Gustav Klimt · 1907–08
The Kiss
The most famous gold in painting is mostly not gold, and none of it is a pigment.
Belvedere, Vienna
Tap any swatch to copy. Ground colours are the three largest areas of the canvas; accent colours are chosen for intensity and may cover very little — which is exactly why they carry the painting. Percentages are each colour's share of the whole canvas, so these six will not add up to 100%: they are six of the 26 distinct colour regions measured, not a division of the surface. How these were sampled
Every swatch here is an approximation of something a hex code cannot really hold. The golds in this painting are metal leaf, not paint: they change with viewing angle and lighting in a way flat colour cannot reproduce. What the extraction can tell you is the colour the leaf reads as under gallery light, which is genuinely useful if you are designing something that has to sit beside a reproduction.
The green, orange and violet notes come from the ornamental patterning in the robes, and they are what stop the scheme collapsing into a single metallic hue. Those small chromatic interruptions are the reason the painting reads as rich rather than merely shiny.
What the artist actually used
- Gold, silver and platinum leaf
- Within the figures.
- Brass imitation gold ('composition gold')
- The background. Actual fine-gold content across the work amounts to only grams.
- Oil paint
- Flesh, foliage and the patterned colour notes.
Has the colour changed?
Cross-sections show Klimt laying leaf directly onto a still-tacky resin-bound imprimatur, without the traditional oil mordant used in classical gilding — timing the application to the tack of the layer beneath so that gilding became part of the painting process rather than a step after it. Metal leaf does not fade the way organic pigments do, but it does tarnish and abrade selectively.
Sources
Accessibility
WCAG contrast ratios between every color pair. Use the strongest combinations for text; the weakest ones make good decorative backgrounds.
Strongest pair: #C3A749 on #6156A3 — 2.66:1 (Fail)
- #C3A749·#66893E
- #C3A749·#8B7740
- #C3A749·#BA5932
- #C3A749·#7A642D
- #C3A749·#6156A3
- #66893E·#8B7740
- #66893E·#BA5932
- #66893E·#7A642D
- #66893E·#6156A3
- #8B7740·#BA5932
- #8B7740·#7A642D
- #8B7740·#6156A3
- #BA5932·#7A642D
- #BA5932·#6156A3
- #7A642D·#6156A3
How to read this
- AAA
- Passes WCAG 2.1 AAA for normal text — the highest accessibility bar.
- AA
- Passes WCAG 2.1 AA for normal text. Standard production requirement.
- AA Large
- Passes WCAG 2.1 AA for large text only (18pt+ or 14pt+ bold). Avoid for body copy.
- Fail
- Below WCAG 2.1 AA. Fine for decorative use — not for text.
Export
One click — no signup, no watermark.
Studio
Paint this palette
These are the materials a colour study actually gets made with.
-
Pantone
Formula Guide — coated & uncoated
When a palette leaves the screen, this is the shared vocabulary between you and the press. Coated and uncoated because the same ink is not the same colour on both.
View on Amazon -
Kuretake
Gansai Tambi 24 — Art Nouveau
Gansai are traditional Japanese watercolour pans — dense, matte and easy to mix, the closest everyday medium to the flat printed colour Wada's plates were made in. This is the Art Nouveau-themed 'II' edition, a different 24 to the standard set.
View on Amazon -
Kuretake
Gansai Tambi 36
The larger pan set. More range means mixing toward a specific plate rather than approximating it from six colours.
View on Amazon -
Strathmore
300 Series watercolour pad, 140 lb cold press
140 lb cold press is the weight that takes a wet wash without buckling — the paper most colour studies end up on.
View on Amazon -
Pentel
Fude Touch brush sign pen
A felt brush tip for the labelling and linework around a swatch study — the annotation half of a colour notebook.
View on Amazon
Amazon Associates affiliate links — your price is unchanged and a small commission keeps the archive free. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Library
Further reading
Torn between the two Wada dictionaries? Vol 1 vs Vol 2, compared plate by plate →
Book links are Amazon Associates affiliate links. Your price is unchanged; a small commission supports the archive. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.