The Painted Kiss: A Novel [Paperback]

Elizabeth Hickey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 7, 2006

In this passionate and atmospheric debut novel, Elizabeth Hickey reimagines the tumultuous relationship between the Viennese painter Gustav Klimt and Emilie Flöge, the woman who posed for Klimt's masterpiece The Kiss -- and whose name he uttered with his dying breath.

Vienna in 1886 was a city of elegant cafés, grand opera houses, and a thriving and adventurous artistic community. It is here where the twelve-year-old Emilie meets the controversial libertine and painter. Hired by her bourgeois father for basic drawing lessons, Klimt introduces Emilie to a subculture of dissolute artists, wanton models, and decadent patrons that both terrifies and inspires her. The Painted Kiss follows Emilie as she blossoms from a naïve young girl to one of Europe's most exclusive couturiers -- and Klimt's most beloved model and mistress. A provocative love story that brings to life Vienna's cultural milieu, The Painted Kiss is as compelling as a work by Klimt himself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hickey imagines the bonds between Gustav Klimt and his younger lover—whose name he pronounced with his dying breath—in her expressively written debut. Before Emilie Flöge became the owner of a successful Viennese fashion house and Klimt became a famed, controversial painter, she was a privileged 12-year-old reluctantly taking drawing lessons and he was her starving artist teacher. From her WWII hideaway in the Austrian countryside in 1944, where she has transported Gustav's drawings ("all I could bring from Vienna... [perhaps] the only things of his to survive"), the aged Emilie flashes back to her fin-de-siècle hometown. Hickey traces the changing relationship between Klimt and his protégé from when she first became his art student as an adolescent through their on-again, off-again romance as she matures to their complicated relationship that culminates in the famed painting The Kiss. While the novel bears some obvious similarities to Girl with a Pearl Earring, it doesn't quite have that novel's power. But Hickey's language is sensual, lush and unhurried, and the prose wears its author's research gracefully. (Apr.) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* This first novel, which springs boldly to the reader's attention as an admirably accomplished, beguilingly effortless story, is based on the lives of two actual historical figures. Hickey takes us back to the lush elegance of fin-de-siecle Vienna, "the most beautiful, cosmopolitan city in the world"--back to when the emperor still ruled divinely yet the arts were breaking old barriers. Gustav Klimt, a denizen of Viennese bohemia, has already made a painter's name for himself when a well-to-do businessman commissions him to draw his young daughters' portraits. Thus the lives of this permanent fixture in the world's artistic firmament and his mistress-to-be, Emilie Floge, intersect. Alternating flash-forwards to mid-World War II, when the Old World truly crumbled and Klimt was long dead, frame the story with a perfect nostalgia for the novel's "real" time: the beautifully expressed charting of the growing relationship between Klimt and Emilie, who eventually runs a fashion house in the Austrian capital and dresses all the ladies of the arts world. Hickey possesses a comfortably secure voice in sharing her understanding of the nature of this unsordid affair and her knowledge of the glamorous but teetering-on-the-edge time and place. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (March 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743492617
• ISBN-13: 978-0743492614
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #741,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

When I was growing up I read to escape my place and time. I think that's why I write historical fiction now. But being from Louisville, Kentucky is a powerful part of my identity and I hope to write about it someday. My aunt Ellen once suggested that the family pool their resources and buy me off so I wouldn't write about them, and she was only half-kidding. No one has come up with the money yet, but luckily for them I'm not ready to write about it anyway. I'm waiting for the insight that comes with distance and the passage of time. My brother thinks I should write a novel called Decline and Fall of the Southern Aristocracy. Maybe I will in twenty years or so.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The WELL Painted Kiss!, March 29, 2005

By 

Katie Z (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Painted Kiss: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was fortunate enough to grab an advanced reader's copy of this novel off the reviewer desk of the magazine where I work. With historical fiction all the rage these days, it's possible to find writers who really know their craft, or conversely historians who really know the age they're describing, but seldom do we find both traits in the same author! Elizabeth Hickey both writes with a rare lyrical clarity and evokes turn of the century Vienna with such precision it makes one wonder if she had access to a time machine. I feel as though I've actually sat in the corner of Klimt's studio while he painted "The Kiss" and pinned hems in the Vienna fashion salon of his lover Emilie Floge.

I imagine that comparisons will be made between "The Painted Kiss" and "Girl with a Pearl Earring." While I'm positive that fans of Tracy Chevalier will love this book, it seems important to point out that Hickey's work is far from derivative. She is an exceptionally talented writer in her own right, and should be treated as such!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars look out Hollywood, here comes Elizabeth Hickey, October 18, 2005

By 

Shelley Gammon "Geek" (Kaufman, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Painted Kiss: A Novel (Hardcover)

The author's debut novel is not a project for the weak of heart. Historic fiction requires research - and lots of it, especially with characters who are somewhat contemporaneous with some people still living today. When I received this book from the author, I wasn't sure what to expect. This really isn't my favorite genre of reading, but from the first page, I was hooked.

Hickey has a true gift for crafting scenes and emotion so richly, that after reading, I felt like I had seen a movie rather than having read a book.

The novel explores an imagined romance between clothing designer Emilie Flöge and famed painter Gustav Klimt. The author weaves in several characters who were well known in the same era and whether or not all the relationships cited took place, they were definitely plausible.

The story moves from the "present" in late World War II where Flöge and her niece Helene are taking refuge in the country side away from the bombs hitting their beloved Vienna, to the"past" in the late 1800s when Flöge is a first a drawing student of Klimt, and later his occasional lover and his continual confidant and lifelong friend.

Written in the first person by Flöge, this is not simply a "chick" book - it's an interesting who's who of the art world in Paris and Vienna before, during and after World War I and gives a fascinating insight into the dramas surrounding art commissions and the subculture and power plays of the artists of the time.

While reading this novel, I felt like a time traveller with the details included - I could visualize the food, the utensils, the facial expressions, the clothing, the cold winter air - everything. I quickly felt like I knew these characters as well as Flöge knew them and found myself laughing out loud in a few passages.

Were Klimt and Flöge really lovers? Only they know for sure and they took their secrets to the grave - but Hickey takes these loose threads and ties them together into a plausible and enjoyable page-turner of a novel. This book is ripe for a movie deal. It is so well written, adapting it for film would not be a Herculean effort. I look forward to reading Hickey's next book.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A love affair with art and history as the backdrop, April 12, 2005

By 

N. Larrabee (Tarrytown, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Painted Kiss: A Novel (Hardcover)

A Painted Kiss gives you insight on the life of the artist Gustav Klimt through his lover's eyes, Emilie Floge. She first meets the Gustav as a 12 year-old girl. Her parents asked him to give their youngest daughter drawing lessons. Emilie has many emotions running through her mind as a young woman. Her fascination for Gustav does not change and in fact grows into an impassioned love for him. The art world is developing and changing before their eyes. Chapters alternate between a narrative on the people and their poses in each of Klimt's well known paintings; 1890 when Emilie was a young woman in love, as a model and mistress for Gustav Klimt; Emilie as an older woman in 1944 during World War II. Against the backdrop of history, you see how Emilie influenced the art and genius of Gustav Klimt. Outstanding and enjoyable read.