The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey

I was always fascinated by Gustav Klimt's painting, The Kiss. The clothing in that painting awed me. When I read about this book, a fictionalized history of Klimt's life and the life of Emilie Floge, I knew I had to get it.

It took me quite a long time to get through this book. It doesn't have much plot. If I had to write one line about what it is about, I would say it is the story of an unrequited love between Emilie Floge and Klimt. But that is probably a gross simplification. Klimt was a bohemian who had many lovers in his lifetime but always he came back to Emilie as the one person who seemed to hold his life together. Still, the love was more platonic than passionate. She was always there when he raged over the Vienna art world, or broke off affairs with other women. In this book he is kind of a clueless man who isn't really taking advantage of anyone, but as a reader I just wanted to reach out and shake him and say, Look what you have. Of course with these fictionalized art history novels, who knows what the true nature of the relationships really were.

Floge became quite a hot clothing designer in her day and many of the clothes painted by Klimt seem inspired by her designs. She is the main point of view character in this story and it is mostly a reminiscence she is telling from the summer home where she and her niece escape to when they are threaten by the Nazis in WWII.

This book pleased me. I like the little chapters inserted about particular paintings that I looked up on the net and it was fun to follow the history of the book while seeing the actual works. I think that the lack of drama in the story may turn some readers off, but I also think that Hickey really captured the life of the art world in Vienna in the late 19 and early 20th centuries.