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Gustav Klimt
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| Birth date | July 14, 1862 |
| Death date | February 6, 1918 |
| Place | Austria |
| Alias | Klimt |
| Occupation | Painter |
| Category | Artist |
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Biography :: Contributions ::
Famous quotes ::
Achievements
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Gustav Klimt was born in Baumgarten, near Vienna, Austria, the second of seven children. His father (Ernst Klimt) was an engraver and was married to Anna Klimt (neé Finster). He lived in poverty for most of his childhood.
He was educated at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule) in the years 1879–1883, and received training as an architectural decorator. He began his professional career painting interior murals in large public buildings on the Ringstraße. Klimt was also an honorary member of the Universities of Munich and Vienna.
In 1893 Klimt was commisioned to do three paintings to decorate the ceiling of the Great Hall in the University of Vienna. His three paintings, Philosphy, Medicine and Jurisprudence were criticized for their radical themes and 'pornographic' material resulting in their not being displayed on the ceiling of the great Hall. All three paintings were eventually destroyed by retreating SS forces in May 1945. This would also be the last time Klimt accepted any public commissions to do work.
His work is distinguished by the elegant gold or coloured decoration, often phallic in shape that conceals the more erotic positions of the drawings he based many of his paintings on. This can be seen in Judith I (1901), and in The Kiss (1907–1908), and especially in Danaë (1907). Art historians note an eclectic range of influences contributing to Klimt's distinct style, including Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations. Klimt was also inspired by the engravings of Albrecht Dürer, late medieval European painting, and Japanese Ukiyo-e. His works are also characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles, and the use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the "freedom" of art from traditional culture.
Klimt was one of the founding members of the Wiener Sezession (Vienna Secession) and of the periodical Ver Sacrum. He left the movement in 1908.
Klimt took annual summer holidays on the shores of Attersee and painted some of the landscapes he saw there.
He died in Vienna on February 6, 1918 of a stroke and was interred at the Hietzing Cemetery, Vienna. Numerous paintings were left unfinished.
Klimt has the distinction of being the artist with the highest selling-price on a painting. Purchased for the Neue Galerie in New York by Ronald Lauder for a reported US $135 million, the 1907 portrait "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" deposed Picasso's 1905 "Boy With a Pipe" (sold May 5, 2004 for $104 million) on or around June 19, 2006. This is one of the five paintings refered to below in the Legacy section and an NPR report.[1] * University of Vienna Festsaal ceiling paintings
* Palais Stoclet mosaic in Brussels
* Fable (1883)
* The Theatre in Taormina (1886-1888)
* Auditorium in the Old Burgtheater, Vienna (1888)
* Portrait of Joseph Pembauer, the Pianist and Piano Teacher (1890)
* Ancient Greece II (Girl from Tanagra) (1890 - 1891)
* Portrait of a Lady (Frau Heymann?) (1894)
* Music I (1895)
* Sculpture (1896)
* Tragedy (1897)
* Music II (1898)
* Pallas Athene (1898)
* Portrait of Sonja Kipps (1898)
* Fish Blood (1898)
* Moving Water (1898)
* Schubert at the Piano (1899)
* After the Rain (Garden with Chickens in St Agatha) (1899)
* Nymphs (Sliver Fish) (1899)
* Philosophy (1899–1907) [1]
* Nuda Veritas (1899)
* Portrait of Serena Lederer (1899)
* Medicine (1900–1907)
* Music (Lithograph) (1901)
* Judith I (1901)
* Buchenwald (Birkenwald) (1901)
* Gold Fish (To my critics) (1901–1902)
* Portrait of Gertha Felsovanyi (1902)
* Portrait of Emilie Floge (1902)
* Beech Forest (1902)
* Beech Forest I (1902)
* Beethoven Frieze (1902) [2] [3]
* Hope (1903)
* Pear Tree (1903)
* Jurisprudence (1903–1907) [4]
* Water Serpents I (1904–1907)
* Water Serpents II (1904–1907)
* The Three Ages of Woman (1905)
* Portrait of Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein (1905)
* Farm Garden (Flower Garden) (1905–1906)
* Farm Garden with Sunflowers (1905-1906)
* The Stoclet Frieze (1905-1909)
* Portrait of Fritsa Reidler (1906)
* Sunflower (1906-1907)
* Hope II (1907-1908)
* Danaë (1907)
* Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907)
* Poppy Field (1907)
* Schloss Kammer on the Attersee I (1908)
* The Kiss (1907 - 1908)
* Lady with Hat and Feather Boa (1909)
* Judith II (Salomé) (1909)
* Black Feather Hat (Lady with Feather Hat) (1910)
* Schloss Kammer on the Attersee III (1910)
* Farm Garden with Crucifix (1911-1912)
* Apple Tree (1912)
* Forester's House, Weissenbach on Lake Attersee (1912)
* Portrait of Mada Primavesi (1912)
* Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912)
* The Virgins (Die Jungfrau) (1913)
* The Church in Cassone (1913)
* Semi-nude seated, reclining (1913)
