Just Not That Into Her February 28, 2009
Diana F. Von Behren (Kenner, LA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Poor Emilie Floge. Novelist Elizabeth Hickey allows her to tell her story--well, her story as she sees it--of reserved obsession in "The Painted Kiss."
Subject of three of Gustav Klimt's works--she was the sister of his brother Ernst's wife, Helene, Emilie worships Gustav from almost the moment she, as a precocious twelve-year-old, sets eyes on him. Almost twelve years her senior, Klimt regards her with a passion that author Hickey has difficulty defining. After all, no one knows the nature of the relationship with the flamboyant Klimt with this self-assured and successful woman of Fin-de-Siecle Vienna. Were they lovers? Platonic confidantes? Players in an open relationship? Neither married although Klimt had numerous casual and significant sexual relationships with countless women from either end of the social spectrum that resulted in a reported fourteen illegitimate children. Related through marriage and identified as seemingly beloved companions that shared lifelong annual vacations to Lake Attersee, numerous almost daily correspondences and confidences, and a fashion salon that produced Floge/Klimt-designed reform (unstructured requiring no corset) clothing along with Parisian knock-offs, Emilie and Gustav lived the bohemian life during a time of great psychological speculation where the goal of sex according to Freud was pleasure. In "The Painted Kiss," novelist Elizabeth Hickey suggests that while Emilie Floge regarded Gustav Klimt as the lover of her dreams, she was never fully able to solely capture his attentions despite their apparent closeness and the fact that her name was the last word he spoke as he died from pneumonia. Simply put, Klimt's stable of women was as lively as the Spanish Riding School where airs above the ground abound. He had way too many women to explore, paint and devour to be satisfied with only Ms Floge. Sadly, for her he just wasn't into her that way.
Author Hickey tries earnestly to help Emilie understand Gustav's nature and she does a believable job of recreating the torturous insecurity this woman must have felt if she had monogamous feelings for him which he did not share. Floge never married, but Hickey's account of her emotional history, remains, of course, fictional. We have no first hand or third person testimony to collaborate or contradict what actually took place in the minds and hearts of these enigmatic characters. Nonetheless, Hickey uses the Klimt timeline as he creates his highly criticized Beethoven Frieze, secedes from the Viennese Artists' Society and explores the sensual mystery of women in his study of nudes and eroticism and succeeds critically and financially in his Golden Phase to probe the conundrum of the man himself. Emilie acts as main first person narrator. Her story begins at its end in 1944, as she finds herself fleeing Vienna for Attersee as the Russians begin to occupy the city. Time moves forward as she examines her feelings for the deceased Klimt and the preservation of his remarkable body of work and then in retrospect from the moment of her first sighting of him with her young girl's perspective. Interspersed between the aftermath tale of 1944 and Emilie's chronological telling of Klimt's rise to become one of Vienna's most well-known artists, Hickey presents a famous study, drawing or painting and then fleshes out the details behind the work-- she tells of his relationships with various models and mothers of his children and of the creation of his most well-known work, "The Kiss" for which Emilie herself was reputed to pose.
As Hickey attempts to base her novel on known facts which history cannot change, she is left at best with a muddled portrait of a rather unknown woman. Emilie did own a fashion salon with her two sisters. She was Gustav Klimt's friend and was photographed with him at Attersee and in clothing that they designed together. However, this small documented history does not give anyone insight into thoughts and desires. We have little clue as to what Ms Floge's ideas were with regard to the lifestyle options that Klimt embraced through example. Floge was not a writer and did not opine thoughts with regard to sexuality or eroticism; if anything her relaxed clothing tells us that she wanted comfort rather than whale-boned support and was not afraid to invest money (or Klimt's money) in expressing this fact. With little backup, Hickey connects the dots and comes up with a storyline that uses Klimt's creative timeline as a base. Unfortunately, she must use creative license to develop Emilie more fully as her narrator.
What that leaves us with is a novel that declares Emilie Floge and Gustav Klimt as companions that indulge in sex infrequently--but as what? An expression of love? Exercise? Release? If indeed Ms Floge did model for Klimt's "The Kiss," can we interpret this as some sort of declaration of everlasting affection and passion? Or simply that Emilie's features fit with his composition and that the act of creating needed a physical manifestation?
Where does that leave Emilie in all this? She loves but is only loved marginally? Like the wives of architect Frank Lloyd Wright as depicted by T. C. Boyle in "The Women: A Novel" and Nancy Horan in "Loving Frank: A Novel," Klimt's females shrink in the presence of his immense ego. In the world according to Klimt, they act only as muses fueling his creative genius; their bodies supply mystery that he pondered artistically and wished to explore.
Hickey does a descent job with the scant information with which she has to work. Her portrayal of Klimt seems to emulate that of a great artist questioning the new ideas emanating from a new century. Like most long term unmarried men of any era, he deals with his women by seeing them only in a certain way; he does not allow them to touch him deeply. Impulsively, he moves on like a bee from flower to flower breathing deeply of beauty of which he partakes, captures and then escapes. Hickey suggests that Emilie was the only one who touched his heart in any meaningful way even if she can't quite figure out the true essence of their relationship and can only fill in the many blanks with speculation.
Bottom line? "The Painted Kiss" by Elizabeth Hickey attempts to define the relationship between artist Gustav Klimt and his sister-in-law, Emilie Floge. Gallantly, Hickey paints a delightful panorama of fin-de-siecle life that mirrors the timeline of Klimt's artistic accomplishments. The great romance hinted at on the back book cover, however, is fraught with too much speculation, rendering Ms Floge just one of those sad women whose man, as they say, just wasn't into her. Unfortunately, as most of the Floge/Klimt dynamic is a confection of Hickey's imagination, I wonder how much of the real connection I will take away with me. Will I retain only the fiction and none of the facts? It's a good read nonetheless--easy format with free-flowing language that makes for some insightful thinking about the whole man/woman thing. Recommended. Check out Gustav Klimt: From Drawing to Painting to ponder Klimt's art and world. Fascinating.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"
Showing reviews 1-5 of 29
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