Gustav Klimt - 1862-1918 The World in Female Form

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Gottfried Fliedl
GusTAv Klimt
I862-I9I8
The World
in
Female Form
TASCHEN
KdLN LONDON MADRID NEW VORK PARIS TOKYO
Illustration Page
2:
Lady with Hat and Feather Boa, 1909
Dame
Oil
mit Hut und Federboa
on canvas, 69
x 55
cm
Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna
1998 Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH

Hohenzollemring 53, D-50672 Koln
Cover design: Angelika Taschen, Cologne

English translation:
Hugh
Printed in South Korea
ISBN 3-8228-72i}-X
Beyer
Contents
Introduction:
126
Hope
140
Judith
144
The
154
The Break-Up of the
Klimt's Popularity
II
i6
Klimt's
Fame
Klimt's Vienna -
Stoclet Frieze
Then and
Now
Secession and the 1908
28
Years of Training
34
Early
Works and
Kunstschau exhibition
166
the
Beginning of a Career
"I'm not particularly

interesting"
50
Early Portraits
172
Landscapes
58
"Oedipal Revolt" -
188
"Solitary Dialogues":
Klimt's Erotic Drawings
the Secession
200
68
Modernity
76
The
90
Early Landscapes
97
The Secession Building and
"The World in Female
Form"
its
Faculty Paintings
Exhibitions
104
The Beethoven
114
The
120
The Three Ages of Woman
Frieze
Kiss
208
Danae
210
Ladies' Portraits
224
Late
230
Chronology
234
Notes
238
Bibliography
Works
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Introduction - Klimt's Popularity
Summer
1977.
journey from Athens
to Vienna. With all the

about forty hours to reach Vienna. I
sharing a compartment with a young Japanese lecturer at some art
usual delays,
am
college,
who
it
is
rail
will take the train
travelling to the
Far Eastern travellers
going
to
do Europe
uninterrupted
aims
in
rail
Vienna:
who
same
perfectly
in six days,
place.
fits
He
is
one
of those typical
the standard cliche.
He
is
with ten hours for Vienna - after an
journey of two days and one night. He only has two

see Otto Wagner's architecture and - Gustav
to
Klimt's paintings.
worldwide popularity could be illustrated with many similar episodes. It can be seen in the undivided appreciation of a very
broad international public as well as those with an academic interest
in art and social history. It is likely that no other Modernist artist has
ever enjoyed such broad and lasting popularity. (For the time being,
we shall refrain from giving a precise definition of the term 'Modernism' and how far it can be applied to Klimt's work).
Many of his works have been shown so frequently in the mass
media that not even Dali, Beuys, Picasso or Warhol - to name but a few
- can compete with Klimt for media coverage. None of these artists is
currently being used so many thousands of times as an advertising
vehicle or an object of advertising. The never-ending fascination of
Klimt's art can be seen in the innumerable uses to which his works are
put. In Austria, in particular, they can be found in the most unexpected
contexts. If you wish, you can have your bathroom decorated with
Klimt tiles, or you can adorn your sitting-room with some hand-made
Klimt embroidery, which is of course also available as a ready-made
petit point picture. Klimt's major works can easily be taken home in
the form of posters, stained glass or postcards. Art Nouveau's discovery of the female body and nudity as an advertising medium can still
be felt today. The eroticism and preciousness of Klimt's work is an
Klimt's
Naked
Lovers, Standing, around 1908
Pencil,
55 x 35
Historical
cm
Museum, Vienna
inexhaustible source for advertisers.

Austria's
most widely read tabloid paper,
for
example, has used
Klimt's art to advertise for a series on Austrian love
life.
For the
New
Year concert of the Vienna Philharmonic, which is always televised

worldwide, Klimt's painting The Kiss (p. 117) was re-enacted as a 'live
A popular publishing house may want to use Klimt's art to

enhance the visual appeal of its latest book. And posters of his paintings even serve to advertise the financial rehability of a bank. Again
and again, motifs from Klimt's works are used. His art, which has been
painting'.
The Beethoven Frieze (detail), 1902

Der Beethoven-Fries
Casein paint on plaster, 220 cm high
Austrian Gallery, Vienna
duplicated and modified
many times by the mass media, has been well
able to cross social barriers. Paintings like The Kiss can be found as
elegant decorations in typical middle-class sitting-rooms and also in
the form of cheap posters in students' bedsitters.
The Austrian Ministry of Education has always taken a great interest in Klimt's oeuvre as well. The purchase of his Beethoven Frieze
the
(pp. 104f.) by the state and the long and costly restoration of
the Federal Office for the
painting by the Bundesdenkmalamt
Preservation of Historical Monuments - clearly show that Klimt is
recognized as a great Austrian artist. Austria's former chancellor Bruno Kreisky specifically urged the restoration and pubhc
officially
presentation of this mural, which had originally been created for the
Viennese Secession. Using his personal influence in speeches and
emphasized that the frieze was the work of an artist who

had hardly been recognized at all at the time and who was finally
being honoured as a genius.
While it was being restored, the frieze was also copied to scale, for
the purpose of various exhibitions. This procedure meant that the
original became a self-contained monument. Initially it had only
served as part of a larger exhibition that was planned as a work of art in
itself. After the Secession exhibition it would simply have been disessays, he
was produced very cheaply. Since then, however, it has

become a lasting artistic monument and has returned to its original
place, the Secession building. However, it is no longer in the main hall,
which is still used for special exhibitions of the Secession, but has been
given a separate room in the basement.
All this evidence of Klimt's popularity makes it seem doubtful
carded, so
it
whether he should really be counted among the ranks of the great

Modernists whom he probably surpasses as far as the omnipresence of
his paintings goes. Names Uke Duchamp, Malevich, Mondrian and
Magritte stand for epoch-making changes and exemplary developments in Modernist art. It is difficult to say if the same is true for Klimt
and whether his art, too, contains new, pioneering artistic options with
new, critical insights into reality.
When Hans HoUein staged his spectacular exhibition Dream and
Reahty (Vienna 1986), Klimt's main works provided some of its focal
points and The Kiss was almost displayed like an object of worship.
However, in the context of this tense contrast of Dream and ReaUty,
nobody would have wanted to see Klimt's art as part of ReaUty.

Although he witnessed the disastrous breakdown of an empire and
the end-of -the- world experiment of an entire culture, his work is far
more the
ecstatic reflection of fin-de-siecle society than a critical,
clear-sighted discussion of social reality at the time of the disintegrat-
Habsburg monarchy. Even during his lifetime he was simply

regarded as decadent - a typical representative of the decay and
dechne that prevailed at the turn of the century. With the renewed
interest in the culture of the declining Habsburg monarchy, this
ing
has disappeared almost altogether.

enquire into Klimt's position as an artist,
should add a further question: does Klimt fit into 20th-century
assessment
of Klimt
However, when we
we
art
Water Serpents II, 1904-1907

Wdsserschlangen II
Oil on canvas, 80 x 145 cm
Private collection, Vienna
history at all?
There can be no doubt that most
of his
important works
were painted in this century. But his training, the beginning of his
career and thus the crucial factors that influenced his later development as an artist reach far back into the 19th century - the heyday of
bourgeois liberalism in the 1870s and 1880s. Moreover, considering
that his art claimed to go against historicism and the tide of rapid
industrialization, does it not somehow hark back to a cultural period
that disappeared altogether with the decline of the Habsburg
monarchy?
Art historians, of course, see Klimt mainly as a member and sponsor of the Secession, which rebelled against antiquated ideas in the
world of art and decisively influenced the breakthrough of Modernism
in Vienna. He is seen as a painter and graphic artist who opened up
new artistic possibilities and who identified - both politically and as a
painter - with the young, rebellious generation of
sometimes reflected
works,
e.g. his
in
artists.
an almost propaganda-like quality
Secession exhibition poster. All
this,
is
of his
together with his
occasional practical involvement as the head, organizer and

rather taciturn -
This
albeit
spokesman of the group, makes him one of the

pioneers of Modernism.
Klimt has even been called an avant-garde artist. If we define the
avant-garde as artistic, social and at the same time political rebellion,
then at first sight it does indeed seem to apply to an artist like Klimt. In
a major article, the American cultural historian Carl Schorske has
interpreted Klimt' s life and work as a protest, a revolt against his
father's generation and their art. Schorske sees the accompanying
conflicts as a 'crisis of the liberal ego', a personality crisis
deep traces
work. However,
in Klimt's
we
will see that the
which
left
alhance
of
- which only lasted a few years

anyway - was politically conservative, mixed with a mood of artistic
change, so that it cannot be viewed as progressive in character except
in a very Hmited sense. It was part of the paradoxical situation in
Vienna at the time that the state was convinced that art as a medium
was still unadulterated by all political antagonisms. However, this
Secessionist artists
and
state politics
soon turned out to be a mistake. The Austrian minister of education, in

particular, was convinced that art could express the concept of the
state - its unity and that of the nations - in an unbroken form, irrespective of all social and ethnic crises. Many artists did indeed identify with
endeavours and allowed themselves and

even their future ambitions to become subservient to this concept of
the state and, occasionally, also to the monarchy.
Apparently, then, there was considerable antagonism between
commitment to aesthetic rebeUion and a truce with the ruUng culture,
between avant-gardists and decadence artists, who had once been in
disgrace and were now admired and widely sponsored. The former
had found their organizational backing in the Secession and - later -
patriotic cultural
and
artistic
in other associations.
Such antagonism poses a number
of
questions
which will be discussed in the following chapters. Questions about

Khmt's fascination, popularity and topicality lead to these very artistic
and cultural problems, which are expressed in his work. They have
survived and are still regarded with keen interest.
Klimt's fame is still growing. Art historians have developed
increasingly accurate research methods to analyse important aspects
of his work, and reproduction techniques are becoming yet more
perfect, thus enhancing the sensory fascination of his paintings.
Large-scale exhibitons in Venice, Vienna, Paris and New York,
devoted entirely to the history of art and culture under the Habsburg
monarchy at the turn of the century, have kindled a renewed interest
in Khmt's work. To a large extent, his popular appeal has always been
due to the art market. In the same year that he died a large exhibition
of Klimt's drawings was organized at Gustav Nebehay's gallery, and
even today's great art dealers enthusiastically continue to display his
work everywhere in the world.
In 1908, with the Kunstschau exhibition, Khmt was at the height of
his career. The exhibition, which contained several of Klimt's works as
its highhghts, was described as a "festive garment" for the artist. The
magazine Die Fackel, where Karl Kraus had written a number of
sneeringly caustic remarks about him, also contained an article by
Otto Stoessel, in which he said, "Despite his brilhant gifts and his most
^
exquisite hyper-refinement of expertise, Klimt
dreadful state of affairs called

thing that
critic
10
is
been
relative
so wrong.
'taste',
fell
victim to this
thus sharing the fate of every-
and passes away with time."
Hardly ever has a
"I'm not very good at the spoken or the

written word, particularly not if I'm supposed to say something about myself or
my work. (...) If anyone wants to find out
anything about me as an artist who is

worth considering as a person, then he
should have a good look at my paintings
and try to find out from them who am
1
and what
my intentions are.
"
Gustav Kiimt
Fame
Klimt's
In order to understand Klimt, we must bear in mind that he is still

surrounded by a number of cliches which have tenaciously persisted
in playing an important role and which started when he was still alive.
One of them is that of the unappreciated, misunderstood - even
persecuted - artist. "Gustav Klimt," wrote the former director the
Albertina Graphics Collection in Vienna, "used to meet with bitter
rejection in his time. Given the historical and socio-historical situation,
this was inevitable. It was a world in which all academic teachings of
beauty were gradually losing their credibility and people were holding on, with all their strength, to things that were familiar. This world
was bound to express its aggression with vehemence. After all, it felt
that not only its aesthetics were being threatened." It remains to be
seen how far the standard concept of an artist who was in opposition to
'
his times actually
fits
ning of his career,
when Klimt did indeed become a controversial topic
Klimt.
It
certainly arose quite early, at the begin-
Vienna's cultural circles. In 1903 a book called Gegen Klimt

(Against Klimt) was published by Hermann Bahr, a card-carrying
in
member
Secession
of the
who
frequently wrote for the association.
The book consisted entirely of polemical outbursts against the painter,
Nude Woman, Standing and Leaning on
whom
Her Elbows, from the Left, around 1900

Red chalk, 32 X 45 cm
Historical Museum, Vienna
he labelled an "outlaw".
Bahr had already stylized Klimt as a persecuted
artist
as early as
1901. Klimt's sketches of his so-called Faculty Paintings (pp. 76f.) for
had given rise to some controversy, which

prompted Bahr to depict the artist as an unrecognized, misunderstood
genius who had to face a hostile public and whose only obligation was
to his own art. "There is a young artist who is becoming known
rapidly, who is given the respect of other artists, of connoisseurs and of
laymen and who gets clients
someone who is very likely, as they
the University of Vienna
say, to
make
if quickly.
He
has the most marvellous future in front of
him, in a few years' time he will be a professor - and then he can
probably
is
down to a quiet life. But that does not appeal to him. He

He feels he can do more. He feels that he has never
settle
dissatisfied.
really given himself
language, as
realize
what
it
it
and
were.
is
that
He
that he has only ever painted in a foreign

can't bear
makes an
it
artist
any more. Only now does he

- the power to show his own
unique inner world, which has never existed before him, nor will ever
exist after him. So this is what he wants to do. He wants to be unique.
He goes through a tremendous crisis until he has eradicated everything alien, has acquired all his means of expression and has finally
But suddenly something unexpected happens: not only is he misunderstood - no, ignorance runs out into the
streets and rants and raves against him. People turn against him, using
become
his
the crudest
own
artist
means
of pohtical agitation.
suspected, slandered, and
all
He
is
personally denounced,
the instincts of the
common crowd
are
." *
up against him
Bahr's speech was immediately printed and pubUcized
stirred
in the
form
promoted the idea of a lonely artist pitted

against society, an autonomous, creative individual, not tied to traditions, independent of any influences, who necessarily has to face
hostility because of his rebeUious art, which is the very embodiment of
progress. The idea of an artist who has to pay for his mission with social
ostracism is a stereotype with which the 19th century, in particular,
tried to determine the role of an artist in an ambiguous way. It is
pamphlet.
of a
It
cleverly
should have survived so powerfully until the present

day. Klimt was a prominent member of the Secession and, from time to
time, its chairman. And although this artists' association systematically rejected all traditional forms of art, it enjoyed the highest possible
amazing
bers
it
A contemporary painting shows
favour.
artists
that
with Kaiser Franz Joseph
I:
an audience of the Secession

Klimt is seen introducing the mem-
of the artists' association to the ruler, in particular the
Rudolf von
Alt.
The value
of this picture is
ancient
more than anecdotal,
for
it
Although some
members of the Imperial family completely rejected it, this audience
proved the national and political significance of the association, a
status which it enjoyed for several years, mainly because of the pat-
illustrates the political recognition of the Secession.
ronage that was given
it by the minister of education, Hartel.

monarchy
had reached the height of its crisis
When the Habsburg
and when social, national and economic problems seemed to have
become intricately connected and therefore unsolvable, it was felt that
art - and culture in general - was a force which could create harmony
between all the disparate groups within society. The artists' association was therefore given considerable support by the state. The picture of the audience may seem insignificant, but it is a pictorial document of this political hope as well as the attempt to combine political
conservatism and aesthetic progress. This alliance was very much in
agreement with the "mission" that the Secession had given itself: it
was their aim to achieve both the aesthetic enhancement of life and
the popularization of
to
art.
he certainly enjoyed public recognition both

personally and as an artist. The failure of a large-scale project such as
his Allegories of Faculties for the University of Vienna is insufficient to
prove that he was an unrecognized, "sub-cultural" artist. This
extremely prestigious commission did of course trigger off a quarrel
that was preceded by many other arguments about large public buildings on Vienna's Ringstrasse. Indeed, it finally resulted in the complete cessation of work for the Austrian state. However, after 1900,
As
Klimt
for Klimt himself,
still
had no
difficulties in attracting the
support of patrons,
leading art critics and journalists. Access to the upper echelons of

society
12
was open
to
him ever since
his brother
had married Helene
w^
;,,&.--i-r^-
4
'''*^..
Music I. 1895
Die Musik
Floge, and, most importantly, Klimt continually received important
Bavarian State Collection of Paintings,

Ncue Pinakothek, Munich
World Fair, a
year later the Bavarian State Collection of Paintings bought his painting Music (1895; p. 13), and in 1902 his first drawings were purchased
by the celebrated Albertina Graphic Collection in Vienna. The 18th
exhibition of the Secession (1903) was devoted entirely to Klimt, and in
1908 the Kunstschau exhibition celebrated his art by giving him an
entire hall. In 1905, he was given the Villa Romana Award of the
commissions, so that he never had

In 1900 Klimt
German
was awarded
Artists' Association. In
to suffer material hardship.
a gold
medal
at the Paris
1906 he became honorary
member
of
Academy of Fine Arts, and, shortly before his

Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, although the latter
the Royal Bavarian

death, of the
never awarded him a professorship during his
The
who
real reason
why
lifetime.
Klimt was stylized as an unrecognized
did not receive fame until
much
later was,
among
other things,
the continuing public apathy towards his most significant works
lack of enthusiasm for showing them in
covery of the
artist,
which accompanied,
museums. The proud

for
artist
and
redis-
example, the restoration

13
Lovers, from the Right, 1914
cm
Owner unknown
Pencil, 37 x 56
i.^
and display
endeavour
of his
Beethoven Frieze
(pp. 104f.) reflected not only the
of pohticians to boost their popularity with cultural

achievements, but also their desire to make amends in a special way.
UntU twenty years ago nobody saw anything problematic in the fact
Beethoven Frieze lay in ruins at a depot, where it was

graduUy decaying, and even in 1960 the city of Linz decided against
spending 300,000 Austrian schilhngs on a portrait of Margarethe Stonborough-Wittgenstein (p. 217), which had been on loan to the Austthat Klimt's
rian Gallery.
and academic interest in the artist started while he was

stm ahve, with the first monograph pubhshed in 1920. In the 1960s this
culminated in an extensive rediscovery of Klimt, and since then nearly
every aspect of the artist's work has been covered. Also, a whole wave
of exhibitions on fin-de-siecle Vienna meant that Klimt was given a
degree of appreciation hitherto unknown. When Hans HoUein staged
his Dream and Reality exhibition, a Klimt cult hit Paris and New York,
comparable only to the 1908 Kunstschau.
However, the most important element of his fame is his reputation
as a master of eroticism. Nike Wagner has described him as the
"greatest erotic painter of his period" ^, Carl Schorske calls him the
"psychological painter of women" and "joyful discoverer of Eros" ^
Alessandra Comini speaks of him as a grand voyeur and says that his
entire work is dominated by an obsession with the erotic^. "Klimt was
a master of eroticism - not just among other things, but with such an
Literary
intensity that the erotic
element seems
to
exclude everything else,"
writes Gert Mattenklott. 'Whatever he perceived

in this perspective."
"Khmt's entire oeuvre is

dominates Modernism."
showed
itself to
him
Jacques Le Rider comments that

a homage to the matriarchal principle which
Finally,
One of the consequences of this assessment is that in the literature

14
on Klimt, both during his hfetime and later, there have always been
examples of an eroticizing language which aims to recreate his art or
even go beyond it. Other authors have pointed out that the erotic could
be regarded as a socio-political and culturally progressive force. Thus,
Klimt is seen as an artist who contributed considerably to the emancipation of
women and the rediscovery of the lost power of the erotic

artist who was critical of his time and its outmoded cul-
element, an
"Klimfs permanent achievement," wrote Hans Bisanz

in 1984, "is that he Uberated the artistic depiction of human beings
from the fetters of moraUty and opportunism and that he made visible,
by means of his style, the basic mental images of man's inner life,
images that point to the timeless element in the course of a person's
individual destiny." " And finally, as the quoted passage seems to
tural morality.
be seen as a psychologist, as someone who analysed psychological phenomena and who pursued similar aims to
indicate, Klimt can
Sigmund Freud.
Carl Schorske goes even further in his essay and
those of his great contemporary,

the
artist's
intentions
and those
of the
virtually
Secession with the
equates
scientific,
medical and therapeutic aims of Freud, both in relation to cultural

research and studying his own ego: "Klimt was a seeker and always
viewed
were questionable and problematic in

his own experience and in a given culture. Like Freud, he wanted to
find the answer to his bewilderment by delving into the depths of his
own soul and he often gave the answer much more readily to others by
revealing himself
Just as Freud had a passion for ancient culture
and archaeological excavations, Klimt used the symbols of antiquity
as metaphorical bridges and as a means of excavating one's instincts,
particularly the erotic ones. Having started as a high-society theatre
painter, he became a psychological painter of women
PQimt turned
to women as sensual creatures and drew everything out of them in
terms of lust, pain, life and death. In an unending stream of drawings,
critically the things that
Klimt tried
It is
to
gain a sense of femininity."
very tempting, of course,
and despised
and
^^
to link the
idea of the misunderstood
However, it is certainly not true that Klimt was ever rejected because of his liberally
erotic depictions. The only known case of prosecution concerned a
male nude - a Secession poster - which Klimt then changed by
covering the man's genitals with a thin little tree. On another occasion,
it was explicitly emphasized by the law court that artistic freedom
should take precedence over the demands of censorship in the Secession magazine Ver Sacrum. And although, in connection with his
ceiling paintings for the University of Vienna, indignation was partly
also directed at his nudes, most of the protest and eventually also the
rejection of his work was based on the contradiction between Klimt's
world view and the rational understanding of progress on the part of
artist
that of erotic obsession.
the bourgeosie, as well as their faith in science.
IS
Klimt's
Vienna - Then and Now
Above:
Steptten's Cathedral in the Foreground, around 1860

Water colour by Jakob Alt,
reproduced lithographically by Franz Sandmann
Photographic Archives of the Austrian National Library, Vienna
Part of Vienna, with
St.
Opposite, top and bottom:
Vienna, street scene, around 1900

Historical
Museum, Vienna
Opposite, middle:
Sachergarten Cafe with contemporary Austrian society,
Photographic Archives of the Austrian National Library,
16
Vienna
17
Vienna, visitors to the World Fair on the roof of the Rotunda, 1873
Photographic Archives of the Austrian National Library, Vienna
Vienna, World
Historicdl
Fair,
1893
Museum, Vienna
19
#3^5^
')':.
^.
J,
4!
Otto
Wagner Danube Canal

,
Regulation.
NewAspern and
Ferdinand Bridge, 1897

Pencil, Indian ink, watercolour, 98 x 72
20
cm
Wagner Karlsplat/. Iram Stop,

view with perspective, 1898,
otto
Pencil, Indian ink, watercolour, 65 x 46

cm
21
Kaiser Franz Josef Memorial, Burggarten
22
Roof figure on Majolica House,

linke Wienzeile, Vienna
23
Majolica House (designed by Otto Wagner), facade
Ornamental decorations on Majolica House
24
Burgtht'dter, 1874-1888 (designed
by Gottfried Semper and Carl Hasenauer)
Roof figures on the Burgtheater
25
Austrian Post Office Savings Bank (designed by Otto Wagner), 1904-1906
26
Roof figure on
tlie
Post Office Savings
Bank building
27
/*
.\ .'y^
'^r-j
Years of Training
Klimt -
who was
the second child
Baumgarten, a suburb
of
in
Vienna, on 14 July 1862. His father, Ernst
Klimt (1834-1892) was an engraver and
Bohemia who had moved
among seven - was born
came from a peasant family in
Vienna when he was eight. His mother,

Anna Klimt (nee Finster, 1836-1915), was from Vienna.
After eight years of schooling at the local Volks- und Biirgerschule
in the 7th
to
Administrative District of Vienna, Klimt joined the School of
Applied Art in 1867, at the age of 14. The college was attached to the
Royal and Imperial Austrian Museum for Art and Industry. Both
institutions had been founded at the height of liberal politics and
culture in the 1860s. After the South Kensington Museum in London, it
was the first continental European museum of applied art and the first
modern institute in Vienna which was based on middle-class educational philosophy. It was meant to do more than display exhibits to a
broad public. It aimed to provide, first and foremost, visual aids and
teaching for craft and industry. The most important educational aim of
the
museum
to raise the
"level of taste" in
all
areas of quality
manufacturing - was further promoted and strengthened with the

opening of the School of Applied Art. It was to supplement the direct
visual teaching on the development of art and applied art at the
museum
as well as
its
opportunities for studying artistic forms and
aimed to teach practical skills and knowledge, with a

view to combining forms of industrial craftsmanship and artistic work.
These two "cultural and industrial" institutions were to affect the
production, invention and "aesthetic refinement" - to use the language of the time - of handmade and industrial products. It was hoped
that this would also entail an economic advantage, as an aesthetically
well-designed product was expected to sell better and be more competitive on the international market. As, however, the highly
techniques.
It
specialized degree of artistic craftsmanship
made
Italian Renaissance, 1890/91

(detail
on the
right: child
with Dante
bust)
Intercolumniation painting at the

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Oil on plaster, ca. 230 x 40 cm
the production pro-
were not met. The school and the

and lasting influence on production.
However, the growing interest in applied art was not merely a
result of the newly-founded school and the systematic training which
cess rather expensive, these hopes
museum never had
it
a significant
offered. In the 1860s the political role of the liberally-minded middle
had become considerably strengthened and thus increased

their cultural assurance. An increasing number of private and public
buildings and works of art were commissioned by middle-class clients.
Both the museum and the school served the study and development of
classes
Italian Renaissance. 1890 91

Spandrel and mtercolumniation
paintings
at the Kunsthistorisches
Museum,
Vienna
Each spandrel painting,
ca.
230 x 230 cm
29
functional art forms by offering

training facilities.
The
tfie
relevant specialized range of
great public and private Ringstrasse building
innumerable and extensive decoration jobs,

offered a wide field of activities to an entire generation of artists.
Indeed Vienna's period of rapid industrial expansion was called "The
Ringstrasse Era". Many teachers and artists of the School of Apphed
projects,
wîth
their
Art were involved in important Ringstrasse projects. In their teaching
and theory they represented the artistic ideals of "eclectic" historicism

which made use of a variety of historical styles - although Vienna was
dominated by the Italian Renaissance style during the 1870s and 80s.
Together with other impressive governmental and educational
institutions, the School and Museum of Applied Art were also situated
on the Ringstrasse.
Klimt attended the obligatory preparatory classes of the
School of Applied Art, where he was taught by Michael Rieser, Lud-
At
first,
wig Minnigerode and Karl Hrachowina. He practised ornamental

drawing, copying three-dimensional and flat ornaments as well as
commercial objets dart. He also drew human figures from plaster
casts and paintings. Practical lessons were accompanied by lectures
on projection technique, perspective, style and other subjects. Subse30
Egyptian Art I and II,

Greek Antiquity I and II, 1890/91
Spandrel and intercolumniation
paintings
Museum,
Vienna
Oil on plaster,
Each spandrel painting ca. 230 x 230 cm
each intercolumniation painting,
ca.
230 X 80
cm
Roman and
quently Klimt was promoted to the specialized painters' class under

Ferdinand Lauf berger and, after his death in 1 88 1 under Julius Victor
Venetian Quattrocento,
1890/91
Spandrel and intercolumniation

paintings
Vienna
Oil on plaster,
Each spandrel painting
Berger, an artist working along similar lines to
Museum,
numerous frames
ca.
230 x 230
Hans Makart.
and Georg, who sculpted and chiselled

brother Gustav's paintings, were also trained
Klimt's brothers Ernst
cm
at the
for his
School of Applied Art. Interestingly, in the course of the general
drive for modernization at the turn of the century,
many
of the artists
who advocated free and unfettered artistic creativity were either close
had been trained there
were even on the teaching staff

educational reform under the Secessionist
Baron Felician von Myrbach, it was considered a most important
stronghold of the artistic doctrine of historicism. Teaching was dominated by the disciplined copying of originals, often involving methods
of slavish Naturalism (sometimes even using photographs!), and
Klimt's entrance examination consisted of making a drawing of an
ancient female head from a plaster cast. Doubts about the school's
teaching methods gradually increased during the first two decades of
its existence until they peaked in massive criticism. It was said that the
school was a mere drawing school, that it did not prepare students
sufficiently for their real jobs, that it failed to achieve its artistic and
to the school,
or
at a later stage. Until the
31
Male Nude
in
Walking Posture, from the
Right, 1877-1879
Pencil,
heightened with white,
43x27 cm
Historical
fciivri^'
economic mission of "raising the level of good taste" and that it

therefore did not produce an aesthetically mature culture that could
create competitive products for the national and international market.
Even at that time, there were critical voices about the aesthetic concept of historicism in general: "We are inundated by an unchanging
monotony of inane objects
menus, labels from bottles, matchboxes,
paper cigarette ends and all kinds of debris and rubbish, inevitably in
the form of hackneyed puttos, sphinxes, griffins and acanthius leaves
.
32
Museum, Vienna
Austrian Museum ol Art and Industry

Photographic Archives of the Austrian
Ndtional Library, Vienna
who have never seen or studied an original

and who only very superficially handle whatever formal nonsense
happens to be fashionable at the time." ^^
Attempts to achieve a reform, even while Khmt was at the School of
Applied Art, do not seem to have borne fruit. Practical reforms could
not be introduced until the school was firmly in the hands of the
Secessionists, who emphasized autonomous artistic creativity rather
.
sloppy work by people
than copying historical examples. Its representatives turned vehemently and angrily against the eclecticism of artistic production during the period of industrial expansion and against the educational
methods that served it - methods that were marked by a lack of

freedom and by mindless copying. Whatever one may think of this
criticism, it certainly lost sight of the beneficial elements that were
involved in learning through copying. Klimt's earlier works, in particular,
show
that his strict training, oriented towards historical pat-
and examples, as well as his vast gamut of artistic methods

provided a basis for his later development and indeed opened up a
career that was at first completely dominated by the historicist culture
of the Ringstrasse Era. Klimt's style was marked by a characteristic
contrast between excellent Modernist craftsmanship and abstract stylization, between decorative surface patterning and a confident
development of space, both in the statuary proportioning of figures
and in many of his drawings. Undoubtedly, this originated in the
broad spectrum of "applied art" as it was taught by the School of
Applied Art of the Royal and Imperial Austrian Museum for Art and
Industry, even though its aim had been quite different at the time.
terns
33
Early Works and the Beginning

of a Career
Klimt was the only student at the School of Applied Art whose educa-
Sf
launched him on a great artistic career before the 19th century

was out. Both his teachers and Rudolf von Eitelberger, the principal
and founder of the School, helped to promote his career. Together with
his fellow-student Franz Matsch and his brother Ernst, Klimt was
asked by his teacher Michael Rieser to work with him on the stained
tion
glass
windows
in the Votivkirche (Votive Church), the first large
building on the Ringstrasse. Thus, Rieser and
ported Klimt in becoming a painter.
Von
Eitelberger sup-
'''
and Franz Matsch (1861-1942) combined to

association which they called the Kiinstlercompagnie,
Klimt, his brothers
form an
artists'
which subsequently profited from the building boom of the late

Ringstrasse Era. At first, this was limited mainly to the more provincial
parts of the Habsburg Empire. All three found employment with a
company called Fellner & Hellmer, which specialized in building
theatres, and were involved, among other thing, in decorating theatres in Fiume, Reichenberg and Karlsbad (now Liberec and Karlovy
Vary, Czechoslovakia) and Bucharest.
Even after their training, all three kept up their contact with the
School of Applied Art and the head of the museum, who was highly
influential on the cultural scene. A letter, written by the three artists to
von Eitelberger in 1884, shows very clearly their attempt to establish
themselves on the Historicist art market. Diplomatically, they mentioned their faithful adherence to traditions and their efficiency as a
collective which even enabled them to take on larger commissions at
inexpensive prices. "Only now," they wrote among other things,
"after we have succeeded in establishing a studio ... do we take the
liberty. Your Honour, to submit to you, dear Herr Hofrath, a pro-
gramme
of
our association in as brief a version as possible
instructions of our teachers
[i.e.
wholesome and universal kind
Finished Drawing for the Allegory

Junius, 1896
Black chalk, washed pencil, gold,
heightened 42 x 31 cm
The
Laufberger and Berger] were of such a
we deem ourselves fortunate to

fact that we were students of the
that
have enjoyed them. In view of the

same masters and that each of us endeavours to uphold their inestimable teachings, we believe that we have embarked upon the right
path, although we will of course continue to cooperate with one
another and seek to promote this path by means of mutual correction.
... our corporate activity is of considerable advantage
as our
greater creative capacity enables us to deal with commissions swiftly
and the sum of our experience is constantly growing. Until now, our
.
.,
Love, 1895
Uebe
Oil
on canvas, 60 x 44 cm
Museum, Vienna
Historical
35
activity
has mainly been directed at the provinces and abroad;
it is
more extensive work in our

an opportunity exists at this very
moment, as Vienna's new^ monumental buildings are approaching
completion and decorative artwork in these buildings is probably only
accorded to their most significant parts, so that the most excellent
artists are fully occupied ..." ^^
Their "dearest desire" - to be involved in the great building tasks
on the Ringstrasse - was fulfilled. From 1886 to 1888 they worked on
the ceiling paintings of the two staircases at the Burgtheater. There
Klimt also painted his Thespian Cart, The Globe Theatre in London,
The Altar of Dionysius, Theatre in Taormina and The Altar of Venus
The Kiinstlercompognie also helped decorate the staircase of the
Court Museum of Art History, where Klimt had already been asked for
assistance with sgraffito work by his teacher Laufberger. The decoratherefore our dearest desire to carry out
native
city,
and
it
may be
that
tion of the
huge
staircase at the
museum was meant
to glorify the
Imperial court by showing the generosity of Imperial patronage, while

at the
same time serving

work was
as a self-representation of the bourgeoisie.
to be carried out by Hans Makart, but his

untimely death prevented the completion of his work. The Kiinstler-
Originally the
compognie was asked to paint the spandrels and intercolumniation,

i.e. the area between the columns (pp. 28f.), in accordance with a
programme designed by Albert Ilg, the principal of the applied art
collection of the museum. At the same time, they were to keep very
strictly to the spirit of historicism, to follow historical examples in all
their details and to study the exhibits of the museum.
Both jobs confronted Klimt and the other two painters with the
optimism and faith in progress of middle-class liberalism. The threedimensional decorations on the facades of the two museums as well as
the cycles of paintings which Klimt helped to create served to glorify
Fable. 1883
Fabel
Oil
on canvas, 85 x
Historical
M-,
17
cm
Museum, Vienna
Idyll,
1884
Idylle
the "triumphal march" of cultural progress by celebrating several
outstanding historical stages of development. The most appropriate
Oil
art
form
for this
ones own position was that of historical

many true-to-life and historically accurate details
conception
genre paintings. In
of
(costumes, interior design, ornaments,
etc.),
they recalled the past "as
was" so that the viewer could identify with it. Thus, the middle
classes could understand themselves and "their" century as the heir
and climax of epoch-making cultural achievements of the past. The
theatre and the world of the stage, for example, could be seen as the
worthy successor of Graeco-Roman and Shakespearean drama.
Significantly, Klimt not only helped to decorate the theatre, but
one of his commissions also involved portraying the audience of the
(old) Burgtheater, which he did in the spirit and with the insistence on
form that characterized the 19th-century middle classes. In 1887 the
Viennese City Council commissioned Klimt and Matsch to paint a
view of the interior of the old theatre, which was scheduled for demoUtion and where the last performance was to take place in 1888. His
painting Audience at the Old Burgtheater (p. 40), which provides
photographic details of Viennese society rather than the actual stage,
not only documents Klimt's identification with liberal middle-class
culture "', but also formed the basis of his own fame when he was given
the hnperial Award. Although his painting was competing with photo-
it
graphy, which was more suited for portrait studies,
it
was
of a
much
37
Upper Part ol a Recumbent Girl, from the

and Two Studies of Hands,
Right,
1886-1888
Black chalk, washed and highhghted in
white, 45x32 cm
Albertina, Vienna
Half-Length Portrait with Three-Quarter

