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What the painting shows
Love by Klimt is an 1895 oil painting that captures an intimate encounter between two lovers. You see a young woman in a ruffled white gown tilting her face upward toward a dark-haired man with a mustache. The couple stands close together against dense, dark foliage flecked with faint blossoms, with the woman resting her hand lightly against the man’s chest.
Above the lovers, pale, spectral faces emerge from a swirling grey mist. On the far left, an aged woman with sunken features stares forward, while younger, softer faces float nearby with closed or downcast eyes. A thin border separates this shadowy central panel from two wide, pale yellow margins. Along these bright outer fields, leafy rose branches with pink blossoms frame the scene, and Gustav Klimt painted his signature in capital letters at the bottom right.
The story behind it
Klimt painted Love, also titled Liebe, in 1895. The piece belongs to his early works and is one of his key allegories.
The canvas measures 60 by 44 cm and uses oil paint on canvas. Klimt places the romantic encounter in the lower half of the vertical composition, balancing the heavy shadows of the foliage against the golden light of the surrounding borders.
Where to see it
You can see Love in Vienna, Austria, where it is part of the collection at the Wien Museum. The museum holds the original 1895 painting.
Details of Love
Questions about Love
Where is Love by Klimt?
Love by Gustav Klimt is in the collection of the Wien Museum in Vienna, Austria. Visitors to the city can see the original artwork preserved in the museum's holdings. The painting remains in Vienna alongside other significant examples of the artist's work from the late nineteenth century.
What is Love by Klimt made of?
Love by Gustav Klimt is made of oil paint on canvas. The artist applied oil paints to create a dark, shadowy central image surrounded by flat, bright yellow vertical margins. He used delicate brushwork to render the realistic figures of the lovers alongside the soft, semi-transparent faces hovering above them.
