Gustav Klimt
Biography of Austrian Portraitist, Leader
of Viennese Secession.
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Gustav Klimt
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Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)Contents • Biography NOTE: For analysis of works by Secessionist
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One of the greatest modern artists from Austria, Gustav Klimt was the founder and leading figure in the Vienna Secession movement - the group of artists and craftsmen who rejected the conservative academic art and values of the previous generation. (See the Munich Secession and the Berlin Secession.) He was also the principal member of the Viennese Art Nouveau (sezessionstil) style of graphic art. Klimt is best known for his decorative art, or at least his decorative style of painting, which - in the manner of Byzantine Art - used gold and semi-precious gems for ornamentation, and is characterized by a flat linear style, often decorated with biomorphic forms, as exemplified by his masterpiece The Kiss (1908). In its use of distortion, and non-naturalist colours, Klimt's art also has a strong element of Expressionism. Klimt's lasting contribution to the history of art may be his portrait paintings of Vienna's leading ladies, as exemplified by his pictures of the wife of Jewish businessman Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. In 2006, his Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) was reportedly sold by private treaty for $135 million, while his Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912) was auctioned at Christie's New York for $87.9 million. In terms of price therefore, Klimt is indisputably one of the best portrait artists ever. For details, see: Most Expensive Paintings: Top 10. |
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Born at Baumgarten, Vienna, the son of an engraver, between 1876 and 1883 he studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Vienna. With his brother Ernst he formed an artist-decorators firm which produced paintings for public buildings. His early large-scale decorative works were followed in 1894 by a commission to produce designs for a painted ceiling at the city's University Hall. Klimt presented his designs for three works - Philosophy, Jurisprudence and Medicine - in 1896. Two years later he was asked to carry out the work in conjunction with Franz Matsch, who was to paint the centrepiece and a fourth work - Theology. By this time Klimt had already been made president of Vienna's Sezession movement, the Austrian part of the European wide rebellion of artists intent on seceding from the official academies of art and promoting their art in opposition to them. (Note: An earlier rebel against the old-fashioned methods of the Vienna Academy was Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller.) His own painting had undergone a radical change, partly as a result of his assimilation of Jugendstil and the work of the Munich Sezessionists. His composition Pallas Athene (1898), shown at the second Sezession exhibition marks this style. It is characterized by frontality, interest in surface pattern, and the use of gold and other metal. Its inclusion of a tiny naked figure in the lower left hand part of the canvas anticipates his later paintings and decorative schemes in which sensuality was a predominant theme - one that often caused offence. Klimt's use of a variety of exotic materials was an important device. His interest in ornament was further stimulated by a visit to see the Byzantine mosaics at Ravenna in 1903, (see also Byzantine Christian Art). It featured in his largest allegorical frieze for the Sezession's Beethoven exhibition of 1902 (also highly controversial) and reached a climax in the huge piece of mosaic art which Klimt designed for the Stoclet Palace, known as the Stoclet Frieze (1905-11). |
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Philosophy was exhibited in March 1900 at the Sezession, and its stress on female nudity caused a scandal amongst Viennese academics, the public and the press. Medicine had a similar reception the following year. Jurisprudence, shown at the Sezession's retrospective for Klimt in 1903 was the most decorative of the three, but also the most stylized and abstract in design. The influence of the Symbolist painter Jan Toorop is clearly visible in the work. In 1905, Klimt resigned his commission for the University paintings, and - together with a group of like-minded artists - left the Sezession movement. In 1908-9, they staged 2 exhibitions under the name Kunstschau (art spectacle). The first show featured Austrian arts and crafts as well as a display of Klimt portraits and allegorical works, such as The Kiss (1908), his most famous work. This painting aroused strong feelings on both sides, being both ridiculed and purchased by the state. In his portrait art - a genre which brought him social connections as well as attractive fees - Klimt focused on women, painting portraits of the wives of rich Austrians (eg. Adele Bloch-Bauer, Marie Henneberg, Eugenia Primavesi). Although he had begun this line of work around the turn of the century, he devoted more and more time to it after the second Kunstschau (1909), using a simpler, more painterly style, devoid of dazzling ornamental effects. It was not until 1917 that his art appeared ready to make another stylistic turn - possibly influenced by his knowledge of Egon Schiele's work. But Klimt did not live long enough to fully explore any new directions. Klimt's reputation as an artist rests chiefly on his decorative skills, in particular his use of the flat surface (Egyptian art style), colour, gold ornamentation and mosaic motifs (Byzantine style). Like artists from these earlier eras, he resorted to complex symbolism to present his ideas, except in his case the emphasis on subtle suggestion clashed head-on with his views on the dated nature of 19th century morality and his desire to break free from the taboos of fin de siecle Vienna. Recently, as a result of Ronald S Lauder's 2006 purchase of Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) for a reported $135 million, and the 2006 sale of Adele Bloch-bauer II (1912) at Christie's New York for $87.9 million, Klimt has been catapulted to the top ranks of the world's greatest artists - leapfrogging the Impressionist Claude Monet and the Dutch Expressionist Van Gogh in the process. He now has two works in the World's Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings. In terms of Klimt's technical skills, or his ability to create outstanding art, this new found fame makes absolutely no sense. Even so, The Kiss remains one of the world's most popular and iconic images, indicating perhaps that his emphasis on "glitter" lends him an easily acceptable image in the consumerist postmodernist era. Paintings by Klimt hang in the best art museums throughout the world. |
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