View of an Older Man, from the Left.
(ceihng painting at the Burgtheater in
Vienna), 1886-1888
Black chalk, highhghted in white,
43 X 29 cm
Albertina,
38
Vienna
Head
of a Recumbent Man, Supporting

Himself (ceiling painting at the Burgtheater in Vienna), 1886-1888,
Black chalk, highlighted in white,
28 X 43 cm,
Albertina,
Vienna
higher quality.
said that Khmt produced several replicas for peramong the audience. In this collective portrait the
its own social and historical role, thus acting its own
It is
sonalities depicted
audience stages
part. By watching the stage, instead
members become
of
being mere spectators,
the real subjects of history, which
is
its
being staged
before their very eyes.
The photographic Naturalism

the desire of
many
of this "society painting" as well as
personalities to be included in
ledged and appreciated betray something of

persons were
members
to
its
it
and thus acknow-
function: the depicted
recognize themselves and be identified by others as
of that cultural elite which, shortly before the turn of the
century, regarded
itself as
the true force behind material and cultural
progress - and enjoyed being celebrated in this
The painting was
role.
helped him obtain

recognition among Vienna's high society, and even though this
appreciation was not shared by everyone, it was nevertheless wide
enough to help him through all later conflicts. His recognition showed
itself in the high award for the painting, after the artist had already
obtained the Golden Cross of Merit for his work on the Burgtheater
significant for Klimt in that
it
however, did not lure Klimt into unqualified

adherence to the cultural optimism of the liberal middle classes. With
his Faculty Paintings (pp. 76f.), at the latest, he refused to follow the
staircases. Public acclaim,
dominant self-image
of the
middle
classes,
which by then had already

39
become
rather shaky. With this refusal he questioned both his
identity as
an
artist
and the ideals
of artistic
own
monumentalism during
the time of greatest imperial confidence.
When
pubhsher commissioned Klimt to submit samples for a

"sumptuous work" of allegories and emblems, Klimt came into contact with the artistic - though this time allegorical - treatment of
typically historicist themes. The keynote of the painting was already
aiming at that allegorical "overall context" of natural and social life
which Klimt was to depict later, for example in his Faculty Paintings.
y-
For his
first
and
and Back View of a Gentleman

Opera Glasses, Sketcli of His Riglit
Hand, 1888-1889

43 xm 28 cm
Albertina,
Vienna
Auditorium of the old Burgtheater,

gouache on paper, 82 x 92 cm
40
other things,
Idyll (p. 37). For his
(p. 34).
The painted version of Love (1895) already shows us the mature

formal and thematic idiosyncrasies of Klimt' s art. It was a theme which
was to occupy him again and again. The two lovers are supplemented
by secondary figures which are meant to put them in a wider allegorical context and extend the thematic limits of this genre painting to that
of a cosmological depiction of mankind. Youth, old age and the "hostile"
forces depicted in the form of female figures,

characteristic of his major
threats to
witti
KUmt drew, among
second portfoho, which was published

from 1895 onwards, he created, among other things, the two drawings
Sculpture (pp. 44 and 69) and Tragedy (p. 45) as well as the painting
36)
become
Profile
portfoho (1882-84)
sketches for The Folk Tale, Daily Papers, Realms of Nature and
Opera, as well as producing a number of painted sketches for Fable (p.
Love
works
later,
which were
to
point to a variety of
human hfe and happiness as well as their transitoriness.
His
\
:V,T.
'mm
Study Sheet
Theatre,
for
an Allegory of the
Movement and Costume
Study,
1895
Drawing pen, with watercolour and

highlighted in white, 39 x 26 cm
Historical
NACHLAii
Museum, Vienna
Hofburg Actor Lewinsky as Carlos (p. 50) - a portrait which was

painted in the same year as Love and is comparable in its formal
technique - also includes an allegory (the art of theatrical presentation). To avoid disturbing the dignity of the portrait, it has been
banned to the frame, where it shows two aspects of old age and
femininity - ugUness and beauty as well as aggressiveness and harmony.
The wide, painted frame of Love produces a formal tension between the empty space and the densely painted surface. It affords us,
as it were, a glimpse of the painting itself. The allegorical secondary
figures are observing the
In his
two lovers
Allegory of Sculpture
(p.
like spectators looking at a stage.
44) a
number
of busts
- representing
41
of art - are in fact lined up like

They mirror our own glances as
we concentrate on the metamorphoses of femininity. Fending off male
glances with its dead eyes, the Graeco-Roman sculptural allegory is just like a sphinx a "counter-image" to the observing figures that
seem to have been changed back from sculptures to living beings
fjie
different stages in the
development
spectators above a stone balustrade.
again.
When Klimt was given a private commission in
1898/99, this posed
completely different thematic and formal demands from the
official
commissions for the large Ringstrasse buildings. The industrialist

Nikolaus Dumba left the architectural work and interior design of
C^^-T^v
IVLI/V\T
Finished Drawing for Youth, 1882

Drawing pen, with watercolour and
highhghted in white, 38 x 26 cm
Historical
42
Museum, Vienna
Organist, 1885
(Draft for tfie Allegories of Music at
Bucharest National Tfieatre)

three rooms in his stately
home on
the Park Ring to the painters
Hans
Makart, Franz Matsch and Gustav Klimt. Khmt was responsible for the
music room, designed the wall decorations and painted two sopraporte paintings
(i.e.
paintings
embedded in
the panelling above the
Music II and Schubert at the Piano (pp. 46 and 47). The interior
design and general artistic appearance of people's living space were
of central importance for art around the year 1900. One's living space
was seen as an area of privacy where a person could withdraw from
the life of society and which was reserved for the undisturbed
development of one's psychological sphere. "Atmosphere", the unity
of psychological and aesthetic well-being, was one of the key concepts
doors),
characterizing the requirements of interior design at the time. This
new concept
gave artists the opportunity to try

often in artists' circles - their ideas of a
out and put into practice
"comprehensive work of art" and the "overall psychological effect" of
their notions of space. These also became characteristic of the Secession exhibitions. Rooms, series of rooms and indeed whole villas could
be subjected to a uniform artistic concept in which all the details were
of interior decorating
43
Finished Drawing for the Allegory Sculpture, 1896

Black chalk with pen, washed, gold, highhghted in white, 42 x 31
Historical
44
Museum, Vienna
cm
ci^û
-fT>"--^y
'>.
KV
%!
l\
Finished Drawing for the Allegory Tragedy, 1897

Black chalk with pen, washed, gold, highlighted, 42 x 31
Historical
cm
Museum, Vienna
45
KLrv
i:W''
harmony with one another, so that sometimes even the clothes of the
inhabitants were subject to the uniform design of the whole.
In designing rooms full of atmosphere for Palais Dumba, the artists
Music II, 1898

Die Musik II
echoed the historic style of Biedermeier culture. With this style (between about 1815 and 1848), the middle classes had, for the first time,
created an appropriate home decor for themselves. It was the expres-
Vienna)
Destroyed by fire at Immendorf Palace
1945
in
sion of their self-image as well as their self-satisfaction, reflected

particularly in
its
intimate character with
its
concentration on cosy
snugness.
Klimt's sopraporte paintings for the music
room form
a transitition
from his early historicist academic works to Secessionist paintings. His

Schubert painting, in particular, shows that he no longer followed the
academic tradition. Although it is a historical genre painting (which
was probably inspired by Biedermeier pictures of Schubert), Klimt
completely abandoned the idea of accurate historical imitation. Even
the clothes of the figures are contemporary, and the glimmering
brightness of the candlehght gives the painting
character.
The
sketch, incidentally,
is
far
more
its
Impressionist
closely in line with a
certain decorative elegance than the final painting itself
gance which Klimt was

stage. Forming a relic of
of Schubert's features
46
to
adopt
to a
much
that ele-
greater extent at a later
historical realism, only the accurate portrayal
somehow seems
to contradict the Impressionist
(Sopraporte painting in the Music Room

Nikolaus Dumba Palace at Parkring 4,
of
in
Schubert at the Piano, 1899

Schubert am Klavier
(Sopraporte painting in the Music Room
of Nikolaus Dumba Palace at Parknng 4,
Vienna)
Destroyed by fire at Immendorf Palace in
1945
lighting effect that dissolves the tangibility of the rationally "touch-
able" space of the painting.
'''
It is
the
first
departed from the Naturalist rendering

terized history paintings in
of
major work in which Klimt
space and light that charac-
which the figures had
still
occupied
defi-
nite places within the depicted space.
The formal quahties
of Klimt's later
work, which dissolved the
visual space in decorative two-dimensional patterns, can already be
seen particularly
in
Music
II
the pendant to his Schubert painting.
mask and sphinx makes them part of a

However, his accuracy of detail does not
serve the precise rendering of an ancient work of art, even though it is
certain that Klimt spent a considerable amount of time studying works
of art at the Court Museum of Art History. UnUke in Historicism, where
the artist aimed to preserve the authenticity, truth and genuineness of
historical tradition and experience as well as its exemplary character
for the present, he is now no longer concerned with archaeological
reconstruction. Instead, Klimt seemed to be interested in a connection
between historical and atmospheric character, an animate hveliness
which does not simply remind us of a fixed image of antiquity as a
thing of the past, but aims to recreate it as an ideal, everlasting
The
"vivid lifelessness" of the
frieze in the style of antiquity.
presence,
18
47
Pallas Athene, 1898

The same can be
said for Biedermeier.
reflected in the Schubert painting. Again,
Its
it
historical treatment
was regarded not
is
as a
which might have been exemplary, but as a different

version of Modernism, a time comparable to the years around 1900 in
displaying a modernness that was more than temporary. The two
periods were therefore seen as closely related. Both paintings,
Schubert and Music II, are attempts to turn the past into present. In
the one painting it is antiquity, in the other the Biedermeier period
which appears in the shape of a "different present".
19th century Historicism was based on a concept of time that saw
history as an irreversible process logically developing towards the
future. Each "element" within this time continuum, each cultural or
artistic period, occupied an unalterable "position". It would never
return, nor could it be recalled in any way. In referring to the past, for
example when Vienna's liberal culture of the 1870s and 80s referred
back to the Italian Renaissance, the relevant artistic period was seen
as an irrevocably finished period. Its artistic achievements, ideals and
norms could be kept alive for the present through the effort and
mediation of institutions such as museums and educational establishments (e.g. the School of Applied Art), but only as a species of cultural
property. Still within the framework of this basic understanding of
history, Klimt's works were beginning to herald his departure from the
thematic and formal ideals of Historicism. Klimt established a different
concept of time and a different relationship between past and present.
finished period
48
Even the sensuous, menacing presence
of Pallas
Athenae
(above),
with her maternal yet punitive power, rather disturbs the thought of a
calmly retrospective ideal of academic education. Historicist symbols
such as Pallas Athenae - a monumental statue outside Vienna's Parliament - were literally imbued with life and acquired a sensuous
presence which prompted superficial identification
figures with the real beauty
and seductiveness
of the historical
of the ladies in
Vien-
nese society. This can be seen in the way Klimfs painting Judith
(p.
was interpreted
142)
at the time.
revived ancient mythology again so

lease on
life.
Such seductiveness,
gained a new
Judith kept her mythical
that, indirectly,
Just as the erotic fascination of
in turn,
it
femme fatale was able

now anaemic ideal of wisdom.
significance alive, the sensuousness of the
give
new
Even
the hallowed but
life to
earlier, in his
monumental paintings
had made use
to
for the Ringstrasse
Modernist depiction of femininhis sister, among others, as a model - as well as female

ity
nudes. He wanted the sensuous eroticism of his female figures, rather
than their historical significance, to make the viewer identify with his
buildings, Klimt
of the
- with
paintings. In
some
of his
different levels of reality.
Athenae's hands as
nude
in the style of
if
works
Nuda
this led to a deliberate
Veritas, for
confusion of
example, held
she were a small statue,
is
a flesh-and-blood
Klimfs seductive red-headed femmes
the two Music paintings for the
Dumba
in Pallas
fatales. In
salon, the historical, iconog-
raphic character has been replaced by an atmosphere deUberately
evoking the past.

There are two sides, though, to Klimfs thematic approach. Identification with the sensuous presence of femininity affords a new view of
ancient themes, strengthens their relevance to the present and imbues
them with hfe. At the same time, however, eroticism and sexuality in
Klimfs works are endowed with an aura of basic, primaeval forcefulness. His recourse to ancient
in the
form
of
myths and
images give the
innocence and natural
erotic
originality.
method of enlivening them

element a kind of borrowed
his
Thus, Klimfs depictions
antiquity or ancient eroticism are a critical
of erotic
comment on the Pharisaical
morality of his time.
works such as Pallas Athenae and the Secession poster (p. 70)
Klimt used this singular dialectical approach to fan the flames of the
current rebeUion in art and the younger generations' rejection of
In
liberal bourgeois culture.
After the death of his brother and father in 1892, Klimt received the
commission
for the Faculty Paintings (pp. 76f.). This
was
the
first
high
point of his career as a decorative history painter. However, his fame

was no guarantee of unbroken success. When, in December 1893, the
Fine Arts proposed that Klimt should be appointed professor at the Master School of History Painting, the Kaiser appointed
somebody else - Kasimir Pochwalsky. In 1901 Klimfs name was put
Academy
of
another professorship, but again, he did not receive it. His

work on the Faculty Paintings in the late 1890s provoked a lengthy
public controversy with considerable consequences for Klimfs life
forward
for
and work.
49
Hofburg Actor Josef Lewinsky as Carlos, 1895

50
Early Portraits
Joseph Pembauer, 1890

Bildnis des Pianisten und Klavierpadagogen Joseph
Tyrolean State
Museum Ferdinandeum,
Pembauer
Innsbruck
51
Open Air, 1896

Madchen im Griinen
Girl in the
Private collection, Austria
52
Lady (Frau HeymannO, around 1894

Damenbildnis
Oil on wood, 39 x 23 cm
Portrait ot a
53
Lady at the
Fireplace, around 1897/98
Dame am Kamin
Oil on canvas, 4 1 x 66 cm
54
Portrait of
Sonja Knipa, 1898
Bildnis Sonja Knips

Oil
55
Marie Henneberg, 1901/1902

Marie Henneberg
Moritzburg State Gallery, Halle (East Germany)
Portrait of
Bildnis
Opposite:
Serena Lederer, 1899

Bildnis Serena Lederer
Oil on canvas, 188 x 85.4 cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, purchase,
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, bequest of Catharine
Lorillard Wolfe, by exchange, and Wolfe Fund;
and gift of Henry Walters, bequest of Colhs P. Huntington,
Munsey and Rogers Funds, by exchange, 1980.
Portrait of
56
57
''Oedipal Revolt"
the Secession
works and his integration into society as an artist

crisis in hberaUsm and the hberal bourgeoisie. Cultural historian Carl Schorske has therefore interpreted Klimt's life and
oeuvre entirely in terms of a "crisis of the liberal ego" - a crisis
Klimt's early
coincided with a
triggered by radical economic and political change affecting the artist
and
his work.
Vienna's art and culture around the year 1900 mainly
owed
its
whose crisis
was closely connected with the difficult and contradictory development of its political emancipation. Earlier, in 1848, the middle classes
had failed to enforce their political demands, and their bourgeois
"revolution" had been crushed by the military counter-revolution of
the revived absolute monarchy. They then had to enter into considerable compromise with other social classes in order to have any political
power at all. Sharing their power with the aristocracy and the ruling
dynasty had an adverse effect on the economic progress and especially the industrialization of the Habsburg monarchy, so that Austria
remained an agricultural country well into the nineteenth century.
Towards the end of the century, the middle classes found themselves falling between two stools. Not only did they have to maintain
their identity towards the aristocracy and the Kaiser's dynastic politics; they now had to do the same in the face of modern social movements and the large-scale political parties which lent substance to
such movements. Also, the structure of the state, which continued to
richness to the liberal Austrian bourgeoisie, a social class
be mainly agricultural, did not allow the middle classes to gain a real
economic foothold as a capitalist force. Thus the "social question"
developed into an existential crisis of the empire that was economic,
philosophical and political. The problem was further aggravated by
between the various nations of the Habsburg Empire,

which was only kept together by force.
The failure of industrialization - and, with it, economic moderniza-
ethnic conflicts
tion
- came
to a
climax in the 1873 crash,
(in
the very
same month
that
Vienna was holding its world fair). As a result, the middle classes were
barred from any share in political power, and no middle-class minister
was appointed. In addition, towards the end of the century, the political scope of the middle classes was curtailed even further by the large
political parties - the Christian Social Democrats and the Socialists.
The political and social demands of the labour movement, in particular, could no longer be suppressed.
from
The increasing exclusion of the middle-class intelligentsia
Schorske, was counterpolitical power and the resulting crisis, says
middle classes
balanced to an extent by various cultural revolts. As the
and social change, they

pursuits, science,
could only concentrate their activities on academic
(Young Vienna) was
literature and art. The hterary circle Jung Wien
had very
little
or
no influence on
political
traditionaUst
one of the first Secession groups who protested against

from
norms in art and ethics and who derived their identity as a group
this protest.
of
The actual Secession itself came into being in 1897. This group
House),
Artists'
(the
young artists had formed within the Kunstlerhaus
They were now opposing
a classical, traditional association of artists.
had been a Kunsthe older generation of artists, and Khmt, who
leave the associatlerhaus member since 1893, was one of the first to
of the Secession. Only a
tion. In 1897 he became the first chairman
year later
it
organized
its first
exhibition,
opening
its
own
exhibition
premises, designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich.

