They are propped on their left by a window that is draped in blueish-violet cloth, slightly pulled aside by their embrace to reveal a brighter outside world that somehow seems to forbid their love, which is being displayed in the dark of the room: their right side as well as the lower left portion (beneath the window) is hardly discernible for Munch's use of shadow. In all, Munch's use of dark color in more than two-thirds of the composition evokes an overwhelming sense of forbidden love. Yet the fully-clothed demonstration of love suggests nothing illicit -- only something oddly forbidden by the outside modern world (strangely bright, yet seemingly condemning of true affection). The affection witnessed in the limbs of the lovers appears almost desperate in its determination to survive the encroaching eye of the outside world. But the world is only given a small sliver -- a slight portion of the canvas -- so that through the use of space, Munch seems to suggest that there is hope for the lovers (even if their days are numbered). The overall shape of the composition brings us to sympathize and empathize...

An outgrowth of the Expressionistic age in which it was painted, Munch's Kiss is as much a depiction of the reality of the world as he saw it as it is a rejection of that same world for the Romantic ideal of a much more glorious one in which passion and love are not condemned by a world that seems to lack all charity and heart.
Bibliography

Eggum, Arne. Edvard Munch: Paintings, Sketches, and Studies. NY C.N. Potter,

1984.

Johnson, Paul. Art: A New History. NY: HarperCollins, 2003.

Paul Johnson, Art: A New History (NY: HarperCollins, 2003), 617.

Arne Eggum, Edvard Munch: Paintings, Sketches, and Studies (NY C.N. Potter, 1984), 287.