My Valentine To You: The Evolution Of The Kiss In Art.

Ah, the kiss. The most romantic expression of love and tenderness. You may think that kissing as a subject in fine art is trite or cliche, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been depicted beautifully by many of the world's most well-known and respected artists. As my Valentine to you, I have rounded up some of the most interesting and iconic expressions of "The Kiss"  (Le Baiser, Der Kuss) by established artists over the past 150 years.

THE KISS:
The Kiss has long been a favorite subject for painters but no one has captured it quite like the pieces shown below, many of which have been reproduced over and over again. Here are some very famous - and not so famous - versions in chronological order starting with one of the most well-known examples that inspired many of the others, Francesco Hayez' The Kiss.

Francesco Hayez, The Kiss, 1859:


Auguste Rodin, The Kiss, marble sculpture. The piece was initially commissioned by the French State in 1888 and carved between 1888 and 1898. It was cast in bronze by Rodin as well:


William-Adolphe Bouguereau's most famous painting, Cupid and Psyche as Infants, is often incorrectly labeled as Le Premier Baiser (The First Kiss, 1873), 1890:


One of the earliest known paintings of a same sex kiss is that by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He actually painted two works of the female couple in a lip lock in the same year and the two are often confused.

The Kiss, 1892:

In Bed, The Kiss (1892):


Edvard Munch also created multiple versions of his own interpretation of The Kiss in oil paint, lithography and woodcut as shown below.

The Kiss painting, 1897:

The Kiss lithograph, 1897:

The Kiss woodcut, 1897:


Easily the most well-known of Austrian painter Gustave Klimt's work is his The Kiss, painted between 1908 and 1909:


Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi's modern interpretation in stone as well as plaster. He created many versions of The Kiss, further simplifying geometric forms and sparse objects in each version, tending each time further toward abstraction.

The Kiss, stone, 1907-1910:

The Kiss, plaster, 1907-1910:


Rene Magritte's surrealist Interpretation of The Kiss, 1951:


Pablo Picasso actually created many pieces (at least 10) named The Kiss (or Le Baiser) during the years of his life.

First, his figurative version of The Kiss (also known as The Embrace), approx 1905:

His abstracted version of The Kiss in 1925:

His surrealist version of The Kiss  (also known as Figures By The Seaside) in 1931:

In 1969, Picasso painted a series of three pictures on the theme of 'The Kiss' (artist Jeff Koons owns one the momochromatic version on the left of the second photo) a day before his 88th birthday at his home at Mougins along the Côte d'Azur, where he lived the last fifteen years of his life:


And yet another painting of The Kiss by Picasso in 1969:


Joël Peter Witkin, an American photographer whose work often involves corpses, created this grotesque version of The Kiss in 1982:


South African artist Tracey Rose, who works with photography, video installations and performance art, created this live installation of The Kiss in 2001 of which 6 editions of Lamba prints were made:


William Cobbing further contemporized The Kiss by adding yet another medium, video, in 2004:


Inspired by a journalist's photo of then Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German leader Erich Honecker sharing a kiss, Russian artist Dmitry Vrubel, painted his version of it on a surviving portion of the Berlin Wall in 2009:


And lastly, The Kiss, 2013 as seen by contemporary artist Erwin Wurm:


Interested in an even greater art selection of kisses? Check out The Kiss: A Celebration of Love in Art

And there you have it. I hope you enjoyed my selections and I wish all of you a very Happy Valentine's Day with lots of kisses.

Sony Bottles Their Waterproof MP3 Players And Sells Them Via Vending Machine.

DraftFCB of Auckland has created a marketing first - The Bottled Walkman. To illustrate the waterproof properties of Sony's W Series MP3 player, they cleverly packaged the device in bottles full of water and then hijacked a vending machine in a gym and transformed it into a product display, distribution channel, and talk piece.







Targeting swimmers specifically, the unique idea removes barriers to purchase, allowing swimmers to buy the product inside of gyms and public pools as easily as buying a bottle of water.



