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GUSTAVE KLIMT
born the 14 July 1862 To Baumgarten in Austria and dead the 6 February 1918 To Vienna , is a painter symbolist Austrian , and one of the most prominent members of the Art Nouveau and some Vienna Secession .
Painter of figures, allegorical subjects, nudes, portraits, landscapes, he is also designer , decorator , painter of cardboard boxes tapestries and of mosaics , ceramist and lithographer .
Youth and beginnings :
The second child of a family of seven, Gustav Klimt was born in Baumgarten the 14 July 1862 , near Vienna . Son of Ernst Klimt ( 1834 - 1892 ), a goldsmith chisel of precious metals, and Anne Finster ( 1836 - 1915 ), who always dreamed of being an opera singer, Gustav grew up in poverty. Her father, who is of Czech origin and does not speak German well, does not have the necessary contacts to earn enough money to support his family properly. The family lives in the same room. When Gustav was only 12 years old, his sister, Anna, 5, died of a childhood illness . Partly in school, Gustav is the target of other students and feels rejected, immersing himself in drawing. With his brother Ernst , he begins to help their father in his work as a goldsmith. In 1876 , at the age of 14, he enrolled at the Vienna School of Applied Arts , Ernst joining him a year later in 187 2 . There are students of Ferdinand Laufberger and of Julius Victor Berger . Together, they draw portraits from photographs that they sell.
In 1879, he started as a decorator in the team of Hans makart . The same year, the Klimt brothers and their friend Franz Matsch decorate the inner courtyard of the Museum of Art History .
In 1880, Gustav Klimt joined the Künstlerhaus (the Company of artists), influential intermediary between the artists and their public, who was in charge of helping them. The most important event in these years is the completion of the decoration of the pendants of the grand staircase of the Museum of Art History, which he carries out despite the death of the master builder of this work, Hans Makart , work which further consolidates his reputation. That same year, the trio went on to order: four allegories for the ceiling of the Sturany Palace in Vienna, ceiling of the thermal baths Karlsbad .
In 1883, he created a collective workshop called Künstler-Compagnie and worked with his brother Ernst Klimt , who is a goldsmith and chaser, and Franz Matsch . The trio in particular produced numerous frescoes, allegories and emblems in an academic style; the accuracy of Klimt's portraits is renowned. He was entrusted with the decoration of walls and ceilings of villas but also of theaters and public buildings. In 1885, he decorated the villa Hermès , in the Lainzer Tiergarten , after drawings by Hans Makart , the theater of Carlsbad in 1886, the ceilings of the Fiume in 1893. Between 1886 and 1888, he painted the staircase of Burgtheater in Vienna and Klimt's style begins to differentiate itself from that of his brother Ernst Klimt and that of Franz Matsch . Now everyone works for their own account.
Gustav Klimt's artistic qualities are officially recognized and he receives, in 1888 , at the age of 26, the golden cross of artistic merit from the hands of the emperor Francois-Joseph . In 1890, he decorated the grand staircase of the Art History museum and received the emperor's prize for the work depicting La Salle in the Old Burgtheater, Vienna. Thus, until 1890, Gustav Klimt had an early career made of a solid reputation as a decorative painter responding to official requests from architectural paintings . Subsequently, his art becomes modern. He expresses himself completely and freely, as the inscriptions on the painting Nuda Veritas indicate: “If we cannot by our actions and our art please everyone, we must choose to please the few. Pleasing many is not a solution. "
In 1892, his father died of apoplexy ; his brother Ernst Klimt also dies the same year, which causes the dissolution of the Company 7 .
1890s : meeting Emilie Flöge and breaking with academicism:
From his first personal orders (the pendants from the grand staircase Museum of Art History ), it emerges from academic models, inspired by Japanese prints, the symbolism and impressionism French.
He takes for companion Emilie Flöge , who runs a fashion house, and in these early 1890s approached writers Arthur Schnitzler , Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Hermann Bahr . In 1895, during an exhibition in Vienna, he discovered the works of Max Liebermann , Félicien Rops , Julius Klinger , Arnold böcklin and Auguste Rodin .
In 1892 , on the death of his brother, he had to ensure the financial security of his family. He begins his break with academism . In 1893, the Minister of Culture refused his appointment to the Chair of Fine Arts History Painting.
In 1894 he was charged with Franz Matsch of the decoration of the aula magna of the university and realizes three monumental works . The following year, Klimt received at Antwerp the grand prize for the decoration of the auditorium of the theater of the Esterházy castle in Totis (Hungary).