This rebellion sought to emulate the ancient Roman secessio.
How-
artists excluded from

ever, Schorske does not interpret it as a revolt of
originally belonged
the art scene. After all, the early Secessionists had
Kunstlerhaus. Rather, he sees it as a generation confUct that was

revolt" of the sons
partly motivated psychologically - an "oedipal
^^ The mouthpiece of the
against their fathers and their traditions.
Roman
Secession was a magazine called Ver Sacrum, after an ancient
to the
young men in times of danger. It is worth noting that

Ver Sacrum - the young
in choosing these names - Secession and
from any historical
artists were deliberately distancing themselves
they were
recourse to the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. Instead,
society
proclaiming a religious and cultic renewal not only of art but of
initiation rite for
at large.
The Secession was founded

operative Society
of
Austrian
after
vehement arguments
Artists.
in the
Co-
This society, founded in 1861,
4="
'2a-i_-.
:VT^";
Skeich of the Secession Building, 1897

Black chalk, with watercolour,
11x18 cm
Museum, Vienna
Historical
60
Secession Building (designed by Joseph

Maria Olbrich), 1897-98, complete view
diagonally from the right
National Library, Vienna
represented the more orthodox - and mediocre forces of liberalism
artistic
and
cultural
and acted as a professional trade union of sorts.
It is
why the younger generation of artists separated from

Kunstlerhaus. Apart from the artistic conservatism of many mem-
not entirely clear

the
bers, they objected to the society's rejection of foreign
Modernism -
which was only introduced in Vienna in the large-scale exhibitions of

the Secession - as well as its marked tendency towards commercialeven acted as host to the Munich Secession,
which had been founded in 1892. When, in 1896, a progressive candidate for the position of chairman was defeated, the rift between retarding and progressive forces finally became visible, and a group of about
forty artists - among them Gustav Klimt, Carl Moll, Koloman Moser
and Alfred Roller - began to discuss the option of a new artists'
association which was to remain under the aegis of the professional
society. On 3 April 1897, the constituent assembly of a completely new
ism. In 1894 the society
and independent organization took place, the Association of Austrian

Artists, though there was still no mention of a break with the Cooperative Society. However, shortly afterwards, in May 1897 and
-*^
arguments, this did indeed happen.
The letter to the Co-Operative Society, signed by Klimt, in which
after further
the withdrawal of a "group of artists"
was
justified,
was the
first
61
Recumbent Female Nude with Study

Arms, 1898
Black chalk,
K.l
Neue
group and gives a coherent picture of their

understanding of themselves as well as their self-confidence. The
letter was immediately made public, thus confirming the final breach,
although the term Secession was avoided at first.
The following is an extract from the artist's letter: "As the governing body must be aware, a group of artists has been trying for years to
bring their views on art to bear within the Co-Operative Society.
These ideas have culminated in the realization that the artistic scene
in Vienna must be brought more vigorously into line with the progressive development of art abroad, that exhibitions must have a noncommercial, purely artistic basis, that this must give rise in wide circles
of society to a purified, modern view of art, and finally that official
circles must be encouraged to cultivate art to a much greater extent. It
has been the experience of this group of artists that, despite years of
objective endeavours within the Co-Operative Society, they have not
met with the right understanding and comprehension.
The concentration of like-minded Austrian artists will aim above all at raising
the level of artistic activity and interest in our city, and once it has
achieved a broader, Austrian basis, within the entire realm." -^'Here,
we can already see the central motivation of the new artists' association. Rather than being a mere interest group of a commercial kind, its
members wanted to pursue an artistic mission that would affect sociwritten
document
of the
and the state.

The association soon started its own magazine Ver Sacrum (1898).
It was edited by Koloman Moser, Alfred Roller and Baron Felician von
Myrbach, the head of the School of Applied Art which was attached to
the Royal and Imperial Austrian Museum for Art and Industry. (He
was later succeeded by Josef Hoffmann.) Not only did this magazine
ety
act as
an organ
piece for their

62
to publicize
artistic
and
Secession
political
art,
it
demands.
also provided a
mouth-
32x45 cm
Galerie,
Graz
of
The
subsequently pubhshed
in the first edition of
their objectives succinctly:
made
which were
Ver Sacrum, summarized
statutes of the Association of Austrian Artists,
their task to
it
" 1
The Association
promote purely
of Austrian Artists
They aim to
Austria and abroad, by
raising of the level of artistic sensitivity in Austria.
by uniting Austrian
achieve
this
seeking
fruitful contacts
artists
both in
with leadmg foreign
has
especially the
artistic interests,
2:
artists, initiating a
non-
commercial exhibition system in Austria, promoting Austrian art at

exhibitions abroad, and by making use of the most significant artistic
achievements of foreign countries both to stimulate art in our own
country and to educate the Austrian pubHc with regard to the general
development of art." ^^
Very soon after the Secession had been founded, the artists began
to
make
preparations for their
own
was Joseph Maria Olbrich and the
exhibition building.
The
architect
which a rough sketch by

Klimt still exists (p. 60), took only around six months to complete. In
November 1898 the building opened with the Second Secession
Exhibition.
project, for
"
was not until the first edition of the magazine Ver Sacrum that the
term Secession was used with any claim to an entire programme. The
It
intentions of the
Roman
artists' circle
as well as their recourse to the ancient
were explained by Max Burckhardt in the introduc"Whenever the tensions caused by economic antagonism
secessio
tory article:
Blood, 1898
Fischblut
l-ish
I'en
and
ink,
diiucnsKjiis
and owner unknown
6.^
had reached a dimax in ancient Rome, part of the people would leave
the city and move onto the Mons Sacer, the Aventinus or the
Janiculum, threatening to found a second Rome right there, outside
the ancient mother city and before the very noses of its dignified
fathers, unless their
plebis
wishes were
However, when
fulfilled.
the country
danger, every living thing brought forth
was known as secessio

was threatened by great
during the next spring was
This
offered to the gods as a sacred spring offering - a ver sacrum.
And
when
those born during a Sacred Spring reached adolescence, the

youngsters - themselves a Sacred Spring - would move out of their
home town to found a new community elsewhere, a community built
by
their
own hands and geared
The
elitist
allegorical
OFK^
ND
to their
own
aims."
self-confidence of the group
works by Klimt, with
is
reflected in several
founding
direct reference to the
group. Schorske interprets Klimt' s Poster in this
was
^''
light,
of the
a poster which
designed for the First Art Exhibition of the Association of Artists -
Secession
(p. 70).
This exhibition
horticultural society. Protected
was
still
held on the premises of a
by Athena, Theseus
against the Minotaur. Schorske suggests that this
is
seen fighting
vehement struggle
should be read as an act of artistic liberation and therefore a political

act. However, this is probably no more than one aspect of the painting,
and indeed only related to Vienna's Jugendstil (i.e. Art Nouveau)
rebellion at the time.
The young male hero at the centre of a drama of salvation is a

theme that also occurs in other great works by Klimt, particularly the
Beethoven Frieze (pp. 104f.), thus showing that the analogy between
art and reality must not be sought in the sphere of politics alone.
Schorske interprets the struggle between Theseus and the Minotaur
first and foremost as a revolt of the sons against the fathers. However,
the painting contains not only a father - symbolized by a bull - but also
t^S^ uo
and protective mother image, fending off all fear with a

Gorgon shield, and completing the oedipal triangle. She seems to be
seconding her son's revolt against his father. The message, which is
easy to understand, clearly expresses an entire programme and defines the role of the Secession as a culturally subversive and revolutionary movement. Its aim was to overcome the liberal art of the fathers.
Another painting which must be understood in this rebellious and
a very forceful
mm
revolutionary sense
is
PQimt's
Nuda
Veritas
(p.
74) of 1899, especially
we interpret it in the light of the inscription added by the artist:

cannot please everyone with your
art
and your
OV3TAV
KU/AT-
Finished Drawing for Envy, 1898

Black chalk, pencil, pen and brush in
Indian ink, 42 x 10 cm
Historical
64
Museum, Vienna
if
you
you should
shown as a mirror of
"
satisfy a few. Pleasing many is a bad
society, though society is not dependent on it. The Secession postulated artistic freedom precisely because it wanted to influence society. On the other hand, it cultivated an ehtist image by styhzing the
artist as a saviour and advocating the aesthetic treatment of conflictladen social reality, though it could only be understood and enjoyed
thing.
ii'M
actions,
" If
by a small select circle.

However, Nuda Veritas
Art
is
not only interesting with regard to the

politics of the art world. Compared with the Secession poster, the
allegory has changed sex. While the poster begs interpretation as the
is
depiction of a male generation of artists revolting against the art of

their fathers,
Nuda
Veritas presents a female figure with
whom
the
viewer is meant to identify positively. Although allegories had

always taken the form of women, particularly in 19th-century art, the
woman does not just have the function of a mediator here. Just as, in
his earlier works, Klimt had deliberately confused the levels of time
and reality, he now cast woman as an allegorical vehicle by drawing
into focus her feminine attributes. After all, the message of an allegory
is
always carried mainly by
attributes.
Nuda
HWAH^HtlT
I5T
and therefore
constitutes
on the social function of
art.
showed the archetypal woman
RLDtN HEIS5T
LEVCHTLN
^
BKLNNLN
Veritas harbours a
L-iCHCftA;
meaning
that
just dry literary
first
comment
time in his work, Klimt
as the exclusive vehicle of identifica-
communicate an allegory and thus a

points beyond her, but she also exposes herself and her
Not only does
tion.
more than
For the
UNO
VV\HKHLIT
flesh-and-blood "truth", a truth that rests on seductive feminine eroticism
FEUEK
this figure
eroticism.
Never again did Klimt take such an explicit stance in art politics as
in the two paintings. They expressed the assertive self-confidence of a
new generation of artists. The same forceful image was apparent
when Hermann Bahr defended Klimt against the first attacks on his
Faculty Paintings (which will be discussed in more detail below). His
plea for the artist, which was also printed and circulated as a manifesto,
art
culminated in the categorical defence
and
artists
of the elitist principle of
against the "mob". Going beyond the simple
Nuda
bad thing", the pamphlet

contemptuously went a step further: "so much the worse for the
majority", thus expressing quite unambiguously the elitist side of
Secessionist philosophy. "After all, there is a mob. However, it does
not get dangerous until it has found its ringleaders
These are a
certain brand of people who combine commonness with their own
interest
Schopenhauer gave an unparalleled description of them
fame and merit at a high level
Apart from a lack of judgement,
come face to face with envy; within every species, envy is at the core of
all forces of mediocrity, forces that flourish everywhere. Quietly and
Veritas motto "Pleasing the majority
is
without organizing themselves in a special way, they unite against the

single unsurpassed individual'."
Bahr then develops this thought

even further: It has always been the purpose of art and indeed its very
origin and most important purpose to express the aesthetic feelings of
a minority of pure, noble and more highly developed people. It expresses these feelings in enlightened compositions, and as the slow,
dull populace gradually follows them, it serves to educate them in the
"
ways of truth and beauty." -^

Even before the completion
tion
staged
its first
of the
Secession buildmg, the associa-
exhibition in the Horticultural Rooms, with 131
and only 23 by Viennese painters. The exhibition was to offer "a new and higher standard for assessing Austrian
art"
as well as initiating an exchange with the European centres of
art, which had been so perilously neglected by the Co-Operative
Society. The young artists' association received the highest official
accolade when the first exhibition was visited by the Austrian Kaiser.
works by foreign
NUDA*
VtRITA5
artists
^'',
Finished Drawing for Nuda Veritas, 1898

Black chalk, pencil, pen and brush in
Indian ink, 41 x 10 cm
'^^
Historical
Museum, Vienna
65
The Secession programme met with a political situation that was

favourable to its endeavours. The formation of a civil servants' government in 1900 resulted in the final demise of the liberal heritage, while
at the same time providing the political conditions for a cultural heyand national tension,
removed from all conflicts. It
day, albeit rather a brief one. Faced with social
the cultural sphere
was hoped
that,
to
totally
with the advent of Modernism, art could
the formation of a
ment
seemed
be
new
now
political identity. Interestingly, the
hnked
of a cultural identity
to
serve
develop-
statesmanship did not proceed
with recourse to past traditions but in conjunction with the modern,

innovative currents of the time.
With an exhibition policy aimed at pervading all spheres of art and

life and reahsing a dream of "Austrian Beauty" (H. Bahr), the Secession presented an image which lent itself to being promoted as international and cosmopolitan in its pohtical orientation. "Although every
artistic development has its national roots," said the Minister of Education von Hartel, "the products of art nevertheless speak a common
language, and as they enter into noble competition, they lead
Female Nude Standing with Her Left
Arm Stretched Behind Her, around 1989
Blue chalk, 40 x 26
Albertina, Vienna
cm
to
mutual understanding and appreciation." These words were part of

his speech to the Arts Council, which he had founded in 1899. Proclaiming the freedom of the arts, von Hartel' s programmatic sentence
was closely related to Secessionist philosophy. The extent to which the
development
of
art
was
significantly influenced
by
this
political
philosophy can be gathered from the memoirs of Berta Zuckerkandl,

an author and one of the fellow-combatants of the Secession: "Fasci-
nated by the motto 'Give our age its art and art its freedom', I plunged
into the battle. It was a matter of defending a purely Austrian culture
which proudly professed its loyalty to the nations united under its flag
.
Austria
inspired,
was proud
of its diversity,
unique whole."
which had
crystallized into
an
^^
For several years the liberalization of Austrian art politics resulted

in the systematic promotion of Modernism as well as state intervention
in the cultural scene. (Indeed it was the very birth of cultural politics.)
In 1903 the
Moderne
Galerie (Modernist Gallery)
was founded,
after
it
meeting of the
Arts Council in 1899. Both the Arts Council and the Modernist Gallery
were state institutions for the promotion of modern art. However, it
was not long before the entire concept of the Gallery changed com-
had already been advocated by Carl Moll
pletely.
Not just contemporary
be shown
at a
museum
Gallery. Indeed,
the
first
more
it is
art
at the first
but Austrian art of
called the Royal
all
periods
was to
and Imperial Austrian State
interesting to note that state promotion of art in
decade of the 20th century meant that it was brought more and
into line with the patriotic elements of statesmanship that pre-
vailed in Austria at the time.

