The Kiss (Hayez)
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| The kiss |
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| Francesco Hayez , 1859 |
| oil on wood |
| 112 × 88 cm |
| Pinacoteca di Brera |
The kiss (Italian: Il bacio ) is the name of a painting by Francesco Hayez from 1859. The 112 × 88 cm painting is executed in oil on wood and shows a pair of lovers in a deep embrace in medieval clothing. With its theme and perfect craftsmanship, it is typical of Italian romanticism . The picture is a symbol of the Risorgimento , the Italian aspirations for independence and unification in the 19th century. It is considered Hayez's most famous work and is located in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan .
Image description
The kissing young couple stands as full figures in the center of the picture. The man in a brown cape and tight-fitting red trousers dressed, puts his right hand on the cheek of the woman, a hat with infected spring obscured his face. He has placed his left leg on the lowest step of a stone staircase to enable an even closer hug. Above it, almost hidden in the shadow of his cape, the hilt of a dagger can be seen. The young woman is wearing a blue dress with white trim. Her face is turned up to the man, her left hand grasps his shoulder. The background of the picture, which partially disappears into the shadow, is dominated by a stone wall made of large, hewn blocks . At the end of a corridor in the background on the left, a figure seems to be waiting for the two figures at the foot of another staircase.
interpretation
At first glance, the picture presents itself as a masterfully executed work, but little remarkable in terms of motif - historicizing paintings were widespread in the Romantic era, and the Middle Ages in particular were idealized. Hayez, too, had followed this trend decades earlier and had created, for example, The Sicilian Vespers (scene 1 from 1821 to 1822) and The Liberation of Vittor Pisani from Dungeon (1840). In The Kiss , the viewer witnesses a farewell scene: the young man is wearing traveling clothes, his dagger and the pressing shadows in the background indicate a dangerous path. Hayez works skillfully with the contrast between the cool colors of the young woman's dress and the warm red and brown tones of the man's robes.
Flag of the Kingdom of Italy
Flag of france
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At second glance, however, The Kiss turns out to be a political allegory . The two entwined figures stand for the countries Italy and France , recognizable by the robes, which are kept in the respective national colors. At the time of the creation of the work, Italy was divided into several regional kingdoms, among which the Kingdom of Sardinia increasingly claimed the leadership role.
The kiss itself symbolizes the close connection between the two countries: in 1859 the Kingdom of Sardinia and France fought as allies in the Sardinian War against the Empire of Austria and defeated it in the Battle of Solferino . The Lombardy was ceded in the wake of Austria to Italy, after connection of the other Italian kingdom of Sardinia established in 1861 the Kingdom of Italy . In September 1859, the painting was shown at the Esposizione Dell'Accademia di Brera (the exhibition of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ), just three months after the victorious commanders Victor Emmanuel II and Napoléon III. had visited the city. The symbolic content was immediately taken up by the enthusiastic public.
Finally, an interpretation against a literary background is also possible. The scene alludes to Renzo and Lucia from the novel I Promessi Sposi by Alessandro Manzoni as well as to William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet , which Hayez inspired to paint a farewell scene in 1823.
Other versions
Hayez painted three other versions of this motif:
- Hayez gave a smaller version to the Carolina Zucchi family, who had modeled for him for his work The Sick, for example , and who were his mistress. It is now in a private collection in Turin .
- Another version was auctioned on May 7, 1998 at Sotheby’s auction house in New York . In the 117 × 80 cm painting, the young woman wears a blue dress as in the original, but a white cloth lies on the steps next to the couple. This picture is also in Italy today.
- In the version from 1861, which was painted in oil on canvas, the young woman wears a white dress, which excludes France and shifts the focus entirely to the newly unified Italy. The picture was commissioned by Federico Mylius (1826–1897), the son of Heinrich (Enrico) Mylius, a successful German banker who had settled in Milan in 1792. Federico Mylius' heirs resold the painting to a German collector. On November 12th, 2008 it was auctioned at Sotheby's in London . The value was on £ 400,000 to 600,000 (from 505,000 to 760,000 euros estimated), the price obtained was £ 780,450.
literature
- Stefano Zuffi: Picture Atlas of Painting. EA Seemann Verlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 978-3-86502-095-6 , p. 247.
Web links
- Francesco Hayez - The Kiss . In: Website of the Pinacoteca di Brera (English)
- Francesco Hayez - The Kiss . In: Zeno.org
- Francesco Hayez - The Kiss . In: The-Artinspector.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Zuffi, Stefano: picture atlas of painting . EA Seemann Verlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 978-3-86502-095-6 , p. 247 .
- ↑ Cf. Il bacio - Hayez. November 4, 2008, Retrieved April 25, 2009 (Italian).
- ↑ a b c d See Sotheby's: European Paintings including The Orientalist Sale, Symbolism and the Poetic Vision and Spanish Painting Lot 109. Retrieved on April 25, 2009 (English).
- ↑ a b Cf. Lanzanova, Elena: Hayez 'kiss at auction in London. (No longer available online.) November 5, 2008, archived from the original on April 17, 2009 ; Retrieved April 25, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