* Semi-nude seated, with closed eyes (1913)
* Portrait of Eugenia Primavesi (1913-1914)
* Lovers, drawn from the right (1914)
* Portrait of Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt (1914)
* Semi-nude lying, drawn from the right (1914-1915)
* Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer (1916)
* Houses in Unterach on the Attersee (1916) [5]
* Death and Life (1916)
* Garden Path with Chickens (1916)
* The Girl-Friends (1916-1917)
* Woman seated with thighs apart, drawing (1916-1917)
* The Dancer (1916 - 1918)
* Leda (was destroyed) (1917)
* Portrait of a Lady, en face (1917-1918)
* The Bride (was unfinished) (1917-1918)
* Adam and Eve (was unfinished) (1917-1918)
* Portrait of Johanna Staude (was unfinished) (1917-1918)
"""Gustav Klimt first made himself known by the decorations he executed (with his brother and their art school companion F. Matsch), for numerous theatres and above all (on his own this time) for the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where he completed, in a coolly photographic style, the work begun by Makart. At the age of thirty he moved into his own studio and turned to easel painting. At thirty-five he was one of the founders of the Vienna Secession; he withdrew eight years later, dismayed by the increasingly strong trend towards naturalism.
"The coruscating sensuality of Klimt's work might seem in perfect accord with a society which recognized itself in those frivolous apotheoses of happiness and well-being, the operettas of Johann Strauss and Franz Léhar. Nothing could be further from the truth. Far from being acknowledged as the representative artist of his age, Klimt was the target of violent criticism; his work was sometimes displayed behind a screen to avoid corrupting the sensibilities of the young. His work is deceptive. Today we see in it the Byzantine luxuriance of form, the vivid juxtaposition of colors derived from the Austrian rococo - aspects so markedly different from the clinical abruptness of Egon Schiele. But we see it with expectations generated by epochs of which his own age was ignorant.
"For the sumptuous surface of Klimt's work is by no means carefree. Its decorative tracery expresses a constant tension between ecstasy and terror, life and death. Even the portraits, with their timeless aspect, may be perceived as defying fate. Sleep, Hope (a pregnant woman surrounded by baleful faces) and Death are subjects no less characteristic than the Kiss. Yet life's seductions are still more potent in the vicinity of death, and Klimt's works, although they do not explicitly speak of impending doom, constitute a sort of testament in which the desires and anxieties of an age, its aspiration to happiness and to eternity, receive definitive expression. For the striking two-dimensionality with which Klimt surrounds his figures evokes the gold ground of Byzantine art, a ground that, in negating space, may be regarded as negating time - and thus creating a figure of eternity. Yet in Klimt's painting, it is not the austere foursquare figures of Byzantine art that confront us, but ecstatically intertwined bodies whose flesh seems the more real for their iconical setting of gold." ""After tea it's back to painting - a large poplar at dusk with a gathering storm. From time to time instead of this evening painting session I go bowling in one of the neighbouring villages, but not very often.
All art is erotic.
Although even when I am being idle I have plenty of food for thought both early and late - thoughts both about and not about art.
Even when I have to write a simple letter I'm scared stiff as if faced with looming seasickness.
For this reason one will have to do without an artistic or literary self-portrait of me. This is not really to be regretted.
I am prepared for all eventualities with my work which is indeed very agreeable.
I can paint and draw. I believe this myself and a few other people say that they believe this too. But I'm not certain of whether it's true.
If the weather is good I go into the nearby wood - there I am painting a small beech forest (in the sun) with a few conifers mixed in. This takes until 8 'o clock.
On my first days here I did not start work immediately but, as planned, I took it easy for a few days - flicked through books, studied Japanese art a little.
Sometimes I miss out the morning's painting session and instead study my Japanese books in the open.
Then I paint again for a while: if the sun is shining a picture of the lake, if it's overcast then a landscape from the window of my room.
There is no self-portrait of me.
There is nothing that special to see when looking at me. I'm a painter who paints day in day out, from morning till evening - figure pictures and landscapes, more rarely portraits.
Today I want to start working again in earnest - I'm looking forward to it because doing nothing does become rather boring after a while.
True relaxation, which would do me the world of good, does not exist for me.
Whoever wants to know something about me - as an artist which alone is significant - they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.
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