In the
same year
Secessionists succeeded in occupying key posi-
tions in cultural politics. Otto
the
Academy
Wagner was an
of Fine Arts and, together
influential
member
of
with Alfred Roller, belonged
was soon taken

over by Secessionists in a coup de main. Extensive reforms were
initiated under its principal, Baron Fehcian von Myrbach, and con-
to the Arts Council.
66
The School
of
Applied
Art, too,
tinued under the stage designer of the Court Opera House, Alfred
Roller.
Secession
members such
as Josef
Hoffmann, Koloman Moser
and Arthur Strasser joined the School. As a result of these reforms, the
School of Applied Art - and, cooperating closely with it, the Viennese
Workshop - became the institutional basis for a "breakthrough of
Modernism"
Flowing Water, 1989

Bewegtes Wasser
Private collection, by permission
St. Etienne Gallery, New York
of the
in Vienna.
67
Modernity
The new
operative
artists' circle
When
Society.
emphasized in their
exercised caution in withdrawing from Cothe
Secession
official letter that
was launched,
they intended
to stay
they
within the
society, thus giving the impression that no separate organization was

planned. However, by publicizing their separation in the press at this
early stage, they did indeed offend, so the breach
was only made
all
justified their actions by pointing out that
They
up towards modern artistic currents from
had
to
open
the art scene
abroad, that contemporary Austrian art should become publicly
involved and that it should rid itself of commercialism (although Secession exhibitions were also aimed at selling the artists' works).
Another element of the artists' self-image is revealed in the early
documents by various pronouncements on a specifically Austrian art.
more
the
irreversible.
Bahr, for example, wrote about a typically Viennese
Hermann
art,
with a special Austrian flavour. However, hardly anything was said

about the modernity of the language of art itself. This may be because
was not regarded
the term "modernity"
period in
art,
but a totally
which were impossible
new form
as a description of a
of artistic activity
to locate within the
spectrum
and
new
attitudes
of styhstic de-
velopments.
Vienna began to exhibit important

artistic currents of European Modernism - a change of practice and
policy which was a clear break with tradition. This was also reflected
For the
first
time in
its
history
in the educational activities of Secession
members
at the
School of
Applied Art and the Viennese Workshop, where they deliberately

renounced any aesthetic obligation to accept historical precedent. All
these reforms also served as a practical criticism of art and the artistic
environment in the late 19th century. However, artists did not derive
their new self-image first and foremost from a critical attitude towards
traditions but from the idea of a completely fresh start.
Hermann Bahr even
rejected traditions to the point of describing
With 19th century Historicism denied any artistic

merit whatsoever (Berta Zuckerkandl also argued occasionally along
such lines), innovation became tantamount to re-birth. "1 learnt to
understand at that time," wrote Hermann Bahr in the first edition of
Ver Sacrum in January 1898, "what the duty of our young Viennese
painters is and that their Secessio must be something quite different
from the one in Munich or Paris. In Munich and Paris the Secession
aimed at establishing a 'new' art alongside the 'old' .... it is different
with us. We are not fighting for or against a tradition, because we have
and a new one
none anyway. It is not a struggle between the old art
and for the right to be artistically creative." ^^
but for art itself
The term Modernism does not characterize a clearly delineated
historical period but the awareness of a generation which brought
forth an aesthetic approach in keeping with the time. It is in this sense
that Max Burckhardt - in his programmatic introduction to the first
them as
irrelevant.
Allegory ol ..Sculpture", 1889

AUegorie der Skulptur"
Pencil with watercolour, highlighted in
gold, on cardboard, 44 x 30 cm
Austrian Museum of Applied Art, Vienna
Sacrum - ascribed Modernity, i.e. Modernism, to the

Secession: "They [the artists' association] have gathered under the
banner of Ver Sacrum, feeling not that their own personal interests but
that the sacred cause of art itself was in danger. Thus, without wanting
to achieve anything but their own aims by their own efforts, they were
and always have been solemnly and enthusiastically prepared to
make any sacrifice for the sake of art. The spirit that united them was
the spirit of youth, the spirit of spring which makes the present ever
modern ..." '" And it is in this sense - also as an allusion to the
contemporaneous nature of Modernity - that we must read the motto
above the entrance of the Secession building: "Give our time its art,
and art its freedom."
edition of Ver
69
Secession exhibition (before censorship), i898

Lithograph, 62 x 43 cm
Private coliection, by permission of Barry Friedman Ltd., New York
Poster for the
70
1st
KVhJaAVfiTELLVr^G
VtRDrJICVNlG- ^^^^
KVhJ^TiERoE^rERREICH^
WEMWIEMZDIX-
V0M12
NOVEAVBERBJfENDt DECEMBER-
oil M^1^.A.BUlCCft
WKHva.
Joseph Maria Olbrich poster
for the 11 nd Secession exhibition, 1898

Mr. and Mrs. Leonard A. Lauder CoUection
,
71
Koloman Moser
poster for the Xlllth Secession exhibition, 1902

Private collection, by permission of Barry Friedman Ltd.,
72
New York
CICR/dCRa/T\
1^ >t^DEMI
(UEMSTLERI
"
.1
tiCfTC
="
Alfred Roller cover for Ver Sacrum
Lithogrdph, 30 x 29 cm
,
Collection,
The Museum
of
1898
<"
:.
b5TERF(EICHS
Koloman Moser cover for Ver Sacrum 1898

,
Lithograph, 30 x 29
Modern
Art,
Collection,
The Museum
of
cm
Modern
Art,
New York
New York
K4QRy-^
^
r^
N.-
.^
^^, -^ Biff /^#^^!iv'
pEiTOTRirr
^VEKEINIQUNQ
BILD-KOM^TLER 65TERREICH5
|XMUC
>
U AMNNDttNT fV. - II H "VOLAO VOM * BmANW LOMIC
KETTl
AKII&
KETT
I.
Otto
Wagner cover
Ver Sacrum, 1899

Collection,
for
The Museum
New York
of
Modern
Art,
Alfred Roller cover for Ver Sacrum

,
Collection,
The Museum
of
Modern
1898
Art,
New York
73
....
.SN
ViLLf
RLQI", .,
CiLrAU-tN,
Nuda
Veritas (detail), 1899

Opposite;
Nuda
Oil
Veritas, 1899
on canvas, 252 x 56
cm
Theatre Collection of the National Library, Vienna,

currently on loan to the Museum of the Twentieth Century
75
The Faculty Paintings
By 1894 Klimt had made a name
with the interior
for himself
on the Vienna
Ringstrasse, and so he and Franz Matsch were commissioned by the
Ministry of Education to make a number of ceiling paintings for the
Great Hall, depicting the various faculties in allegorical form. This was
the very time when the entire art scene was beginning to change and
when the newly-founded Secession was beginning to establish itself.
Even Klimt's sketches for the Faculty Paintings, which were gradually
exhibited by the artists' association, triggered off a public controvery
that went on for many years. Not only the attitude of the state was
criticized - its promotion of Modernism and the Secession - but also
decorations
of
the
large
educational
Klimt himself, both as a person and as an

Klimt, Carl Schorske has paid
much
buildings
artist.
attention to
the artist's three ceiling paintings, analysing

liberal
ego" within the general
The theme
it
examination of
the "drama" around
In his
as a "crisis of the artist's
crisis of liberalism.
was
'^
be "The Victory of Light

over Darkness", aiming at an apotheosis, a vindication and glorification of rational science and its usefulness to society. However, in the
three paintings for which Klimt was commissioned - Philosophy (p.
80), Medicine (p. 83) and Jurisprudence (p. 89) - he emphatically
refused to follow any rationalist world view. "In his Philosophy Klimt
was still very much a child of the theatre culture, showing us the world
as a traditional Baroque theatium mundi, as if we were the audience
looking at it from the stalls. However, whereas the Baroque theatrum
mundi was clearly divided into zones of heaven, earth and hell, the
earth seems to have dissolved in Klimt's painting and merged with the
other two spheres. Entangled in knots, the suffering mass of humanity
slowly drifts by, hovering aimlessly in a viscous void. The stars behind
her, a heavy, sleeping sphinx emerges from the murky cosmos. She is
completely blind and seems to be no more than the concentration of
atomized space. Only the glowing face at the lower edge of the
painting suggests the existence of an alert intelligence. 'Knowledge'
has become the focal point of the theatre lighting, and it is as if a
prompter had turned round to the audience, drawing us into the
cosmic spectacle." -'^
.
of the Faculty Paintings
to
Two Studies oi a Standing Nude, from

the Left
Studies for the composition draft
Medicine, 1897/98
Pencil, 38 x 28 cm
Albertina,
Vienna
The
between this mysterious, allegorical depiction and the

official self-image of academic science was also pointed out by contemporary critics, who saw Klimt's Philosophy as nothing but "a dull,
polarity
submissive, dreamlike mass, drifting indefinitely, for better or worse.
Medicine (composition draft), 1897/98

Private collection, Vienna
77
in the service of eternal procreation
from the
first stirrings of
existence
demise as they sink into the grave. This is briefly

interrupted by an intoxicating moment of loving union followed by a
painful process of drifting apart. Love has been a disappointment,
bringing neither happiness nor knowledge. Fate, however, remains
unchallenged. Far away from cold, clear knowledge and also from the
to their feeble
eternally veiled cosmic mystery, the
human species is forever struggl-
ing for happiness and knowledge, while remaining a tool in the hands
'^^
unchangeable purpose of procreation. "

Indeed, nothing in the painting seems to suggest that philosophical
and academic pursuit produces any rational, socially beneficial
results. The composition is as blind, open and ambiguous as the
various states of the individuals and couples. Neither do their actions
and movements have any recognizable aim or identifiable time
dimension. Unlike the history paintings which Klimt, among others,
had produced a few years earlier, his Philosophy now displays a
spatial and temporal diffusion that no longer allows a rational connection of the events with the present. Klimt was no longer concerned
with communicating an experience grounded in history.
Not only did Klimt's Philosophy contradict the prevailing academic
view of science, it also gave an accurate illustration of the most widespread idea at the end of the century. It was believed that the consistent and purposeful progress of history was ultimately governed by
of nature, a tool
used
for the
cyclical forces of nature inaccessible to
human
rational thought.
The
middle classes was seen as embedded

in a relentlessly regular cycle of nature in which the individual was
relieved of the necessity to act, while at the same time becoming an
social
impotence
of the liberal
observer of himself and the mysterious happenings of the world.

Systematic "rational" influence did not seem possible.
This view of
life
was an important feature of contemand had also been characteristic of Klimt's
as a theatre
porary art and culture

earliest works,
when
external circumstances actually focused his
mind on the theatre. At the time, he was working for the theatre,
making frescoes, stage curtains, designing the Burgtheater
auditorium and also part of the decorations for the staircase at the
Court
Museum of Art History,
built so that visitors could
imagining they were on a stage. In
fact,
move around
the "scenic architecture" of
huge staircase served a dual purpose: on the one hand, the

Habsburg dynasty was able to celebrate its own role as an art patron in
the form of paintings and statues, and on the other hand the middleclass public, as it were, were in a position to display themselves, thus
this
firmly establishing their
new social status through a public demonstra-
tion of their share in the country's culture.
"image of humanity" (Werner Hofmann) in Philosophy no

longer allows for an identification of history, social self-awareness and
social role patterns. Although it contains various allegorical elements
from some vague historical periods (such as ancient mythology), it
does not generally allow any clear-cut space-time definition. Eliminating all the historical elements which provided reference points in 19th
Klimt's
century Historicism, bourgeois ideology

78
at the turn of the
century
Seated Old Woman from the Left, Supporting Her Head, Study for Ptiilosoptiy,
1900-1907
Black chalk,
45x34 cm
Albertina, Vienna
Transfer Sketch for Philosophy,
1900-1907
Black chalk, pencil, enlargement grid,
90x34 cm
Historical
Museum, Vienna
replaced these by nature - a nature which was without history and
brought only timeless cyclical change. This cycle of nature called forth
moods, passions and emotions, but no longer knowledge or enhghtenment, and thus no longer the idea of man's rational domination and
subjugation of nature. As a
was undermined, because
result, the
dynamism of fin de siecle society
the domination of nature - furthered by
technological developments and capitalist interests - lay at the very

root of middle-class faith in progress.
Meanwhile, Klimt no longer had any intention
of depicting or
celebrating the social institutions and the rational, optimistic role of
academic knowledge. "This was not how university professors saw

and loved the world. Their view of the victory of light over darkness
was different, and so was their idea of its depiction in their sacred
79
Eighty-seven faculty members protested against the murals,

thus provoking a "sensational lawsuit" (Schorske) which was to
halls."
'''
develop from an
debate into a cultural
artistic
conflict.
At
^*^
the
first
Â
commissioning ministry ignored the protesting professors and the

attacks of the conservative press, *^, but when a draft version of Klimf s
second painting - Medicine - was exhibited, the argument broke out
even more fiercely. The painting was shown at the 10th Secession
Exhibition (1901), and Ernst Stohr commented in Ver Sacrum: "Life
takes place between birth and death, and on the way between these
two points life creates that profound suffering for which Asclepius'
daughter, Hygieia, has found a miraculous palliative and cure." '^^
Again, the painting radically offended the self-image of physicians. "Klimt did not
make
the slightest attempt to depict the science
medicine as doctors saw it

With her hieratic posture and symbols
borrowed from ancient Greek tradition, Klimf s Hygieia [the main
of
figure in the painting] merely proclaims ambiguity par excellence
Hygieia,
who
the serpent a
is
changed
herself a snake
bowl
of the
into
human
waters of Lethe, so that
can drink
it
likeness, offers
of that
ki^fff
prototypal liquid. In this
way
death, the co-presence of
mans
Klimt proclaims the unity of
disintegration of the individual."
ings are formed by death and
vital
''^
life
and
instinctive
The two
-
movements
and
energy and the
focal points of the paint-
hfe as a solitary figure placed
opposite and apart from the group of people. Death
among
life
human
is
a skeleton
and nothing in this

painting indicates the role of medicine as the art and science of
healing that reconciles the opposites of life and death. In this pessimistic view of eternal waxing and waning. Medicine (Hygieia) appears as
the aimless
of
bodies,
of an Old Man with His Hands before His Face, Study for Philosoptiy,
Nude
1900-1907
Akt eines Greises mit vorgehaltenen
Handen
Bldck chalk, 46 x 32 cm
a sphinx-like enigma.
The only links between the drifting bodies and the solitary female
nude hovering in space are provided by the woman's extended arm
and the arm of a male nude shown from the back, although they are
neither touching nor directly related to one another.
message
It is
worth noting
mainly personified by
women. They represent the revolving movement of cyclical growth,
that the allegorical
showing pregnancy
in this painting is
(top right-hand corner),
motherhood
(a
mother
with a child in her arm in the left-hand corner of the figures),
embryonic childlikeness (above Hygieia) as well as old age and ugliness (far right of the centre and to the left of the skull) Here, the viewer
is given reference points in the various stages of feminine metamorphosis, above all in the frontal figure of Hygieia, an austere and distant
archetypal mother, the only figure who is clothed in the painting. Most
of the male nudes have their backs partly turned to the viewer, some of
.
them completely.
Not only are Klimf s monumental paintings shot through with the
antagonism between rationalism and irrational nature, between liberal culture and the aesthetic rebellion of its " sons " but Klimt was also
fascinated by the tension between patriarchal culture and chaos, for
which he used femininity as an allegorical vehicle. It was both a
rebellious world view, opposed to the things of the past, and a vision of
,
the future, with a totally different, feminine culture.
Philosophy, final version, J 907

Philosophie
Destroyed by
1945
fire at
Immcndorf Palace
in
81
Aside from
5
symbolism directed against the
this
self-image of medicine, Klimt's aesthetic devices also caused offence.
His Modernist depiction of nudity gave
rise to a great
tuous and indignant criticism - by Karl Kraus
14 fi(
X.
Sacrum
deal of contemp-
among others - and even
which a preliminary
study of Medicine had been published. However, no lawsuit or conviction ensued, and the relevant authorities did not feel that the artistic
led to the confiscation of a Ver
.:
rational, optimistic
edition, in
depiction of nudity merited criminal prosecution.
f-
beginning
and
it
was
From the very
Klimt's allegories in particular that attracted scorn
ridicule, as in Karl Kraus's
comments. He described Medicine as a
painting "in which the chaotic confusion of decrepit bodies symbolizes the situation in a state hospital
\A\ii
When Medicine was shown
4Ci
Transfer Sketch for Medicine, 1901-1907
Black chalk, pencil, enlargement

86 X 62 cm
Albertina,
of the
Vienna
to the public,
medium
Austrian parliament. This
it
caused such violent
made it impossible to use
for
grid,
"
overcoming political barriers. The Minister of

Education, von Hartel, who was one of the patrons of the Secession,
came under pressure to justify himself. "Again and again the Ministry
insinuated," said Klimt, "that 1 had become an embarrassment to
them. Now, for an artist
there can be nothing more distressing than
working for and being paid by a client who does not whole-heartedly
and with his entire understanding give his full support to the artist
Ever since this unfortunate state job' [i.e. the Faculty Paintings] they
have been blaming von Hartel, the Minister, for every one of my other
works. And it seems as if the Minister of Education is now beginning to
imagine that he really does bear such a responsibility ... In everything
I have done, 1 have been a terrible embarrassment to the Minister ..."
art as a
reactions that the conflict over the Faculty Paintings even reached the
upper house
-i^'
-^^
.
.
^^
As a
result, Klimt's application for a lectureship at the
Academy
of
Fine Arts failed.
The aggressiveness
dence
is
of Klimt's third university painting. Jurispru-
seen by Schorske as the
artist's
response to the rejection and
disdain that he had been suffering. Although there
is
virtually
no
corroborative evidence from Klimt, Schorske concludes - mainly from
between the preliminary drafts and

the final version
that Klimt must have undergone a profound personal crisis and period of re-orientation, which left its mark on his art.
As in the two preceding works, the legal apparatus is not shown as a
socially beneficial institution but as a punitive and vengeful power
with sweeping sexual ambitions.
The centre of the painting is occupied by a nameless victim, an
emaciated, naked, bent old man, held tightly in the grip of an octopuslike creature that almost devours him. This totally unearthly form of
justice is administered by three Furies, serving as "prison officers"
(Schorske), who have been sent by the three allegorical figures Truth,
Justice and Law. These figures are enthroned high above and far away
from the scene. It can hardly be denied that the painting is a reference
to Klimt's own situation, and - compared with Medicine and Philosophy - its composition reflects the general message even more clearly.
In Philosophy and particulary Medicine the artist solved the contradiction between a Modernist depiction of the bodies and an Imprethe formal changes that took place
Medicine,
final version,
1907
Medizin
1945
82
in
83
atmosphere at the expense of an unambiguous message. In

Jurisprudence, by contrast, he chose such a low perspective that the
space seems extremely condensed and distorted while at the same
time allowing arrangement of the figures. Although the representatives of the law are at the top of the painting, where they have the
greatest importance within the hierarchy, our attention is initially
attracted by the larger figures: the old man, the victim and thus the
centre of this allegory, on the foremost level and the three "Furies of
the Law" who - as the executives of justice and mythical instruments
of revenge - seem more important than justice itself.
The scene is not one of diffuse space creating an atmosphere of
indefinite, nebulous and unsatisfactory content; instead, the area is
ornamentally segmented and fixes our attention on the brilliantly
Modernist individuals (particularly the male nude) in the foreground.
Incidentally, none of the three Faculty Paintings takes account of
ssionist
f
\,
the viewer's perspective of a ceiling painting.
an
The idea was
to create
"breaking through" the ceiling. Four separate paintings

were to "open it up", as it were (the fourth one was to be painted by
illusion of
Franz Matsch).
Two
Pairs oi W/restlers, Study for
Medicine 1901-1907
Pencil 43 x 29 cm
Albertina, Vienna
However, Klimt had no intention of directing his criticism mainly or

exclusively at the socio-political role of the law. Instead, he shifted his
attack into a mythical realm of fabled creatures, while concentrating
on the male fear
of suppressed female vengefulness as well as delu-
mainly dominated by a fear

of castration: the male victim - passive, dejected and impotent - has
been caught in a live noose, with an octopus surrounding him like a
female womb. The Furies who are supervising the execution are, at
sions of punishment:
femmes
"
Klimt' s painting
is
de siecle and Greek Maenads.

