The Art of Kissing: Intimacy Explored on Canvas

The power of kisses in famous paintings

The Kiss (1898) by Felix Vallotton. Tempera on panel. 29 × 35.8 cm. Image source Wikimedia Commons

What does a kiss look like? What does it feel like?

When it comes to art, perhaps the more pertinent question should be: what does a kiss mean?

For what art tells us about the act of smooching is that it is a many-sided thing — and only sometimes romantic.

Here are 7 paintings from art history that reveal the full breadth of canoodling’s connotations.

The Deadly Kiss

The Kiss of the Sphinx (1895) by Franz von Stuck. Oil on canvas. 160 × 144.8 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary. Image source Wikimedia Commons

Franz von Stuck was a German symbolist painter, sculptor and architect known for his highly dramatic and darkly epicurean works.

A fascination with the ominous side of mythology led Von Stuck to explore the overlap between erotic themes and ancient legends.

In this mesmerising painting, The Kiss of a Sphinx, painted in 1895, a woman with the body of a lion is seen overpowering a kneeling man. With the sky turning a forbidding shade of red, the male figure reaches out his right arm in an act of protest — or is it pained gratification? — while the woman passionately presses herself…