The Kiss 1963

Curator: The composition strikes me as very raw, almost primal in its suggestion of form. Editor: That's apt. We're looking at "The Kiss" by Carmen Louis Cicero, a small drawing housed here at the Harvard Art Museums. It’s deceptively simple, wouldn’t you say? Curator: Indeed. There’s a kind of gestural urgency at play here. The lines don’t so much define the figures as intimate what they might be. Note how the bodies seem to both merge and remain distinct. It’s a study of line and tension. Editor: I wonder about the artist's process here. The quickness of the strokes suggests spontaneity, and how those choices reflect the immediacy of touch, or perhaps of a fleeting moment. Curator: Perhaps. The absence of shading or color forces us to confront the core act, almost stripping the act of love to its most essential physical expression. Editor: Right. It’s a fascinating meditation on form and feeling, even if it leaves us with more questions than answers. Curator: Yes, it prompts us to reconsider the labor required to arrive at what appears effortless. A complex interplay, indeed.