However, Klimt gave them the cruel, Gorgon-like expression of
ancient Maenads
Klimt's world of law is divided into two parts,
with the three Graces of Justice at the top and their three Furies at the
bottom. This is reminiscent of the powerful resolution in Aeschylus'
once,
fatales of the fin
which Athena establishes the precedence of rational law

and paternal power over the matriarchial law of blood vengeance.
Once Athena has built her lawcourt - the Aeropagus - for the benefit
of society, she persuades the Furies to become its patronesses. She
then curbs their power by making them part of her own temple. Thus,
reason and culture celebrate their triumph over instinct and barbarism. Klimt reversed this ancient symbolism by giving the furies their
original power again and showing that the law has not succeeded in
overcoming violence and cruelty but has merely concealed and
Oresteia, in
legitimized them."
*^
Schorske points out that the main figure, which has often been
interpreted as a self-portrait, also expresses guilt: "The phantasies of
sexual punishment in Klimt's Furies
fit
perfectly into the context of the
However, the theory that

denying man's instincts might have
rebellious call for the liberation of Eros."

Klimt's attacks on the law for
instilled in the artist feelings of guilt
Hygeia, detail from Medicine

1900-1907
84
not without qualification. As there
vance
of the law,
it
is
^'
not entirely convincing, at least
no reference to the social releseems that the "guilt" of the male victim of the law
is
is
far less related to the collision of the sexual revolution
norms than
to the process of
and
social
suppression triggered by the aesthetic
by the nude male figure;

by Klimt, the
central theme of his Jurisprudence is the conflict-ridden fate of a man.
In all these paintings the idea of liberation remains highly ambiguous.
In Jurisprudence Klimt shows the conflict between the artist and
society as exclusively psycho-sexual. This can be seen clearly in the
anxiety-laden depiction of a man threatened by female nature and its
inherent instincts. The weakness of the painting lies in Klimt's attack
on a powerful institution by showing the fate of an individual: "The
accusation itself, with the emphasis on the individual sufferer, invol''^
ves a change from public ethos to private pathos."
The most vehement and indeed polemical criticism of Klimt's
revolution
itself.
their depiction
Instincts are not "liberated"
here prompts
fear.
As
in other allegories
Transfer sketch for Jurisprudence,
1903-1907
Black chalk, pencil, enlargement grid,
84x61 cm
86
/J
^*r
t^y. ./.i-
^^.
i!^'
Painted composition draft for

Jurisprudence (detail), 1897/98
Oil on canvas, dimensions unknown
1945
in
attack on the legal system - with
its
odd
constellation of private
psychological rather than social and political grievances Karl Kraus,
who seems
to
have been the only person
to
is
came from
see
opportunities: "At the beginning of the twentieth century,
and
its
wasted
when man
thinking twentieth-century thoughts, no symbol can hold richer
associations for
political, social
man
than jurisprudence. Omnipresent in
and economic
conflict,
it
all
forms
mediates between those
of
who
who want to seize them, between

man and woman, capital and labour,
hold the reins of power and those
high and low, rich and poor,
But for Mr.

manufacturer and consumer, - all that is jurisprudence
Klimt all the concept of jurisprudence means is crime and punishment,
and the administration of justice means 'Cop 'em and top em'." '''
.
However, the dilemma

content but also in their
of Klimt's allegories lies not just in their
artistic, i.e.
aesthetic presentation. Klimt's
most noticeable artistic device (also typical of applied art) was stylization, which frequently earned him both praise and criticism. Its effect
was to cloak naked instincts and emotions in formal harmony, thus
preventing them from coming across - and being consumed - as
anything other than an "aesthetic placebo" "This device is consistent
with an artistic intention that seeks to define art entirely in terms of
aesthetic behaviour as the only true basis for justifying the existence of
the world. However, it becomes a puppet of cultural falsehood as soon
.
87
- such as Kraus, Loos and

support the alhance between truth and
as the critical conscience of the sceptics
Kokoschka - ceases
to
beauty.'"*^
Klimt was not permitted to show Jurisprudence at the 1904 World

Fair in St. Louis. When an attempt was made to prevent him from
exhibiting his two paintings
Hope and
Goldfish (1901/2 - Klimt
was
going to provoke his critics by dedicating the latter to them), Klimt

decided to annul his contract for the Faculty Paintings and even
offered to repay any commissions he had already received. "If this job,
which has taken years and years, is ever to be completed, " he wrote in
a widely publicized letter to the Ministry of Education,
"I
shall first of
muster my enthusiasm again, which 1 find totally impossible as long as 1 am working under the present conditions of state
patronage." ^^ And in an interview on the same subject Klimt quesall
have
to
tioned the entire
new
practice of state sponsorship of the arts, a
which had, by and large, given the Secession its role in the
had enough of censorship. I'm going to help myself
now. 1 want to break free. want to get rid of all those unpleasant
trivialities holding up my work and regain my freedom. I reject all
state support, I don't want any of it ... Above all, I want to take a stand
against the way in which art is treated in the Austrian state and at the
Ministry of Education. Whenever there's an opportunity, genuine art
and genuine artists are under attack. The only thing that's ever protected is feebleness and falsehood. A lot of things have happened to
serious artists which I don't wish to enumerate now, but I will sometime. One day 1 shall speak out for them and clarify a few points. A
clean break is called for. The state should not seek to exercise dictatorial control over exhibitions and artistic statements; it should confine
its role to that of mediator and commercial agent and should leave the
practice
politics of art: "I've
artistic initiative entirely to
the artists themselves
."
.
'^^
and the three

drafts were acquired by Koloman Moser and Erich Lederer. Medicine
eventually reached the Austrian Gallery. Later, under Nazi rule,
Klimt's Philosophy and Jurisprudence were "aryanized", i.e. forcibly
removed from their Jewish owners and made state property. In May
1945, all three paintings were destroyed at Schloss Immendorf Lower
Austria, when retreating SS troops burnt down the stately home.
Klimt paid the advance commission back to the
state,
88
Jurisprudence, final version, 1907

Jurisprudenz
1945
Orchard, around 1898

Obstgarten
Oil on cardboard, 39 x 28 cm
Private collection,
90
Vienna
Early Landscapes
Farmhouse with Birch Trees, 1900

Bauernhaus mit Birken
")!
Islandin Lake Alter, around 1901

Insel im Attersee
Private collection, by permission of the St. Etienne
Gallery,
92
New York
After the Rain, 1899
Nach dem Regen

Oil
93
Beech Forest I, around 1902

Buchenwald
Modern Gallery, Dresden
94
Birch Wood, 1903
Birkenwald
Oil on canvas,
110x110 cm
95
The Secession Building and its

Exhibitions
The 14th Exhibition

regarded as a climax
of the
Viennese Secession
in the history of the association.
in
1902
is
still
The twenty-one
were all guided by a common idea, that of paying

homage to art. The interior design of the exhibition rooms was by Josef
participating artists
Hoffmann. Together with special items - such as Klimt's Beethoven

Frieze (pp. 104f.) - and the works of art around Max Klinger's Beethoven sculpture, they formed work of art in itself.
The Secession exhibitions - and this one, in particular- marked an
important turning point in the history of exhibitions. For the
first
time,
were no longer arranged according to artists or subjects.

added up to an overall work of art in which each element
constituted part of an overriding idea and aesthetic context. The
interior design furnished a fitting backdrop for the works on display,
underlining the overall idea and establishing connections which
enabled the viewer to understand the message of each individual
works
of art
Instead, they
work. This
made
the Secession exhibitions forerunners of today's
fashionable mise-en-scene exhibitions.
The Vienna Secession Building

(designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich),
1897-1898
Front view
had yet another aim which was, in a

way, diametrically opposed to the general idea: step by step, a spatial
setting was developed which carefully ensured that each work of art
with its unmistakable qualities came into its own. To a large extent,
However,
this
their aestheticism
eventually resulted in a neutral space, a "white cell" (Brian
O'Doherty) - the gallery and museum room of today - which emphatically reinforces the autonomy of art and seems to state that it should
The dilemma of a setting which

individualized the different works was already registered in the Secession exhibitions: the overriding idea and the decorative setting of
the interior design were geared to preventing the disintegration of
not seek to be anything but
art.
exhibitions into collections of radically individualized works of
And indeed
it
was only through such
a so-called
art.
Gesamtkunstwerk
with its overall impact that the Secessionist idea of art as a social force
could be put into practice.
The Secession Building, incidentally, was designed as a kind of
neutral framework which could be adapted to circumstances, thus
revolutionizing the whole idea of exhibitions. For example, it used
which added considerable flexibility.

A year after Klimt's Medicine had been presented to the public, the
scandal was still fresh in everybody's minds, and the controversy over
his Faculty Paintings meant that the position of the entire Secession sliding walls
The Vienna Secession Building

(designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich),
1897-1898
Side view
97
who
supported Klimt - was called into question. So the developa new, special type of exhibition can also be viewed as an
fully
ment
of
attempt
to
present the Secession to the public by highlighting, in a
and comprehensible manner, its artistic and political principles.

Those principles were reflected both in the theme of the exhibition
("The Cult of the Artist") and its form and design ("Raumkunst" - the
clear
art of interior decorating). In his introduction to the
Stohr wrote: "Last
summer
catalogue Ernst
the association decided to interrupt the
customary cycle of art exhibitions with an event of a different kind.

Until then we had provided a uniform link between the many diverse
exhibitions, a harmonious connection between disparate elements, so
that a general exhibition policy was made possible that was both
artistic and modern. Now, however, its entire nature was to be
changed. First of all, a uniform space was to be created, which was
then
to
be decorated with paintings and sculptures, so
became secondary
to the
that these
general concept of space. The idea was to
subordinate the individual parts to the overall effect and to do so under

the given circumstances and within narrowly defined limits. This
inexorable logic necessarily resulted in a deepening of the spacial

character and a firm commitment to the guiding concept.
be met by any work of monumental art, and they lie at the root of the highest and best which man
through the ages has been able to offer - temple art. The desire to
"All these requirements
98
have
to
"Painting, Architecture, Sculpture"

Stucco figures on the Secession Building
Golden
laurel
Building
dome on
the Secession
perform a great task and to go beyond the usual studies and paintings
gave birth to the idea that we should venture a step which, by force of
circumstance, the creative
of the
artist of
our times
coherent design of an interior
is
deried: the production
The idea
and
the hope
that guided us
which was
to provide dignity and unity to our project lay in

would be a magnificent work of art at the centre of the
exhibition. Max Klinger's Beethoven memorial was approaching completion. The thougt that we might provide a dignified framework for
the earnest and splendid homage that Max Klinger was paying to the
great Beethoven with his monument was enough to fire us with
enthusiasm and instill in us a sense of dedication to the work at hand,
even though we were aware that the result of our creative endeavours
would be displayed for only a few days. Thus, an exhibition was born
which was not to be branded by the transitoriness of its existence
We wanted to experience the rewards of performing a task with both a
purpose and an aim. We wanted to learn. All this was to take the form
of an exhibition within the narrow confines of our building, where
nothing permanent could be created because each exhibition was
bound to extinguish the work of the preceding one. "
Klinger's Beethoven memorial was in a central room at the very
heart of the museum, but the exhibition was designed in such a way
that visitors did not see it immediately. Their eyes were drawn first to
the architecture of the church-like three-aisled interior with its muted
that there
^''
99
and subdued overhead lighting. Then they were guided into

the "side aisle" on the left where they were prepared, as it were, for
the climax of the exhibition by Klimt's Beethoven Frieze. The central
room was accessible from the two side rooms, which were slightly
elevated. There, the significance of the main work was further
enhanced and the overall concept of the exhibition underpinned by
two murals, Alfred Roller's Daybreak and Adolf Bohm's Breaking Day.
colours
through the right-hand "side aisle" which,

hallowed
atmosphere of the painstakingly
as it were, echoed the
celebrated, almost sacred occasion. It contained, among others, works
Visitors left the exhibition
by Ferdinand Andri fJoy of Fighting) and Josef Maria Auchentaller

fJoy, Thou Purest Spark Divine).
This kind of stage-setting for the aesthetic experience of an exhibition was by no means new. The reverent enshrinement of art had
already started with the advent of middle-class
18th century and
was
reflected in their classical
museums
and
in the late
historicist interior
The design of early 19th-century cultural buildings provided

an appropriate framework for the "purifying" artistic experience. Karl
Friedrich Schinkel's theatre and museum in Berlin are typical examples. Even at that time the act of entering or leaving a "temple of art" of
design.
changing from the humdrum sphere
was considered extremely

100
of
significant.
everyday
life to
that of culture,
of the Viennese Secession (Beethoven), 1902, front wall with

paintings by A. Bohm in the main hall
XlVth Exhibition
National Library
XlVth Exhibition
of the Viennese Secession (Beethoven), 1902, Max Klingers
Beethoven Sculpture
in the
Photographic Archives
National Library
main
of the
Particular attention
ways
at the
was therefore given
to the
design of the door-
Secession exhibition, so that stepping from one room to
hall
Austrian
another became an experience in

the exit door of the
relief,
left
cut in mortar.
the history of
itself.
"side aisle"
It is
was
Designed by Josef Hoffmann,

a completely abstract square
regarded as one
of the first abstract
works
in
art.
was intended as a decoration. Together with other

exhibition elements, it was designed to illustrate and illuminate the
overall concept of the show. But Klimt's task was radically different
from that of earlier monumental decorators. In the past, both interior
design and sculptural decorations formed a rigid framework into
which the pictures were inserted like photographs in an album. Now
Klimt was given the opportunity - indeed, the assignment - to produce
compositional and stylistic elements as integral parts of an overall
spacial and thematic concept. For Klimt, however, this also meant that
within the general framework he could decide for himself how he
wanted to paint his mural.
The Gesamtkunstwerk of the exhibition paid homage to Beethoven, the great composer, to Klinger, the great artist and to the idea
Klimt's frieze
of the
Secession
through
art.
itself
who
Thus, the
cultivation of
it
set
artist
themselves the task
of
"saving" society
became the saviour; art and the

the work of salvation. " If ever there has
himself
(the exhibition)
101
then this was it: the artists

(KKnger) who, in turn,
(of the Secession) were glorifying an artist
^^ The response of the
glorified another hero of the arts (Beethoven)."
been an example
of collective narcissism,
public - with 58,000 visitors, the Secession's greatest publicity success

- no doubt derived from the 19th-century Beethoven cult.
was
Built by Joseph Maria Olbrich, the Secession building
could be enjoyed in an atmosphere free

from the cares of daily life. Herrmann Bahr, a supporter of the Seceswhose publications helped pave the way for its creation wrote
intended as a place where
art
sion
that the visitor
was
to
"purge himself
of his daily concerns, focus his
mind on the eternal" and cast off "the mental and emotional stress of
^^ The realm of art was to be experienced as
the workaday world".
separate from the rest of life, almost sacred and indeed created by the
presentation. The
artist for these special conditions of perception and
architectural backdrop for contemporary art was no longer provided
by pubUc, monumental buildings, but by the more intimate and pri,
vate surroundings of a short-term exhibition.

Klimt's frieze is a good example of a work of art that
was no longer
and foremost a monument but a decorative element of an art

of design,
interior. It was mainly marked by abstraction and simplicity
which enhanced the effect of the material and also each individual
work of art. The simplicity of the material and its lack of ornament
were aesthetic principles clearly distinct from the aesthetics of historiexpression.
cist art, where ornament was the prime vehicle of
first
Kunstschau exhibition, Klimt himself said in a

lecture that, unfortunately, the Secession exhibitions had not always
been successful. They should in fact have helped towards a breakthrough in "the continually increasing presence of art in every sphere
Later, at the 1908
- a presence, he felt, by which the "progress of civilization"

was measured. ^" Klimt admitted that the overall idea of the Secession
had failed. It had been one of the aims of the Secession and their
exhibition projects to aboUsh the dividing line between art and life.
The idea that art could change society had aheady been expressed
Museum
in the 19th-century apphed art movement. Both the Austrian
of Art and Industry and the School of Applied Art, which was attached
had
to it in 1867 (the school where Klimt received his first training),
of life"
made it their avowed aim to reconcile cultural and economic progress.

Craft, industry
and
art
were
to
form a mutually beneficial whole. The
"refinement" of commercial and industrial products was to

boost sales and profits, while at the same time serving the cultural
education of society, an education which was aimed at bringing
together artists, manufacturers, the inteUigentsia and "the people"
artistic
and which was to break down the barriers between classes.

