Building ‘The Kiss’, Gustav Klimt’s most iconic work

Few paintings stop you in your tracks like Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. Created at the height of the artist’s Golden Period, it depicts a couple lost in a tender embrace, with the man pressing a kiss to the woman’s cheek, both wrapped in flowing robes of gold, adorned with squares, circles and delicate floral details.

One of the most recognizable works of art ever made, now recreated in LEGO® bricks. The result? LEGO Art Gustav Klimt – The Kiss (31221) is as breathtaking as the original.

To learn more about this set and how it was designed, we talked with Milan Madge, Master Model Designer at the LEGO Group, and Stephanie Auer, Curator of the 19th & 20th Century Collection at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna (where the original painting is displayed).

Translating gold leaf into LEGO® bricks

The first challenge with this design was how to turn something so two-dimensional, like a painting, into a 3D creation while keeping its essence as true to the original as possible.

“Gustav Klimt was extremely concerned with proportion and getting things absolutely perfect. So, as a LEGO designer working on this, you have to think about how you use these LEGO bricks that fit in this very tight system to capture the exact proportions and dimensions that Klimt was looking for,” Milan says.

Inspired by the Byzantine mosaics Klimt had encountered in Ravenna (Italy), he used gold, platinum and brass leaf to transform his canvases into something closer to medieval illuminated manuscripts than conventional oil paintings.

“If you have a look at the background, this is really interesting: he more or less sprinkled the gold onto the background where it got stuck on some kind of adhesive. One might think that he used gold color for the painting. But no, it’s actually gold leaf, and even platinum leaf or brass leaf,” Stephanie explains.

Capturing that shifting, luminous quality in LEGO bricks was undoubtedly one of the project’s greatest challenges. As the staple shades in the LEGO color palette have remained the same for many years, it was particularly difficult to interpret Gustav Klimt’s work within this color scheme.

“When you think of The Kiss, the iconic image of it is very yellow. But when you’re here in person and you walk around the piece, you see that it’s gold. It changes depending on where you are in the room and that was something we really wanted to capture in the LEGO set,” he notes.

Working with the experts

The Belvedere Museum in Vienna has been home to the original The Kiss since 1908, and working closely with its curators was essential to getting every detail right. For Stephanie, the collaboration revealed something profound about why Klimt and LEGO bricks are such a natural fit.

“I think Gustav Klimt and LEGO bricks are a perfect match. Klimt had a great interest in form and the reduction of form, as well as working with geometrical forms within his works. In The Kiss, where he uses so much geometrical ornament, it’s perfect to be reproduced with LEGO bricks”, she says.

But not every element of the painting was so straightforward to translate. One of the most delicate tasks was finding a way to break free from the rigid geometry of the LEGO system to capture the organic, human quality of the figures, particularly their faces.

“I think it’s really specific about Klimt that he perfectly merges the ornament and the human figure,” Stephanie mentions. “That was one of our biggest challenges. He was a master in depicting human faces and feelings. So, I think the faces were tricky.”

Milan and his team found a creative solution. “We achieved something really special by breaking out of the rigid LEGO grid and not having everything at 90 degrees,” he says. “We added some angled areas to make it look more organic, so that the arms were holding each other. By playing with the LEGO system in that way and using some clever geometry, we managed to capture some of that liveliness.”

A masterpiece made to be displayed

At 4,000 pieces, the largest LEGO Art masterpiece yet, it measures 23.5 in. (60 cm) high and 21 in. (54 cm) wide. Designed to be displayed as an art piece, it has a built-in hanging mechanism that allows the set to be mounted directly on the wall once complete.

This is the perfect set, whether you’re a longtime admirer of Klimt, a passionate builder looking for your most ambitious project yet, or simply someone who wants something truly special on your walls.

You can learn more on this art nouveau pièce de résistance and how it was transformed into an innovative brick-built set in our podcast.