The effort was further supported with additional signage in the pool area:



Video:


See the full creative credits here

They are only packaged this way in new Zealand, but you can purchase them here

A Look At The Barbie Shoot For The 2014 SI Swimsuit Edition.

News has broken that this year's cover model for the annually anticipated Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition is none other than the disproportionately endowed blonde we know and love as Barbie.



For the 50th Anniversary issue Mattel teamed up with SI for the cover shoot and 4 page interior article which features a 1959 vintage Barbie doll in her classic black and white chevron suit, a new limited edition Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Barbie Doll in a contemporary version of the black and white bathing suit and a spread of 17 dolls from Mattel's Barbie Basics collection.



The partnership between the two brands includes the four-page advertising feature in the magazine, video clips; a cover wrap that will appear on 1,000 copies of the issue, declaring Barbie to be “The Doll That Started It All”; a limited-edition Sports Illustrated Barbie, to be sold exclusively on Target.com; and a beach-themed party on Monday night in Lower Manhattan.

Feelings are mixed about the doll gracing the cover, but that's no surprise given that both Barbie and SI have long been criticized about their unrealistic portrayals of women.

The dolls were shot by photographer Walter Iooss, who has shot many of the scantily clad SI Swimsuit models of the past.


The set:


Prepping the new doll:


Shooting the dolls:







Selecting the images for the feature:



The final Cover:


One of the four interior pages:


Here's a video look at the actual shoot, with lots of tongue-in-cheek references as to how well Barbie takes direction:



Information courtesy of SI and Mattel.

Sports Illustrated
Mattel

A Tiny But Terrific Prefab Home In Brazil by Architect Alex Nogueira

House 12.20 in Campo Grande, Brazil by Alex Nogueira







Copy is courtesy of the architect:
In a 9-meter-long (29.5') and 5-meter-wide (16.4') rectangular space, totaling 45 square meters (about 148 square feet), the orthogonality and the rigidity of the architectural environment create a contrast with the light and stripped atmosphere brought by the colors, by the furniture, by some of the finishes, and by the generous opening which faces the garden.



In this space there are, almost in a symbiotic way, the room, the office, the kitchen, the bedroom, and the hall, where the furniture is the keystone in both aesthetic and functional harmony of this multiple environment. The bathroom is the most conventional setting and it divides the hydraulic wall with the kitchen, but it is turned to the room, privileging this more intimate access.



Generally speaking, the homogeneity of the internal space is an attempt of dialogue with the homogeneity of the external space, the green plane composed by the hearty garden. In this search, both the large sliding glass door and outside deck are responsible for integrating and transporting the external space to the internal one, and vice versa.



The structural system favors the natural look of its different elements. So, there are together, in a mixed system, reinforced concrete with metal profiles. In other words, a metal frame supported by concrete bases, which maintains the construction away from the ground, gives it a certain lightness and a better relationship with the hot weather of the region.



On the front facade, a large layout of horizontal metal louvers not only provides the necessary sun protection but also a uniform, closed, and hermetic aesthetic, in full contrast to the back facade, fully transparent and open. This duality can be understood as a reflection a personality: serious at first, and more open in intimacy.






Exploring a predictable, rigid, and formal geometric body, there was a search for lightness, surprise, and certain enchantment, whether with the yellow sculpture that rests in the garden (made with leftovers of the type "I" metal profiles), whether with the contrasts between the solid wall of exposed concrete and the floating metal wall, whether in the mixture of very different materials such as the simple apparent clay brick (external floors), the transparent glass, corrugated metal closure, unpolished marble, yellow wall, or even crude and poorly finished concrete... Even though it is a small construction, the search was for an architectural experience capable of harboring the infinity of feelings.

Principal Architect: Alex Nogueira
Project Details:
• Year 2009
• Work started in 2010
• Work finished in 2013
• Plot (m²) 720
• Total area (m²) 45
• Status Completed works
• Type: Modular/Prefabricated housing /

Photos © André Barbosa