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The Kiss
Francesco Hayez · Romanticism & Landscape
- Artist
- Francesco Hayez (1791–1882)
- Date
- 1859
- Dimensions
- 112 x 88 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy
Francesco Hayez’s The Kiss shows a young couple in medieval dress embracing passionately at the foot of a stone staircase. Painted in 1859, the year of Italy’s struggle for independence from Austria, it became one of the most famous images of Italian Romanticism.
A closer look
The young man, one foot on the step, seems about to leave; his face is hidden under a hat, and a shadowy figure lurks in the passage behind. The woman’s shimmering blue silk dress is painted with dazzling skill. The colours of the clothes, red, green, white and blue, have been read as a patriotic message: the union of Italy and France against Austria, or the volunteer about to go off to war. The kiss thus becomes both a personal farewell and a symbol of the new nation.