After the economic and social crises of the late 19th century, the
Secession could no longer cling unconditionally to the idea of the unity
of art production and its reception. Foundations such as the Viennese
Workshop
(1903)
and the School
of
Applied
Art,
which was reformed
more practical training, as well as the exhibitions of the

Secession were attempts to apply a long-standing reform principle on
a new level. However, the concept of the Secession, like that of the
to provide
102
Members of the Viennese
Secession
the Beethoven Exhibition.
From
at
left to
Anton Stark, Gustav Klimt, Kolo

Moser (in front of Klimt, with hat), Adolf
Bohm, Maximilian Lenz (lymg down),
Ernst Stohr (with hat), Wilhelm List, Emil
right:
Orlik (seated), Maximilian Kurzweil

(with cap), Leopold Stolba, Carl Moll (reclining),
Rudolf Bacher
Viennese Workshop - which set out to produce exquisite luxury products for a small circle of wealthy people (an attempt which ended in
financial failure) - were elitist. The Secession changed the public
educational function of the museum into an aesthetic mission, supported entirely by artists and aimed at an elite.
The art critic Rudolph Lothar commented on an exhibition in 1898:
"A place has been created where you can converse in surroundings far
removed from everyday life and the noise outside and where you can
talk about art
react.
.
paintings. Instead of
demanding absolute
silence,
challenges you to speak your mind, to respond and to

derives its impetus from the confUct between differing views
new
this
and
It
And
art
if
we
find ourselves
accept the invitation of art and escape
drawn
all
the
outside,
life
we
more into life's web - though in a different
The highest aim of art is not to be enjoyed but to teach

Until
enjoyment. This makes art an excellent educator of mankind."
then, the middle-class concept of a museum was based on the mindbroadening, humanizing and educative function of art and art contact.
way
'''
was replaced by one based on the enjoyment of art by the

museum-going public, the "guests". This enjoyment, however, was
But
now
it
are able to
not accessible to everyone, but only those "... who
appreciate the feelings which the artist experienced during his crea.
tive act; only they are
worthy
to
stand in front of
it
[the
work
of art]."
That
- and aims to be - an art of the soul
who
is its youth, its strength and significance! ... it addresses all those
them
all
labour under the burden of everyday life. And it aims to turn
into aristocrats! The aristocratization of the masses - that is the mission
of art. And the Secession sets about its accomplishment with new and
powerful methods, methods which are personal and speak from one
person to another. It really ought to open the gates of its house to the
^^
people, wider and wider. The people will understand its language."
After
all,
"the Secession
is
103
The Beethoven Frieze
Originally
it
was planned
after the exhibition. For this
removed
reason, only the cheapest material was
that Klimt's frieze should be
used (which was to lead to great problems in restoring the frieze):

Klimt had painted it on a plastered wooden lattice, held in place with
reeds. To achieve certain effects, he used - among other things - tin
tacks, fragments of mirrors, buttons and costume jewellery made of
coloured cut glass. Nevertheless, the frieze outlived
works
of art in the exhibition.
^-^
Indeed,
it
all
the other
has become the principal
memento of the most famous of all Secession exhibitions. In 1970 the

frieze was bought by the Austrian state, whereupon it was restored in
a long and costly process
At the same time an exact copy was made
for exhibition purposes, which was shown to the public for the first
^''.
time in Venice in 1984, at an exhibition called Vienna 1870-1930 -
Dream and Reality Thus the Beethoven Frieze was promoted to the
rank of a monumental work of art and indeed a major work of Austrian
.
- if not European art at the turn of the century. The frieze had always
been regarded as a key to Klimt's art, and the fact that it had not been
accessible for several decades almost gave it a mythical status. Since
then it has been restored to the Secession building, though not to its
original place. It now hangs in a basement specially converted for the
Drawing
relating to the middle of the

three Gorgons, 1902
Black chalk, partly washed, 44 x 31 cm
Historical
purpose.
Museum, Vienna
The 1902 exhibition catalogue very clearly shows the connection

between the work of the Secession and its underlying philosophy.
With a direct reference to the final chorus of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy, the central theme of the frieze
is the salvation of "weak mankind" through the mediation of art and
love. The frieze starts with a depiction of man's Craving for happiness.
The sufferings of weak mankind. The supplications of the weak to the
strong well-equipped outsider and the inner compassion and ambition
which move him to take up the struggle for happiness. The side wall
shows the result of the struggle: The craving for happiness finds
fulfilment in poetry.
The
arts lead us into the ideal
realm where
we
pure happiness and pure love. Chorus of the

Thou Purest Spark Divine". "A Kiss for the
Whole World". Between these elements, along the side walls, there
were the Hostile Forces: Typhoeus the Giant, against whom even the
gods fought in vain, and his daughters, the three Gorgons, Sickness,
alone can find pure
Angels
joy,
of Paradise, "Joy,
Madness and Death. Lust, Lasciviousness, Excess, Gnawing Grief the cravings and desires of mankind fly high above them. Suspended
Beethoven Frieze, 1902

Beethoven-Fries
Central narrow wall
(detail):
and Gluttony
Unkeuschheit, Wollust und
Unchastity, Lust
Unmassigkeit
Casein paint on
plaster,
220
cm high
OS
freely
on the plaster background which was
left
almost entirely in
its
original state, these figures form the transition to the final group.
One glance at the frieze, however, shows that there is no complete
correspondence between art and text. The "strong well-equipped

outsider", who can also be understood as a Narcissus-like embodiment of the Secession's elitist concept of the artist, is not actually
shown as someone struggling for collective happiness. There is no
confhct or fight with hostile powers.
saved in the final picture, but the hero

himself. Rather than being an active hero and liberator, he is a passive
and
sufferer. The real theme of the pictorial narrative is not struggUng
It is
not
makind
that
is
fighting, but the testing of the individual's capacity to suffer
endure
to
reality.
hold his
Indeed,
own
in real
it
can be seen as a metaphor
of
and
a man's ability
life.
However, the frieze does not show the actual pressures to which
the male ego is subjected in society. The male in Klimt's series of
pictures undergoes a moral pilgrimage in which he has to prove the
value of his
own
about salvation, he seeks

the anxiety fantasies
"hostile forces"
Rather than bringing

his identity comes from
identity, not his social status.

it!
And
the threat to
spawned by the crisis of the male liberal ego. The
which he has
to
withstand are
all
female - except
for
as
the less threatening monster, Typhoeus. The women
ugly, repulsive and aggressive. Their sexuality is meant to have a
threatening quality. They are allegories of the untamed, unrestrained
are
shown
female as the real " hostile power" Having received his

mission from chaste and virtuous women, the well-equipped hero with
instincts of the
armour is concerned not so much with the salvation of mankind

as with his own. He comes closer to it by distancing himself from the
aggressiveness of female instincts and by controlling his own instincts,
all his
whose aggressive and threatening
qualities are projected onto the
Left
and opposite:
Reconstruction of the Klimt Room according to Prof. Hans Hoileins plans.

Right side wall
106
woman and
associated with her. After
sive side of female nature
is
all,
each variant
of this
aggres-
derived from anxiety fantasies.
and desires which - according to the

fly high above the hostile powers are Uterally
suspended freely in space, untouched by the strong outsider's redemptive work, which is shown as a war-like conflict: "This
The
allegories of cravings
exhibition catalogue -
psychological attitude
[of
weak ego
the allegories)
is,
as
it
were, a classical
its lack of power

and argument is avoided." ^^
Splitting the image of womanhood into one of chastity and virtue,
on the one hand, and a threatening image on the other reflects a real
split in society, which can be found in many different variations
throughout Klimt's work. Woman's image is shown in a whole range of
manifestations - mythical beings, witches, mermaids and fairy-tale
animals, as well as portraits of upper middle-class ladies. The male
ego is formed and strengthened - so the frieze tells us - at the expense
expression of a
over
that finds a substitute for
reality: desire is everything,
107
of
female identity, which is spUt up and disintegrated. There were four
hnguistic conventions in
German
Weih (a
Huie, ("whore") and Mutter
at the turn of the century:
term of contempt), Dame ("lady"),

words which reflected the social roles of women as well as
" mother "
the wishful thinking and anxieties of men.
The final picture - Salvation - refers to the fourth movement in
(
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. However, Klimt was not so

ing
homage to the original literary and musical source
much
pay-
(only the chorus
Angels refers to it directly). Nor was he giving an

account - as promised by the catalogue - of the liberation of mankind.
Together with the rest of the frieze, the finale illustrates not so much
the solemn Secessionist goal of man's salvation through art and the
artist, but rather a private, male obsession.
At the centre of the painting there is a couple: the "well-equipped
strong outsider" has shed his armour and is embracing a woman. He is
not facing us, so we cannot see his face or guess any of his feelings.
This kiss is a sign that the man has been saved by the woman - in a
of the Paradise
up the symbiosis between erotic humanity

and nature. However, the picture also contains an oddly static or
frozen quality. The couple seems to be locked together, immobile,
forming part of their spatial surroundings, as if they had stiffened into
picture that also conjures
a single ornament. This ornamental immobility also characterizes the

108
Above and
right:

Left side wall (detail): Yearning tor Happiness
Die Sehnsucht nach GliJck
Casein paint on plaster
2.2 metres high, 13.78 metres long
...,
I53^
chorus of the rather uniform and therefore dull-looking Paradise

Angels. The virility of the nude man's back covers the woman's body
almost completely. As her face
is
invisible, too, the individuality of
both characters remains concealed from us and seems to have merged

into the
compulsive and indissoluble union of the couple. Their legs
are entwined by a
web
of blue, chain-like threads. This "salvation" is
an escape, a withdrawal from life, made possible by art. Werner

Hofmann has described the dubiousness of this "image of salvation"
in these terms: "Klimt obviously had difficulties reconciling Schiller's
jubilant compassion for the whole of mankind with his own basic motif
- an eroticism that does not open up but screens itself off. Man and
woman penetrate each other, protected by a precious enclosure. Is this
kiss really meant for 'the whole world'? Or is it just aimed at the chosen
tew under the spell of the religion of aestheticism? There is no escape
from this protective encasement, and fulfilment can only be achieved
at the price of renouncing the world. In its motionless finality it seems
tantamount to 'passionate death."
This oddly static quality of the two lovers, as Hofmann describes it,
is a stylistic feature of the entire work. Klimt tends towards a narrative
technique in which the individual elements are self-contained, kept
apart from one another by large empty areas, so that they are lined up
''''
paratactically, as
it
were, without any links between them. In separat109
ing figures and groups of figures by empty spaces, Klimt achieved a
complex network of relationships and tensions. These spaces are not

even ornamented; in places, they are merely bare areas of concretecoloured plaster. Incorporating the bare plastered ground
is
an unusu-
which turns the ground into the real carrier of

message. In our discussion of the Stoclet Frieze (pp. 144f.)
shall be concentrating on similar tendencies towards abstraction
ally radical abstraction
the
we
artist's
where the material ground of the painting was incorporated, and we

shall see that this went even further.
Old photographs of the exhibition rooms show that the three parts
of the frieze were originally separated by narrow strips of wall. Rather
than telling a continuous story, it was intended to form various scenes
with allegorical references to the idea of salvation through
illustrated
by Klinger's Beethoven sculpture
(at
art,
as
the centre of the ex-
hibition).
Obviously, in the context of the exhibition and against the background of the fin de siecle Beethoven cult, it would be wrong to read
the frieze merely in terms of private obsessions. Klimt
saw his work

more as an allegory of cultural forces and conditions and also of the
role of art and of the artist as saviour. Not many of the numerous
analogies from art history and mythology that can be read into the
frieze are really convincing.
110
However,
if
we
consider the endeavours

Central end wall (detail): Hostile Forces
Die feindUchen Gewalten
Casein paint on plaster, 2.2 metres high,
6.36 metres long
of the
Secession in
art policy
and
culture,
it
seems extremely plausible
that the conspicuous division into three parts, with
tween the "work

critique of
of salvation"
contemporary
and
its
contrast be-
the "hostile forces", also contains a
civilization.
"The Utopian vision of universal brotherhood which Beethoven

had proclaimed [in his Ninth Symphony] - a vision where the whole of
mankind would be set free from its pains - was contrasted with the
chaos and corruption of modern civilization and the constraints
The hostile
imposed from above (by the state and the church)
forces' in the painting apparently also included those forces which
The shock effect of this
obstructed his own development as an artist
.
mural was a consciously calculated part of the general layout. The

ape-like monster, with its pearl-shaped eyes and the name of the
worst possible brute from ancient mythology, and the female figures
stared at
shining brightly against the dark ornamental background
.
the visitor as he entered the
The Beethoven
Frieze
is
room." "
generally considered to be the turning
point in Klimt's artistic career, though his stylistic idiosyncrasies have
never been regarded entirely
sometimes led
to a
uncritically.
His stylization, which
considerable simpUfication of contours, the solem-
nity of his two-dimensional, statue-like figures, his contrasts
colours, contours
and untreated
between
plaster ground, his predilection for
111
^7
.i^
ii.;_.-.
reducing certain figures
to stereotype yet at the
same time overload-
them with meaning (figures sometimes referred to as "dummy"

knights) - all these elements of form and content contradict one
another and therefore do not meet with unanimous admiration.
ing
In his treatment of the individual figures, Klimt largely
Naturahst depiction, using a more planar, graphic

resulted in a poster-like lack of mystery, so that a
avoided a
which
figures -
style,
number of
for example, those in his "suffering mankind" - were hardly able to

support the resounding solemnity of his claim in the accompanying
Novotny has very aptly defined the problem of content as an aesthetic one: "The new or modernist' element
was more or less consciously programmatic and basically meant that
thought content was more closely connected to pure form. This conexpress thought and emotional content in
nection was intended to
a new and immediate way. What is more it was to do so more ostensibly
than is necessarily the case with all works of art. The nature of the line
drawing - Klimt' s real forte and the most important tool of his art - was
text.
The
art historian Fritz
designed to express either sadness or comfort, depression or relief, or

any other less easUy definable emotional content. In art that takes this
form - or at least art conceived in this form - it can be expected that
any change of form means a change in emotional content, if not
thought content. This can be seen very clearly in the difference bet112

Right side wall (detail): The Yearning for
Happiness Finds Fulfilment in Poetry
Die Sehnsucht nach Gliick findet Stillung in der Poesie

Casein paint on plaster, 2.2 metres high,
13.81 metres long
ween the two university allegories on the one hand and the Beethoven
Frieze on the other: while the former expressed resignation and sad-
ness at the world's woes, manifesting
itself in
painterly uncertainty,
the latter displays the heroic solemnity of an inner struggle,
made
an austere form that is totally remote from nature.

In opting for this later, non-Modernist style, giving greater freedom to elements of form, Klimt had ventured to a critical point as
visible in
regards the visual rendering of metaphysical content.
Was
the
emphasis he placed on 'open' linear form - lending weight to formal

structure - on obvious and effective means of illustrating metaphysical ideas and symbols? Was it as obvious as logic suggested? Was not
the dreamt-of harmony between form and thought content precariously threatened by the predominance of form - line, colour and
particularly ornamentation? There could be no doubt that ground had
been gained with regard to the aesthetic effect of form - but what
about the clarity, unambiguousness and intensity of the thought content?"
-^
113
The
Kiss
Klimt's painting
seen
at the
The Kiss
which can now be

Klimt's most famous work
117) of 1907/08,
(p.
Austrian Gallery in Vienna,
is
and indeed the one that has been most widely reproduced. Klimt
painted it during what is generally referred to as his "golden period"
because of the considerable use he made of gold paint and real (leaf)
gold. The popularity of these paintings - including The Kiss - may
well be due to his use of gold, which, apart from being foreign to the
painter's palette, has magical and religious connotations and is held as
a symbol of sheer costhness and material value. Some of this costliness
as well as the bright gleam of the gold is intricately connected with the
content of the painting. Its "value" also affects its "meaning". The
artist's stylistic
idiosyncrasies during this period, the two-dimensional
ornamental character of his paintings and his avoidance of any effects

of depth serve to enhance the significance of each picture and its
canvas. As a result of the precious ornamental structure of the surface,
the "meaning" of the painting can be seen in its form and material
rather than its content. The aura of the painting and its seductive
beauty are due both to its ambiguous preciousness and the depiction
of the lovers as the
embodiment
Standing on a kind
of
cliff,
of unsullied erotic delight.
a small flowery
meadow, which
is
not
intended as a spatial reference point, the two lovers are shown com-
absorbed in one another, enrapt, as it were, in an aura of gold

which surrounds them like a halo, unites them and isolates them from
their environment. The indeterminate location of the scene removes
the lovers into a homogeneous cosmos that is close to nature but
without space or time, far from all definite historical or social reality.
pletely
Entirely in line with Art

"universal,
Nouveau
cosmogonal and
in
philosophy, the lovers are
shown
Side View of Lovers, Standing, 1907/08

Blue crayon, 56 x 37 cm
Albertina, Vienna
as
tune with nature" and expressing a
complete single experience.^"

The encapsulation of the two lovers as well as the averted face of
the man reinforce the impression of isolation and distance from us. The
two sexes are reduced to their biological difference, their "pure"
nature. Because of the isolation of the embracing couple as well as the
"pure" but unreal cosmic space around them, the promise of happiness in this picture also refers to nature itself. Happiness is only
conceivable outside social reality. Non-violent relationships between
the sexes and towards nature is only imaginable in the world of
dreams. As in the Beethoven Frieze, the "promise of salvation" offers
no indication of how salvation can actually be achieved.
The Kiss (detail), 1907/08

Der Kuss
lis
Life is a Struggle (The
Golden Knight),
1903
Das Leben ein Kampf (Der goldene

Ritter)

Private collection, by permission of the
York
St. Etienne Gallery,
New
ornamental symbolism in the lovers' garments, the

picture has often been described as symbolizing their union. However, it is precisely those ornamental elements which here distinguish
Because
of the
male and female. Following the cliches of biologically and psychologically distinctive features, the man has been given "harsh" forms rectangular areas of black, white and grey - while the woman is
endowed with the "soft" features of colourful, flowery and curved
elements. So although the lovers' embraces, their self-contained
shared outline, their background and their golden garments suggest a
two figures can nevertheless be distinown specific ornaments. However, the ornamenta-
single configuration, the
guished by their
tion also blurs their sexual differences. Indeed,
it is
only their orna-
ments which indicate, in an abstract and symbolical way, the "little

difference" between them.
"In The Kiss he [KUmt] has taken away the male-female tension
from the two bodies and delegated it to the opposition of rectangular
and round patterns. Thus, instinct and desire have been encoded in a
scheme of ornamental contrasts. "^ This shift of the instinctive element from persons and bodies to ornaments also brings the sexes
closer together. Although a distinction is preserved in the form of
ornamentation, this is indeed the only area where it continues to exist.
The body language of the two figures, on the other hand, the possible
different gestures, postures and physiognomy hardly contain any distinctive features at all. Klimt's fascination with the games (not merely
116
The Kiss, 1907/08

