One of the world’s most famous paintings gets the Lego treatment: Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss

Lego Art is one of the more ambitious arms of the Danish toymaker’s empire of creativity. Past recreations of classic works range from Leonardo da Vinci to Claude Monet, Keith Haring to Robert Indiana.

The latest artist to get the brick-built treatment is Austrian master Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). In modern times, Klimt is firmly established as one of the big tickets of contemporary art collecting, but back in the day, his richly sensual and seductive artworks found favour in the gilded age of early 20th-century Vienna.

It’s to this epochal period that Lego has turned, recreating one of the artist’s very best-known works, The Kiss, painted between 1907 and 1908. The original, which measures nearly 2m square, hangs in Vienna’s Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, where it is one of the museum’s star attractions.

Although the Lego Kiss can’t match up to Klimt’s expansive scale, there is still a wealth of detail and a veritable bushel-load of bricks that have gone into the set; 4,000 pieces, to be precise. Measuring in at 60cm by 54cm, Lego’s design team, led by master model designer Milan Madge, has used numerous quirky build techniques to replicate the artist's style.

This has involved creating a multi-layered surface, a dense scattering of single and double-stud pieces, along with smooth and textured parts. In addition to a number of specially decorated Lego elements, there are also imaginative reuses, such as the coiled whip used in everything from Lego Botanical bouquets to a number of Indiana Jones sets (naturally).

The entire project was developed in close collaboration with Vienna’s Belvedere Museum, with Stephanie Auer, the museum’s curator of 19th- and 20th-century art, describing the process as a ‘once-in-a-lifetime experience'. 'Together with Milan Madge, we had extensive discussions about Gustav Klimt’s symbolism, ornamentation, and artistic techniques, as well as how these could be represented using Lego bricks,’ she explains.

Madge describes the process as a ‘unique creative challenge.’ ‘By combining golden Lego elements with specially decorated pieces, we were able to recreate the artwork’s distinctive shades and textures in a building experience that celebrates its extraordinary beauty,’ he continues.

The build process provides a vivid insight into the composition and textural make-up of the original painting. And thanks to inbuilt picture fasteners, once completed, Lego’s take on The Kiss is all set for display.

Lego Art Gustav Klimt - The Kiss, set number 31221, £269.99, Lego.com, Belvedere.at

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