Klimt

The work of the decadent Austrian symbolist

The unfading popularity of Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) attests not only to the particular appeal of his luxuriant painting but also to the universal themes with which he worked: love, feminine beauty, aging, and death.

The son of a goldsmith, Klimt created surfaces of ornate and jewel-like luminosity which show the influence of both Egyptian and Japanese art. Through paintings, murals, and friezes, his work is defined by radiant color, fluid lines, floral elements, and mosaic-like patterning.

With subjects ranging from sensuality and desire to anxiety and despair, all this iridescence is also suffused with feeling. Klimt' s numerous images of women, characterized by curvaceous forms, tender flesh, red lips, and flushed cheeks, were particularly charged with passion, at a time when such frank eroticism was still taboo in Viennese upper-middle-class society.

This book presents a selection of Klimt' s work, introducing his pictorial world of decoration and desire, as well as his influence on artists to come.