Synopsis
<div>GUSTAV KLIMT - THE WORLD ""IN FEMALE FORM."" GUSTAV KLIMT'S ART IS THROUGHLY FIN DE SIECLE. IT EXPRESSES THE APOCALYPTIC ATMOSPHERE OF VIENNA S UPPER MIDDLE-CLASS SOCIETY - A SOCIETY DEVOTED TO THE CULTIVATION OF AESTHETIC AWARENESS AND THE CULT OF PLEASURE. THE ECSTATIC JOY WHICH KLIMT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES FOUND - OR HOPED TO FIND - IN BEAUTY WAS CONSTANTLY OVERSHADOWED BY DEATH. AND DEATH THEREFORE PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN KLIMT'S ART. KLIMT'S FAME, HOWEVER, RESTS ON HIS REPUTATION AS ONE OF THE GREATEST EROTIC PAINTERS AND GRAPHIC ARTISTS OF HIS TIMES. PARTICULARLY HIS DRAWINGS, WHICH HAVE BEEN WIDELY ADMIRED FOR THEIR ARTISTIC EXCELLENCE, ARE DOMINATED BY THE EROTIC PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN, KLIMT SAW THE WORLD ""IN FEMALE FORM."" GOTTFRIED FLIEDL ALSO DISCUSSES THE SECESSION MOVEMENT AND KLIMT'S ROLE WITHIN THIS GROUP OF ARTISTS. EXAMINING KLIMT'S WORK AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF HIS TIMES, HE GIVES AN APPRAISAL OF THE ARTIST WHILE AT THE SAME TIME RAISING THE CRITICAL ISSUES.</div>
Présentation de l'éditeur
Gold, flowers, and female beauty
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 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 a number of subjects dealing with sensuality and desire as well as 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.
About the Series:
Each book in TASCHEN s Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
a concise biography
approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions
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