The work of the Austrian painter and illustrator Gustav Klimt, b. July 14, 1862, d. Feb. 6, 1918, founder of the school of painting known as the Vienna Sezession, embodies the high-keyed erotic, psychological, and aesthetic preoccupations of turn-of-the-century Vienna's dazzling intellectual world.
He has been called the preeminent exponent of ART NOUVEAU. Klimt began (1883) as an artist-decorator in association with his brother and Franz Matsoh. In 1886-92, Klimt executed mural decorations for staircases at the Burgtheater and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna; these confirmed Klimt's eclecticism and broadened his range of historical references. Klimt was a cofounder and the first president of the Vienna Secession, a group of modernist architects and artists who organized their own exhibition society and gave rise to the SECESSION MOVEMENT, or the Viennese version of Art Nouveau. He was also a frequent contributor to Ver Sacrum, the group's journal.
Adele Bloch-Bauer I 1907 (140 Kb); Oil and gold on canvas, 138 x 138; Austrian Gallery, Vienna Adele Bloch-Bauer clasping her hands (she had a deformed finger). Dressed in gold, surrounded by gold. A very gold picture. |
The Tree of Life1909by Gustav KlimtThe Tree of Life is an important symbol in nearly every culture. With its branches reaching into the sky, and roots deep in the earth, it dwells in three worlds- a link between heaven, the earth, and the underworld, uniting above and below. It is both a feminine symbol, bearing sustenance, and a masculine, visibly phallic symbol- another union. |
1907-08 (100 Kb); 180 x 180 cm (71 x 71 in); Österreichisches Galerie Wien, Vienna Man leaning over and kissing kneeling woman. All shrouded in symbolically patterned gold. A bed of flowers below them.The Kiss is a fascinating icon of the loss of self that lovers experience. Only the faces and hands of this couple are visible; all the rest is great swirl of gold, studded with colored rectangles as if to express visually the emotional and physical explosion of erotic love. |
Danae 1907 (90 Kb); Private collection, Graz Danae, seemingly underwater, thighs drawn up. Gold and silver seminal flow rising between her legs. Very erotic. The legend concerns her mating with Zeus in the form of a gold shower, to conceive Perseus, which is depicted here. The eroticism is highly intentional: the red hair, etc. The small black rectangle is Klimt's reduction of maleness to an abstract symbol. |
Judith I 1901 (80 Kb); Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna |
Love 1895 (90 Kb); Museum der Stadt Wien, Vienna Detail of a well-dressed woman closing her eyes and abondonning herself to her first kiss. A gypsy-like man looks down on her about to kiss her. Judith II |
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