A kiss changes the world: 150 years of Gustav Klimt
The Kiss 1907–1908. This painting shows two lovers in embrace. The lovers are surrounded by a sea of gold and rest of a bed of flowers. They create a phallic shape which is also a reoccurring symbol in Gustav Klimt’s work.
One of Austria’s greatest painters would have celebrated his 150th birthday in 2012: Gustav Klimt (1862–1918).
A leading figure of the Sezessionstil movement, Klimt was one of the most innovative and controversial artists of the early twentieth century.
To honor his life and work, the city of Vienna will be hosting a series of special exhibitions. The kickoff begins in October with a show of Klimt’s paintings alongside architect Josef Hoffmann’s work at the Belvedere. Constructed for Prince Eugene of Savoy which served as his summer residence, this magnificent baroque palace is home to the world’s largest collection of Klimt’s including his most famous painting “The Kiss”.
Other exhibitions taking place in Vienna include the Museum of Fine Arts which will showcase items from the painter’s middle period of 1886-1897 and the Albertina which will display 170 works of his unique drawings. Klimt’s last and only surviving studio located in the suburb of Hietzing will also reopen to the public this summer.
Klimt’s work is often distinguished by elegant gold or colored decoration, spirals and swirls, and phallic shapes used to conceal the more erotic positions of the drawings upon which many of his paintings are based. One of the most common themes Klimt used was that of the femme fatale.
In 1917, he was made an honorary member the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts. On January 11th of the following year, at the age of 55, Klimt suffered a stroke while working in his apartment. Weakened from the stroke, and suffering from pneumonia, he died less than a month later, on February 6th, 1918. He left many unfinished paintings behind him, among them The Bride and Adam and Eve.
For more information on Klimt exhibitions in Vienna, visit the official online travel guide for the City of Vienna.
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Suzanne Urpecz, creator and editor of The Hungarian Girl. Click on my About page for more info.
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I love Gustav Klimts art.
I was thinking about this picture and how I’ve loved it so. My first husband and I had this in our first home in tribut to “us” and we laughed saying how it even looked like us we were so young and in love. We both loved Gustav Klimt, after the awful divorce my daughter in a 14 year old angst decided to steal it from him. I, in the mean time made my own homage to Klimt with a “detail” from “The Three Ages of A Woman”, oh how I loved my children and in tribute showed that with the young woman holding the baby (which that was not the symbolism AT ALL but that’s what I took from it if you chop it apart…I have blonde hair my children have brown hair she’s holding a baby with loving care). But I saw the print of “The Kiss” and my daughter holding it about to put it on her wall, I almost fell apart. She said I’ve always loved it, and you bought me this necklace which was the circles from the gown, and didn’t realize she recognized it, but she did. “I wanted this print so I got it” she said “I love it, and always will”…the kiss what a beauty to behold