The Painted Kiss

Elizabeth Hickey

Hachette

Otago Daily Times, April 1st 2006

The Painted Kiss is a historical fiction in the manner of Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. In this instance, the artist is Gustav Klimt, and the setting 19th-century Vienna, peopled by such luminaries as Josef Hoffmann, Carl Moll, Alma Schindler and Mahler.

The narrator, Emilie Floge, first met Klimt while a young girl. She modelled for him, learnt drawing from him, and remained a friend throughout his life, but despite her being a noted designer, very little is actually known about her or her exact relationship with Klimt. Hickey takes advantage of this to shape a narrative portrait of the artist from Emilie’s perspective without altering the facts of historical record to fit the dramatic requirements of a novel.

It is a love story and a compelling portrait of a painter, a society and a time. The narrative is interspersed with the descriptions of the creation of specific pieces (Sleeping Girl, 1889; Pregnant Nude, 1890) that had me scouring bookshops for a collection of Klimt’s prints to match the visual portrait with the verbal. At the same time, I was genuinely disappointed that Emilie’s love (for this is a love story as well as a history) was for the most part unconsummated — although not, I felt, unrequited.

In an author’s note, Elizabeth Hickey speaks of the compromise historical fiction must strike between the literal and artistic truth of characters’ lives. In this novel, she finds the perfect poise.