{"id":364,"date":"2006-04-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T22:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/?p=364"},"modified":"2024-12-31T13:09:41","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T00:09:41","slug":"the-painted-kiss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2006\/04\/01\/the-painted-kiss\/","title":{"rendered":"The Painted Kiss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><strong>Elizabeth Hickey<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><em>Hachette<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Otago Daily Times, April 1st 2006<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The Painted Kiss <\/em>is a historical fiction in the manner of Tracy Chevalier\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><br>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\u2019s perspective without altering the facts of historical record to fit the dramatic requirements of a novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">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\u2019s prints to match the visual portrait with the verbal. At the same time, I was genuinely disappointed that Emilie\u2019s love (for this is a love story as well as a history) was for the most part unconsummated \u2014 although not, I felt, unrequited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In an author\u2019s note, Elizabeth Hickey speaks of the compromise historical fiction must strike between the literal and artistic truth of characters\u2019 lives. In this novel, she finds the perfect poise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elizabeth Hickey<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Otago Daily Times review April 1st 2006<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[47,48,370,421,18],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-47","tag-elizabeth-hickey","tag-fiction","tag-historical","tag-odt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1355,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/1355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}