Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), the Austrian Symbolist painter of gilded paintings and sensual portraits of women, had a prolific and tumultuous career. He traveled through Italy and Spain, was in France and Germany and was soon triumphant in the Vienna of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with a brushstroke in the spirit of 19th-century historicist academism.
After the initial success, his style developed in such a way that his last works have a different imagery, which brought him a lot of criticism. At the same time, he absorbed the influences of other artists without copying them. He borrowed some elements, either of composition or of a particular technique, from colleagues whose works interested him, such as Rodin, Monet, Matisse or Van Gogh. The Viennese painter is now extremely famous and appreciated, and a joint exhibition by the Museum Belvedere in Vienna and Van Gogh in Amsterdam examines his sources of inspiration for the first time.
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Opened on October 7 in the Dutch capital, where he will be until January 8, 2023, to then travel to Vienna, and titled Golden Boy, Gustav Klimt (Gustav Klimt, the golden boy), the pandemic delayed the Premiere of this film for two years exhibition. It has managed to bring together 24 paintings and 12 drawings by Klimt and a similar number of works by artists who influenced him. From Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch to John Singer Sargent and August Rodin. Some of Klimt’s pieces come from private collections, such as Water Serpents II, which has not been exhibited for sixty years. In this work, four naked water nymphs glide across the screen in a scene somewhere between reverie and eroticism, which can be interpreted as a lesbian relationship. Something unacceptable to the public from 1907. Below right one of them looks at the viewer.
Further on, Judith, a 1901 portrait of the biblical Jewish widow beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes, draws attention. Klimt paints it with a mixture of pride, vigor and charm, and it is one of the first examples of the use of gold leaf in his paintings. His Golden Age (1901-1909) is perhaps the best known, although his Judith is much more than the astonishment of the precious metal plate applied to the canvas and frame. With hair in the fashion of the moment, a dazzling choker and a half-open dress, she leaves a re-enactment of the Old Testament widow.
“Judith” (1901), Gustav Klimt. Van Gogh Museum
Many of the works in the exhibition are large, with figures on ornate backgrounds. Renske Suijver, curator of the Van Gogh Museum, explains: “By juxtaposing Klimt’s works with those of the artists who inspired him, we seek to illustrate the painter’s stylistic evolution, which in portraits such as this one ranges from initial hyper-realism to an explosion of colour led by Adele Blochbauer [una mecenas judía a la que plasmó en dos ocasiones] and in landscapes. At the same time, universal themes such as love or death can be drawn through the chronological presentation of works from all creative periods.”
Since Klimt did not like long journeys, he had no contact with members of the European avant-garde. On the other hand, he did not influence the artistic movements in Paris either, so the influence of his international colleagues came through exhibitions or reproductions of works he saw in Vienna. And that happened almost suddenly, because before 1897, when he founded the art association Secession, international modernism was practically unknown in the city. With the Secession, a kind of independent artists’ cooperative, he broke with the conservative Viennese tradition, “introducing Belgian, French, British and Dutch artists who were looking for progressive international art of the time that could advance their own,” explains Lisa Smit, also curator of the Dutch Art Gallery. Klimt wanted to do new things, “unlike other artists who stuck to their style when they saw success”.
The work “Beethoven Frieze” (1902), by Gustav Klimt.Van Gogh Museum
In one of the rooms of the Dutch museum, the mural entitled Beethoven Frieze, an ode to the German composer’s Ninth Symphony, has been reproduced in its original size. The work caused much controversy in 1902 because its numerous female nudes, some skeletal and some aged, were considered repulsive. “Klimt was criticized a lot, but he also had a group that supported him and gave him orders. Among them were figures from Vienna’s Jewish elite, who decorated their houses in an avant-garde manner, and Klimt’s portraits fit this mood,” adds Smit.
One of the ladies he approached is Adele Bloch-Bauer, of whom he painted a first painting entitled Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Also known as The Golden Lady, it was stolen by the Nazis in 1941. It hung in the Belvedere Museum for years, but was returned to Maria Altmann, Adele’s husband’s niece, in 2006. She later sold it to the Neue Gallery in New York and has not left the United States. Yes, the painting Adele Bloch-Bauer II went to the Netherlands instead. It is monumental, with a realistic face and arms, and the rest of the body almost blends into the ornamentation in the background. Its composition is close to Matisse and is prepared to echo Van Gogh. According to Smit, Klimt was able to see the work of the Dutch artist at least three times between 1903 and 1909: “In those years, examples of the Neo-Impressionists and the Fauves were brought to Vienna. In 1906 there was an exhibition with 40 works by Van Gogh. In this case, the element that influenced him was technical. You can see it in the fields of flowers, which are like decorative tapestries”.
“Life is a Struggle” (1903). Van Gogh Museum
The son of a gold engraver, Klimt worked from an early age with one of his brothers, Ernst, also a painter, and his early classical technique echoes Lawrence Alma-Tadema. This UK-based Dutch artist was famous for his scenes from antiquity. After Ernst’s death in 1892, Klimt took care of Helene, his brother’s wife, and their daughter. She was his vital companion despite the numerous lovers and children with other women, some of whom are known, who are attributed to the painter.
Many of the decorative motifs in her paintings come from fabrics designed by Flöge, a successful businesswoman who ran a Viennese haute couture salon. An impressive portrait of him, dated 1902, hangs in the Amsterdam exhibition, and the green and blue print shimmers golden. At the end of the tour, “The Bride”, his last painting, stands unfinished. Klimt died of the flu in 1918 at the age of 55, the canvas still on the easel. Emilie Flöge died in 1952 at the age of 77.
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