Gustav Klimt - Viennese Painter

Gustav Klimt:

Gustav Klimt is an artist that I enjoy immensely. His excellent draftsmanship and decorative, jewel-like paintings convey a beautifully balanced sensibility.

He has been in the news in recent times over a matter of Nazi-looted artwork. Some Klimt paintings belonging to the Jewish Bloch-Bauer Family had been confiscated by the Nazis and, after the war, added to the collection of the Viennese Osterreichische Gallery. After a long Court battle, they have now been returned to the descendants of the original owners. The efforts of the Austrian Government to buy back the paintings came to nothing – they couldn't compete with modern day art prices - a few months ago, Klimt's magnificent painting 'Frau Adele Bloch-Bauer' was bought for $135 million dollars by the Neue Galerie of New York.

Early Life:

Gustav Klimt was born on 14 July 1862 in Vienna, Austria, the eldest of seven siblings. His father, Ernst, was a goldsmith and the entire family was artistically talented.

Art Studies:

While Klimt's brother Georg trained to be a goldsmith like their father, Klimt and his other brother Ernst were sent to study in the newly-opened School of Applied Arts in Vienna. Here they underwent an extensively thorough art training under the remarkable Professor Ferdinand Laufberger and befriended a fellow art student called Franz Matsch. The Klimt brothers and Matsch, with the help and encouragement of Professor Laufberger, who had many contacts in Vienna, began undertaking art commissions while still at Art School.

Early Career:

In 1883, their formal Art Education completed, the three young men embarked on a career of Interior Art Designing and Decorating. They quickly built up such a successful reputation that only three years later, in 1886, they landed the very important assignment of painting historical murals for two stairway ceilings at the brand-new Vienna Burgtheater. They executed this task so marvelously that Klimt was given the Golden Cross of Merit and they received another big commission, this time to finish the stairway decoration at the Kunsthistorisches Museum begun by Hans Makart, Vienna's foremost painter. Makart had died in the middle of the work and Klimt, who greatly admired him, appreciated the opportunity to show off his own skill. He incorporated figures from Ancient Egypt and the Renaissance, and this project too was well-received.

Break from the Establishment:

For a time it seemed as if Klimt was on his way to becoming the new darling of the Conservative Viennese Art Establishment. However differences soon surfaced.

Klimt did not possess a conformist spirit and he set a high value on artistic freedom. So long as the Establishment could stomach his artistic vision things were fine – they were even willing to overlook his penchant for walking around in a voluminous and comfortable blue gown rather than in the respectably stiff suits that most normal people donned. But when he decided to widen his art horizons and experiment further, there was trouble.

In 1894, Klimt had received an assignment to paint three allegorical panels on the themes of 'Philosophy', 'Medicine', and 'Jurisprudence' on the ceiling of the Great Hall at Vienna University. The folks at the University were expecting something on the usual academic lines and so when Klimt, lately inspired by the Symbolists and Sigmund Freud, surprised them with a totally original and sexually charged interpretation, they were not amused. Faced with the choice to appease their hostility or stick up for his artistic freedom, Klimt chose the latter and abandoned the project in 1905. Much later, in 1945, the work was destroyed in a fire.

After this highly erotic experience, the City Council lost the heart to trust him with any more projects. Klimt didn't mind too much. He painted the 'Goldfish' , a work intended to convey to his critics what he thought of them – the nude figure in the front seems to impart a singular message, "Kiss my ass."

Klimt had already chosen his side by resigning from the conservative Viennese Artists' Association and becoming President of the progressive Secessionist Group. And moreover he was becoming extremely popular as a Portrait Painter; the women in the rich upper echelons of Viennese Society thought it was very fashionable to be painted by him and provided him with a steady income.

The critics, however, kept at his heels. His depiction of Judith annoyed quite a few people – in Klimt 's work, she came across as blood-thirsty rather than heroic. His painting 'Danae' was flogged by Eduard Potzl in the following words - "This Danae is rolled up like a bundle of old washing, and in this position, which no woman in the world has ever assumed of her own free will, she permits us to admire her thigh and half her bosom".

Reading this, I thought, "Uh, Eduard, it is just a painting, not a real woman, curb the Feminist outrage, old chap. Besides, as bundles of old washing go, it is a pretty interesting bundle."

After all this, the very positive reception given to 'The Kiss', the most famous of his works, must have amazed Klimt no end.

The break with the Secessionists happened in 1905; they had a hankering for pure painting and nothing but pure painting, while Klimt was more catholic and thought there was no reason why Fine Art had to be divorced from Applied Arts.

Between 1909 and 1911, he became involved in decorating a frieze for the millionaire Adolphe Stoclet's new Art Nouveau Villa in Brussels.

Personal Life:

Although Klimt never married, he had a 27 year long relationship with Emilie Floge. She was his sister-in-law and the owner of a Fashion Shop. Klimt designed dresses for her shop and she in turn modeled for his paintings.

End:

Klimt suffered from a stroke on 11 January 1918 and, after being hospitalized for around three weeks, died on 6 February. He was only 56. His friends remembered him as a man of few words, a bit of a hermit sometimes, but a large-hearted personality who was always generous and encouraging towards upcoming younger artists.

Well-known works by Klimt:

Aside from the paintings mentioned already, Klimt produced excellent works like the 'Beethoven Frieze' and 'Birch 'Wood'. My personal favorites though are 'The Black Feather Hat', 'Goldfish', 'Hope I', 'The Bride', and the full-length painting of Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein.

References:
Klimt, The Great Artists, Marshall Cavendish, 1993