(Vienna 1862 - Vienna 1918)
Gustav Klimt was the most famous of the Austrian artists of his time. However, despite this, the personal aspects of his biography remain a barely unveiled mystery even today. It is only possible to review the facts of his public career; something that is clearly insufficient to clarify the complexities of a refined and hermetic body of work, whose elaborate symbolism often adheres to intimate keys.
He was born in Baumgarten, near Vienna, into a family with a craft tradition that, in part, reflected the national plurality of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was Viennese, and his father, Ernst Klimt, a goldsmith of Bohemian origin who guided his three sons - the marriage also had four daughters - towards the same professional path.
Thus, Gustav Klimt, the eldest of the sons, entered the School of Applied Arts of the Imperial Museum of Art and Industry in Vienna in 1876, an institution founded a few years earlier to improve the situation of the industrial arts in the Empire. There he would acquire a solid technical and theoretical training, and upon finishing his studies in 1883, he formed the "Company of Artists" with his brother Ernst and his companion Franz Matsch.
The imperial administration was committed to promoting decorative arts, and the monumental project of the Ringstrasse - a circular avenue around the historic center of Vienna where the main institutional and cultural buildings of the Empire would be located - was then in full realization, providing an unparalleled opportunity for artists, architects, and craftsmen. After gaining experience with some commissions away from the capital - such as the decoration of the Municipal Theater of Fiume, in Croatia, between 1883 and 1885 - the three partners decorated the staircase of the Burgtheater between 1886 and 1888, and three years later, their success earned them the commission for the decorative paintings for the spandrels and intercolumniations of the staircase of the Museum of Art History, another of the great buildings of the Ringstrasse.
In 1888, on the other hand, Klimt had painted for the Viennese council an interior view of the old Burgtheater, which earned him the Emperor's Prize in 1890. At less than thirty years old, Klimt was already one of the most prestigious artists in Vienna.
The death of Ernst in 1892 brought an end to the "Company of Artists," but Klimt's reputation reached its peak just two years later, with the commission for three panels on Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence for the ceiling of the Aula Magna of the University, also on the Viennese Ringstrasse. From then on, Klimt's idyll with the imperial administration began to cloud. Thus, in 1897, the painter led the founding of the Secession, a group of Viennese artists and architects who separated from the Artists' Association with the declared intention of affirming artistic modernity and connecting the Viennese scene with new European trends.
In 1905, Klimt and other artists close to him left the Secession, although they maintained the same ideals, expressed in the great exhibition of the Kunstschau of 1908.
Klimt never married, although he had several illegitimate children, of whom he acknowledged at least three.
The work of Gustav Klimt encompasses: uniqueness, the impression that it contains intimate keys; but at the same time, it is an almost exhaustive synthesis of the concerns, trends, and languages of the tumultuous modern European artistic scene of the turn of the century. Klimt encouraged the modernization and opening of Austrian art to European trends; in him converge the influence of the German Jugendstil from Munich, the Scottish Modern Style of Mackintosh, and the lessons of French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists with the Symbolist heritage of German and Nordic Romanticism.
Klimt's goal was an idealistic and self-referential art, liberated from mortgages and commitments beyond its intrinsic demands.
With few exceptions, he dedicated his celebrated portraitist facet solely to women, and his allegorical characters find a feminine translation. The meaning of femininity in Klimt has always been a controversial issue for critics. Woman is the mythical catalyst of Klimt's symbolism, an image of life and death; a simultaneous threat and promise.
Gustav Klimt was the most famous of the Austrian artists of his time. However, despite this, the personal aspects of his biography remain a barely unveiled mystery even today. It is only possible to review the facts of his public career; something that is clearly insufficient to clarify the complexities of a refined and hermetic body of work, whose elaborate symbolism often adheres to intimate keys.
He was born in Baumgarten, near Vienna, into a family with a craft tradition that, in part, reflected the national plurality of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was Viennese, and his father, Ernst Klimt, a goldsmith of Bohemian origin who guided his three sons - the marriage also had four daughters - towards the same professional path.
Thus, Gustav Klimt, the eldest of the sons, entered the School of Applied Arts of the Imperial Museum of Art and Industry in Vienna in 1876, an institution founded a few years earlier to improve the situation of the industrial arts in the Empire. There he would acquire a solid technical and theoretical training, and upon finishing his studies in 1883, he formed the "Company of Artists" with his brother Ernst and his companion Franz Matsch.
The imperial administration was committed to promoting decorative arts, and the monumental project of the Ringstrasse - a circular avenue around the historic center of Vienna where the main institutional and cultural buildings of the Empire would be located - was then in full realization, providing an unparalleled opportunity for artists, architects, and craftsmen. After gaining experience with some commissions away from the capital - such as the decoration of the Municipal Theater of Fiume, in Croatia, between 1883 and 1885 - the three partners decorated the staircase of the Burgtheater between 1886 and 1888, and three years later, their success earned them the commission for the decorative paintings for the spandrels and intercolumniations of the staircase of the Museum of Art History, another of the great buildings of the Ringstrasse.
In 1888, on the other hand, Klimt had painted for the Viennese council an interior view of the old Burgtheater, which earned him the Emperor's Prize in 1890. At less than thirty years old, Klimt was already one of the most prestigious artists in Vienna.
The death of Ernst in 1892 brought an end to the "Company of Artists," but Klimt's reputation reached its peak just two years later, with the commission for three panels on Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence for the ceiling of the Aula Magna of the University, also on the Viennese Ringstrasse. From then on, Klimt's idyll with the imperial administration began to cloud. Thus, in 1897, the painter led the founding of the Secession, a group of Viennese artists and architects who separated from the Artists' Association with the declared intention of affirming artistic modernity and connecting the Viennese scene with new European trends.
In 1905, Klimt and other artists close to him left the Secession, although they maintained the same ideals, expressed in the great exhibition of the Kunstschau of 1908.
Klimt never married, although he had several illegitimate children, of whom he acknowledged at least three.
The work of Gustav Klimt encompasses: uniqueness, the impression that it contains intimate keys; but at the same time, it is an almost exhaustive synthesis of the concerns, trends, and languages of the tumultuous modern European artistic scene of the turn of the century. Klimt encouraged the modernization and opening of Austrian art to European trends; in him converge the influence of the German Jugendstil from Munich, the Scottish Modern Style of Mackintosh, and the lessons of French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists with the Symbolist heritage of German and Nordic Romanticism.
Klimt's goal was an idealistic and self-referential art, liberated from mortgages and commitments beyond its intrinsic demands.
With few exceptions, he dedicated his celebrated portraitist facet solely to women, and his allegorical characters find a feminine translation. The meaning of femininity in Klimt has always been a controversial issue for critics. Woman is the mythical catalyst of Klimt's symbolism, an image of life and death; a simultaneous threat and promise.