With several of his friends, including Koloman Moser , Joseph Maria Olbrich , Carl Moll , Josef Hoffmann , Max Kurzweil , Josef engelhart (of) and Ernst Stöhr , he created on April 3, 1897 the group of secessionists who founded in January 1898 an art review entitled Sacrum worm ("Sacred Spring"). The group aims to build a building dedicated to the arts. Klimt took part in the same year in the founding of the Union of figurative artists, called the Vienna Secession with 19 artists from the Künstlerhaus. This separation marks the desire for novelty of Klimt and a multitude of other artists in the face of the "inflexible resistance to change" of Viennese academicism, responsible for a real artistic "obscurantism". For its part, the Künstlerhaus does not really set up a transmission between innovative foreign artists and their Austrian colleagues.
He became president of this association, the objective of which was to reform the artistic life of the time and to produce works of art which elevated “Austrian art to international recognition to which it aspired”. It is also a question of bridging the gap between the so-called minor arts, of bringing together utilitarian objects and works of art - to create a total work of art , according to a quote from Wagner -, transforming the world by means of the arts. The arts must raise awareness and move away from any compromise with established art and academicism.
This foundation is in a way the response to the movement Art Nouveau in France and Jugendstil which is developing in Germany. The review Ver sacrum becomes the means of expression of the Secession, and the spokesperson of this desire to change the world. Josef maria olbrich manages to realize the building dedicated to the arts desired by Klimt, the Secession Palace , which gives young figurative artists a permanent exhibition space for their works, and crystallizes the group's ideas as a sort of manifesto: “Each era has its art, all art has its freedom. ".
From 1897 Klimt began to spend his summers with Emilie Flöge in the Kammer and the Attersee region , where he painted his first landscapes.
In 1898, he created a poster for the first exhibition and the opening of Secession 4 . It represents Theseus , completely naked, slaying the Minotaur . This poster is censored by the Viennese authorities, the genitals of Theseus being covered, which does not fail to irritate Klimt.
1900-1907 : Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence:
The philosophy
Philosophy (work destroyed in 1945 by the Nazis).
During the year 1900, during the seventh Secession exhibition, Klimt presented his painting entitled La Philosophie, which was the first of three preparatory paintings, with Medicine and Jurisprudence, which had been commissioned in 1886 to illustrate the vaults of the ceiling of the aula magna, the reception hall of the University of Vienna . He chooses to represent Philosophy in the form of a sphinx with blurred outlines, her head lost in the stars, while all around her unfold all the cycles of life, from birth to old age, including the embraces of love. On the left, in the foreground, knowledge takes on the features of a femme fatale staring at the viewer with cold, dark eyes.
This painting is the subject of severe criticism from university authorities, who expected a classic representation of the subject, and who then consider this allegory as a provocation to libertinism and an attack on good morals. The violent criticism of the press accuses Klimt of violating teaching and wanting to pervert the youth. We reproach him for his too erotic paintings, and we wonder about his mental health and his attacks of depression. "He is stocky, we write, a little heavy, athletic ... to lengthen his face no doubt, he wears his hair back and thrown back very high above the temples. It is the only sign that could think that this man is an artist. "
Criticized by 87 university professors who refused when they discovered it at the Secession exhibition, La Philosophie received a gold medal in 1900 at the Universal Exhibition in Paris 4 .
Medicine and Jurisprudence
The following compositions, Medicine and Jurisprudence unleash and amplify criticism.
The 1901 Secession exhibition saw a new scandal, and this time, it was the deputies who challenged the Minister of Education about Medicine. This is represented by a woman who offers her body, alongside the representations of Suffering and Death. We can recognize the woman at the bottom of the canvas by the attributes represented by the painter, in particular the snake which advances on her arm to drink from the cup which she holds in her left hand. It is about Hygieia, goddess in the Greek mythology of the health, the cleanliness and the hygiene. She is the daughter of Asclepius, god of medicine. Jurisprudence, for its part, is represented by a criminal in the grip of his instincts, while Justice remains frozen and impassive enshrined in a mosaic of Byzantine inspiration.
Klimt had to give up seeing his paintings decorate the aula magna , without however giving up his aesthetic invention.
The Beethoven frieze
The Beethoven frieze is presented for the first time by Klimt in 1902: during the fourteenth exhibition of the Secession, devoted to the music of Beethoven , Klimt exhibits a wall fresco 34.14 m long by 2.15 m high in seven panels, representing the Ninth Symphony , intended to illustrate a setting for the architect Josef Hoffmann , responsible for creating a monument in memory of the musician. Intended only for the exhibition, the frieze was painted directly on the walls. This work is approved by Gustav Mahler himself: for him, it represents the aspiration for happiness of suffering humanity, which seeks its appeasement in the arts. In his mind, Klimt realizes a total work of art , bringing together painting with music and architecture (through the use of space, the three walls, the high frieze, and the Secession building). This work is again the subject of violent criticism in the name of morality. But she is appreciated by Auguste Rodin which he met in 1902.
