Kiss by the Window - Edvard Munch · 1892 · Elliott Best Art Restoration

Across the street, amber light glows in a handful of windows. A lone pedestrian passes below. Inside, at the far edge of the canvas, two people lean so closely into a kiss that it takes a moment to see where one face ends and the other begins. Munch gives nearly as much room to the view outside as he does to the lovers. The city is going about its evening. For these two, it might as well have stopped.

The original painting
Kyss ved vinduet (Kiss by the Window), oil on canvas, 73 × 92 cm. Signed and dated at the lower left. Collection of the National Museum, Oslo. Catalogue raisonné, Woll 266. (Munchmuseet)

A subject Munch kept returning to

The Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863–1944) returned to the kiss across several years. He painted a couple by a window in 1891, revisited the embrace in pencil and ink during the mid-1890s, and painted it again in 1897. In this 1892 canvas, the window is essential. It lets us see two things the lovers seem scarcely aware of: the street beyond the glass and the evening light falling across their shoulders. (The Art Institute of Chicago)

Bringing the Original Vision Closer to View

For this EB Restoration Signature™ edition, we worked from a digital reproduction, reducing scattered pale flecks in the dark clothing and bringing out the blue-on-blue strokes that describe the embrace. The blues are richer than in our source, particularly across the man’s shoulder, and the broad sweep of the curtain is more pronounced.

We kept the full horizontal composition and the soft boundary where the faces meet. A sharper line there would have answered a question Munch leaves beautifully open.

Curator’s Note

Look for the small figure beneath the amber windows. A few dark strokes are enough to give that person a silhouette all their own. Then look back at the lovers. Here are two people, much closer to us, whom we can barely separate. That shift from one figure alone to two figures almost becoming one is what keeps me looking.