Title The kiss ( Il Bacio)
Style Italian Romanticism
Date 1859
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 110 × 88 cm (43.3 × 35 in)
Current location Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
The Kiss The painting represents a couple from the Middle Ages, embracing while they kiss each other. It is among the most passionate and intense representations of a kiss in the history of western art.This painting has been regarded as a symbol of Italian Romanticism. At a more superficial level, the painting is the representation of a passionate kiss, so putting itself in accordance with the principles of Romanticism, by emphasising deep feelings rather than rational thought, and presenting a reinterpretation and reevaluation of the Middle Ages in a patriotic and nostalgic key.On a deeper level, the painting aims to portray the spirit of the Risorgimento. The man wears red, white and green, representing the Italian patriots fighting for independence from the Austro-Hungarian empire. The girl's pale blue dress signifies France, which in 1859 (the year of the painting's creation) made an alliance with the Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia.
Francesco Hayez was an Italian painter, the leading artist of Romanticism in mid-19th-century Milan, renowned for his grand historical paintings, political allegories and exceptionally fine portraits.
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