The frieze was acquired in 1907 by Carl Reininghaus then, in 1915, by the family of the Austrian Jewish industrialist August Lederer . After its spoliation by the Nazis , the Austrian State returned it to the Lederers, accompanying this restitution with an export ban, then finally bought it in 1972, after long negotiations, for 15 million schillings (nearly a million euros). 'euros). The frieze is on display in the Secession Palace since 1986. A faithful reconstruction was presented in 2015, in Paris, during the exhibition “Au temps de Klimt. The Secession in Vienna ”, at the Pinacoteca of Paris .
The Golden Cycle
The years 1902-1903 were a turning point in Klimt's work, and a period of intense creativity. He begins the realization of the Golden Cycle (or “golden period”), with the Water Serpents, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer and Danaé.
In 1903, Klimt visited Venice , Ravenna and Florence . The panels for the aula magna were placed at the Österreichische Galerie , Klimt protested and bought the panels back from the ministry in 1905. In 1903 the Klimt retrospective also took place at the Secession Palace.
In 1904, the Belgian banker Adolphe Stoclet commissioned him to create the wall mosaics for the dining room of a luxurious palace he built in Brussels on the architect's plans Josef Hoffmann . Klimt draws the boxes that the Wiener Werkstätte . Klimt's decorative richness is evident in L'Attente and L'Accomplissement, which he produced for Adolphe Stoclet.
The Kiss and the end of the Secession
The Kiss (1906-1908), oil on canvas, 180 × 180 cm, Vienna , Österreichische Galerie Belvedere .
Main article: The Kiss (Klimt) .
The Kiss, which is the most representative painting of Gustav Klimt's genius and which he painted in 1906, will be reproduced in the theme of The Accomplishment for the fresco by Adolphe Stoclet .
In 1907, Klimt met the young painter Egon schiele (1890-1918) that he will greatly influence: Klimt will be for him a model and a master.
From 1905, faced with disagreements with many of the group's artists, he and several of his friends left the Secession. He withdraws in 1905 with Carl Moll , while Josef hoffmann and Koloman Moser founded the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese workshop) in 1907-1908. In 1908, Klimt exhibited 16 canvases at the Kunstchau ; the Galleria d'arte moderna purchased The Three Ages of Woman and the Österreichische Staatsgalerie buys Le Baiser.
He cleans up his style, avoiding gold from 1909 . Klimt goes to Paris where he discovers with interest the work of Toulouse-Lautrec . He also discovers the fauvism and its precursors: Vincent van Gogh , Edvard Munch , Jan Toorop , Paul Gauguin , Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse are exposed to the Kunstschau Wien 1908 . He then devoted himself to painting landscapes or highly ornamented allegorical scenes, increasingly stylized and in bright colors, which brought him closer to the pointillism of Seurat , but also Van Gogh and Bonnard. In 1909, he started the Frise Stoclet.
End of career: decorator
He is more interested in intimate painting and portraits. He produced large-scale paintings of women, with richly decorated compositions, to flatter a wealthy and bourgeois clientele who commissioned him, and he also produced numerous scenes of naked women or with languid and erotic poses, in extravagant outfits in asymmetrical compositions, without relief and without perspectives, rich in a shimmering, invasive and sensual ornamentation.
In 1910 Klimt participated in the 9th Venice Biennale , where he rediscovers the success and notoriety of before the aula magna. He resumed the title of decorator, painter of the Austrian intelligentsia and inventor of decorative art.
In 1911, Life and death receives the 1st prize at the International Exhibition in Rome . Klimt travels to Florence , Rome , Brussels , London and Madrid . In 1912, he replaced with a blue background the gold background of Life and Death.
His mother died in 1915, the artist's palette darkened, his landscapes tend towards monochrome.
In 1916, Klimt participated with Egon Schiele , Oskar Kokoschka and Anton Faistauer at the Bund Österreichischer Künstler exhibition at the Berlin Secession.
In 1917, the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the one at Munich appoint him honorary member. Klimt begins The Bride and Adam and Eve.
Klimt is struck with a stroke . He died on January 11, 1918 in Vienna, he was affected by the flu epidemic fatal that occurred that year.
He is buried in this same city at Hietzing cemetery in Vienna. He leaves many paintings unfinished.
Single, he lives with his mother and sisters. However, he has many mistresses, notably Emilie Flöge , whom he met at the start of the 1890s . She will be his main companion until the end of his life. Fourteen children will be born from his many conquests.