Der Kuss
be played with the limits of sexual

differentiation can be seen in all his works. In his mosaic for the side
wall in the dining hall of Stoclet Palace (p. 151), which will be discussed later, he abandoned this distinction altogether, and both sexes are
symbolized within one figure. The price he paid was the abandonment
of the Naturalist human image, leaving man in danger of becoming an
"object of artistic craftsmanship and interior design". In his Faculty
Paintings (pp. 76f Klimt had shown the self-contained circular movement of a blind nature in direct opposition to the supposedly rational
faith of the middle classes. In his Stoclet Frieze he radicalized this
counter-concept by isolating the figures even further while at the
same time stripping them of any meaning that might point beyond
them. In return, he had to accept the power of the reality principle:
man's supposed dominion over nature has changed into the dominion
of the objects over man. The image of man which dreams of a rapprochement between the sexes and even the total abolition of their
differences has become an abstract ornamental mosaic from which
virtually all representational features have disappeared.
The halo which surrounds the two lovers in The Kiss is defined by
the man, whose back determines the line of its contour. This shape,
which seems to have a phallic quality about it, has been described as
"tower-like", "bell-shaped" and "semantically almost incomprehensof a formal nature) that could
.)
ible". This is hardly
unusual
for Klimt. Similar
but less ambiguous

117
shapes were used by Klimt in his Beethoven Frieze for the figure of
Lust, and once, in a kind of caricature, he even portrayed himself in the
form of a penis. This major symbol of masculinity has its correspondence in the man's bull-necked virility, which almost seems brutal. All
the energy of motion in the picture comes from him. He is the one who
grasps hold of the woman's head and turns
towards himself so that

he can kiss her cheek. The woman, on the other hand, is depicted as
passive. Kneeling before the man, she clearly assumes a posture of
it
show that he was particuthese drawings he had experimented with
submission. Klimt's preliminary sketches

larly
fond of this theme. In
different compositional solutions in order to render satisfactorily the
between the man and the kneeling woman. Eventually, he solved the problem by leaving the man's standing posture
ambiguous while at the same time having the woman's feet jut out
clearly from the bubble enclosure so that her kneeling posture was
emphasized even further. The woman's decorative floral pattern has
become a kind of halo, underlining her somnolent passivity.
The painting is full of ambivalence. While exalting the joy of erotic
union, it also guestions the identity of the two lovers and their sexuality. As in the back view of the kissing nude male in the Beethoven
difference of height
no doubt about his hero's masculinity

though the figure should not
be seen as a self-portrait, as has often been claimed). However, the
biological difference is turned into mere abstraction by means of the
ornaments.
Also, the merging of the two figures into one large shape must be
understood as Klimt's endeavour to neutralize the difference between
the sexes. The anatomical and biological element that determines
their difference - the phallus - has been erected in the form of a
monumental icon which defines the two people and their sexes. The
Utopian idea of reconciling the sexes and of neutralizing their difference inevitably becomes dominated by the male.
The composition of the painting suggests two related ways of
identifying with it. The viewer is intended to identify with the man. He
is the one who initiates the (few) activities within the painting, whose
embraces aim at a neutralization of sexual distinctions and who seeks
to identify with the female element. The play of abstract ornamentation has already detached this difference from their bodies and amalgamated them in one grand formal gesture. The man's identification
with the woman is derived from what has been called the crisis of the
male ego or - for those who prefer a socio-political formulation - the
Frieze
(with
(p.
113), Klimt leaves
whom he may well have identified,
crisis of
the liberal ego. This
crisis also
led to the discovery of the
man. In the Beethoven Frieze they have been partitioned and fended off as terrifying "hostile forces". Likewise, in The
Kiss there is no toleration of sexual division. The image of the woman
has, as it were, been written into that of the man and made subject to
the principle of masculinity. The symbolical shape of the phallus
also points to the eternal and insoluble separation between the
sexes, which seems to be far more of a theme in the painting than
feminine
traits in
their union.
118
Gert Mattenklott has drawn attention to the same phenomenon in

Klimt's drawings: "A large number of drawings show httle girls or
young women in long, often dinging garments that look as if they
the
were a cross between gowns and sheaths. Except for the head
The shapes, sometimes trapezoidal
entire body remains concealed
.
but usually elongated and narrow, conceal any distinctive features of

female physique, suggesting only one similarity, similarity with a
phallus. Thus the bodies feign something they lack and covet. Symbolically,
they become what they do not possess. In this
woman compensates
entire body, so that
cal satisfaction.
her one physical deficit
of
her
denotes both a lack of something and its symboh-
it
The
for
way each
by means
lining has turned the desiring
body
into a
symbol
''^
- a fetish in the prop room of lust. "

Rather than a union or an embodiment of the triumph of Eros, the
immobihty of the couple in The Kiss - as in other depictions of couples
of the desired object
- suggests that their embraces are a petrified regression in which the

two figures no longer take any notice of themselves or the world.
And indeed Klimt's couples hardly ever show any of the communicative aspects of love. The lovers rarely relate to one another by means of
^'^
gestures or signs of affection. (The aggressiveness of the struggle

between the sexes, which was to become an important theme in early
Austrian Expressionism, is totally absent). The couples are almost

without exception completely rigid in their embraces or, in his later
works, lost in a dream-hke state and completely unrelated to one
another. For Klimt this
between the
to the
was one way
of re-defining the relationship
sexes. Another, found in his drawings, lay in reducing
loneUness
of
an
erotically self-sufficient
popularity of The Kiss, in particular,
may
it
woman. The enormous
well be due to the idiosyn-
which we have just described. It can be read as a cipher of

erotic happiness because it allows no reference to the temporary and
transitory nature of love and because cultural and social conditions
crasies
have been excluded altogether. Erotic happiness is shown not as a

promise but as the redemption of a promise, albeit at the price of
statue-hke rapture. The painting can be interpreted as a space on
which a wide variety of different notions can be projected, a space in
and emotional content are hnked to the fascination

material preciousness, its golden aura and gold as a colour.
which
of
its
intellectual
119
The Three Ages

Death and Life
of
Woman /
In The Three Ages of Woman (p. 122) Klimt dealt with one of his
most central themes - the cycle of life. Using the devices of styUstic
contrast and different degrees of realism, he contrasted youth and old
age. On the one hand, there is the young woman holding a sleeping
child, a "secularized
passive, styhzed
madonna" (Eva
di Stefano), herself
and part of the ornamental background.
somnolent,
On the other
hand we see the NaturaUst profile of the despairing old woman, turned
aside and covering her face with her hand. These are not just stages or
periods in a woman's life, but aspects of womanhood. "The contrast
between the stylized girl and the Naturahstic old woman has a symbolical value", writes Eva di Stefano, "the first phase of life is characterized by an infinite number of possibilities and metamorphoses,
while the last phase is marked by an unchangeable uniformity that
does not allow one to escape confrontation with reality. The first phase
is characterized by a dream
the last by the impossibility of dream.
ing.
"
.,
63
As in The Kiss, the figures are embedded in the symboUcal shape of

a phallus. However, whereas both sexes are represented in The Kiss,
the identification of the artist in The Three Ages of Woman takes place
entirely through different stages of womanhood, ranging from regressive harmony and its alter ego to the threat of old age, biological decay
and impending death. Could the abstract presence of the male element in the ornamental shape of a phallus perhaps express the desire
to identify with womanhood, as in The Kiss'? If so, Klimt here depicted
the regressive utopia of a life cycle - perceived as both feminine and
natural - subject to male domination in content and form. The same
desire for identification may possibly be corroborated by yet another
of Klimt' s obsessions - the prenatal, regressive (and therefore presexual) harmony, which is also present in this painting in the form of
motherhood. Embryonic childlikeness can often be found in his
oeuvre, including
many
of his drawings.
paintings were devoted to
Two
most famous
pregnancy, and he also depicted pregnant
of his
women in his Faculty Paintings (Medicine). The idea of life beyond all
sexual differentiation and in childhke unconsciousness
is
contrasted
The Three Ages of Woman with its pessimistic counterpart

approaching death.
If - as Eva di Stefano suggests - the painting is based on traditional
depictions of vanity, then Death and Life (p. 123) may stem from the
in
iconographic dance-of-death tradition in art history. However, unhke

many other dance-of-death paintings, Klimt's work shows no attempt
to allegorize social differences
rendered insignificant
death. Again, the dominant element in the painting

120
in the face of
is
regression.
Procession of the Dead, 1903
Zug der Toten

1945
Oil
Gathered in a mass and withdrawing into themselves, a group of

people symbolizing mankind are pointedly arranged in relation to
death. The group resembles the crowds in Klimt's Faculty Paintings.
"In the lower half a man and a woman, two lovers, are embracing each
other. But the painting is not about ecstatic sensuality or the triumph of
Eros, but love as a refuge and comforter." ^* A comparison with Egon
Schiele's works - which is drawn quite frequently in this connection clearly shows that the message of Klimt's depictions of mankind is
largely determined by their formal composition. While Schiele's
expressive gestures and dissolution of form are intended to have a
disturbing effect and his frequent use of bright contrasting colours
suggests psychological vulnerability, Klimt's vocabulary of form is
gentle and soothing. Neither gestures, movements nor glances provide a link between the two elements of the painting - death and
mankind. Tension is created by the very lack of communication as
well as the clear formal structure of the painting, with its large empty
space between the figures. But the tension which is created by formal
elements is partly neutralized again by the depiction of the people.
Somnolent and dreamlike, not only are they ignoring the threat of
death, they also seem to be totally unaffected by its presence.
121
Thiee Ayes of Woman, 1905

Die drei Lebensalter der Frau
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome
file
122
^.'h'S^*;^^^-8S3
DeuUi
unci Lite,
completed
in
1916
Tod und Leben

Oil

Leopold Collection, Vienna
Dr. Rudolf
123
Eqon Schiele Agony, 1912

,
Agonie
Bavarian State Collection of Paintings, Neue Pinakothek, Munich
124
Egon Schiele Death and the Maiden 1915

Der Tod und das Madchen
,

Oil
125
:-!\y'
ny.
-i^'
Hope
Klimt's 1903 painting of a pregnant nude, entitled
one
few works where the circumstances
of his
tively
well-known.
oeuvre. Klimt,
It
who
Hope
134), is
(p.
of its origins are rela-
therefore occupies a special place in the painter's
consciously accepted that
many
of his pictures
offended against aesthetic and moral norms, here created an artwork

dealing with a topic which few in the history of art had dared or seen fit
to address.
would
Thus, he could assume from the very beginning that
violate
first. It is
some
taboo,
and
to
was not exhibited in public at

Education, von Hartel, personally
in fact
said that the Minister of
persuaded Klimt not
Hope
it
show it publicly,
to
avoid adding further fuel to

^^
the controversy over his Faculty Paintings.
was the pregnancy

of one of Klimt's models, a woman known to us only by her first name,
Herma. Arthur Roessler, the art critic of the newspaper Arbeiterzeitung reported that Klimt continued to make her come to his studio,
even though she refused at first to serve as a model during her pregnancy. But Herma was dependent on her modelling fees in order to
support her family, and so she agreed to continue. The artist had no
compunctions about using the difficult position of the "lass", whose
"backside", according to Roessler, was "more beautiful and intelligent than many other girls' faces."
In the hierarchy of womanhood,
male artists and critics always regarded models as the lowest of the
low. The fact that not even the model's surname was considered to be
The circumstance
that
prompted
this painting
'"''
worth mentioning
is
Pregnant Nude, Standing,

Study for Hope 11, 1907/08
Black chalk on wrapping paper,
49 X 31 cm
Profile of a
Historical
Museum, Vienna
further evidence of this attitude. Roessler' s casual
account of the incident reflects the artist's view that models should
always be at his disposal. Indeed, he was only interested in the physical aspect.
Klimt
was extremely generous towards
to him, all those girls
his models.
"They
with their troubles and tribulations
all
.
somebody's father had died and there wasn't enough money

funeral. Klimt paid for
evicted from their
flat.
it.
On
crowns.
for the
full.
On
the other hand,
Their hourly fee was 5

florins. In
Wittgenstein family he estimated that "the current price of
a life-size portrait by myself"

portrait of
"
painting such as The Kiss brought in 20,000
letter to the
came
Once,
another occasion a family was being
Klimt paid the rent."
Klimt exploited their economic plight to the
crowns.
was about 5,000
florins. ^^
And
for the
Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt he received 35,000
When
his drafts for the Faculty Paintings
were
rejected,
he
Hope
//(detail),
1907 08
Hoffnung 11
Oil and gold on canvas,
C'ollection,
The Museum
10 x 110
of
cm
Modern
Art,
New York.
Mr. and Mrs. Ronald S. Lauder and HeAcheson Funds, and Serge Sabarsky
len
127
was able to buy them back for 30,000 crowns. ^^ The figure in Hope is
shown in profile, so the curved, pregnant body becomes an ornamenmuch
tal element. Preliminary sketches for the painting show how
Klimt was interested in an ornamental treatment of the body. Experimenting with form in a variety of ways, he was fascinated by the
different methods of rendering the human body more and more ab-
one drawing the curved contours of the woman's pregant

body are duphcated, producing a textile- or carpet-hke pattern. In the
stractly. In
woman
seen against a two-dimensional, ornamental background in front of a creature comparable to Typhoeus in

the Beethoven Frieze. Like the octopus in Jurisprudence, it is
painting
itself
the
is
woman. At the upper edge of the painting

there are a skull and some ugly female faces, probably intended to
symbolize "hostile powers" though the woman has turned away from
threatening to engulf the
them and seems to be ignoring them.
The sexual aspect is symboUcally present in the form of loose, red

hair - a feature of the erotic and therefore "threatening" nature of the
woman in many
been
of Klimt' s paintings. In
further defused
by the
Hope, however, sexuality has
allegorical figures. This
made
it
possible
nude figure a symbolical meaning and to understand her as

pointing to a wider significance. The exact meaning of the allegorical
heads at the top edge of the painting is unclear. The title supports the
interpretation that the artist probably wanted to see pregnancy as a
regression into prenatal harmony, while showing the threat to the
budding new life in the form of sickness, vice, death and misery.
to give the
variety of different interpretations soon developed around the

painting, giving an idea of how the subject was perceived. "Mother-
hood" for example, was a concept that emphasized the socially beneficial and productive aspect of sexual pleasure. Another one, "proUfic
fruitfulness", stressed the element of naturalness which was very
,
keeping with Art Nouveau philosophy. The latter interpretation has been adopted by critics of our own time, such as Alessandra
Comini, who has commented on this painting: "Life and death are
equally present in the great continuum of biological renewal. "
much
in
/'^,..-^=*^
1
128
^,
Lovers- Studies, 1903/04

Black chalk, dimensions unknown, reproduced in Ver Sacrum, 1903, issue 22
)\i
,
'iilm
Three Pregnant Nudes in Profile, from

the Left Study for Hope I, 1903/04
Pencil with red, black and blue chalk,
46 X 32 cm
,
Historical
Museum, Vienna
Interpretations of
Hope have been extremely
diverse.
It
was
suggested, for example, that the painting depicted "satanic mother-
hood" or that it was a protest against 19th-century Victorian morality.

Eva di Stefano interpreted the "monster" (which, as in the Beethoven
Frieze, hardly had anything threatening about it) as a symbol of the
"negative character of femininity" - a threatening, devouring motherhood which is ambivalently opposed to its prolific fruitfulness. But by
painting the woman with red, open and wavy hair as well as red pubic
,
hair,
Klimt added yet another aspect of femininity that
makes her
interchangeable. These attributes, which are usually reserved for the
world of courtesans in his paintings, also make the pregnant woman

appear seductive, her calm unwavering gaze directed at the viewer.
The peculiarly iridescent quality of the painting is created by the
simultaneous projection
of
two
of the artist's favourite types of
women:
129
Mother and
Child, 1904-1908
Blue crayon, 53 x 37 cm
Albertina,
the figure
is
both a mother and a seductively erotic woman. These
seemingly contradictory metamorphoses

turn out to be two aspects of the
of
same male
womanhood
could thus
projection of femininity.
Otto Weininger's book Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character)

points towards a possible interpretation of the painting in this sense as
well as an assessment of Klimt's polarized typology of
womanhood.
"Meanwhile," says Weininger, "we must regard women in terms of

two types, bearing within themselves sometimes more of the one and
sometimes more of the other: these are the mother and the whore
the one will take any man who can help her produce a child, and as
soon as she has her child, she does not need another man. This is her
only claim to the label monogamous'. The other woman gives herself
to any man who helps her get erotic pleasure: for her, this is an end in
itself. This is where the two extremes meet, and we hope that this will
.
130
Vienna
enable us
such."
to
gain some insight into the essence of
womanhood
as
^^
For several years
it
was impossible
was found immediately.
a buyer
to
Fritz
show Hope in
public,
Warndorfer, one
though
of the co-
founders of the Viennese Workshop, bought the painting and, probably at Klimfs suggestion, had a lockable frame built for it, similar to a
winged
altarpiece.
He probably
did this not to "protect" the painting
from "unworthy glances" (Alice Strobl) - which would have been no

problem in Warndorfer' s private home - but to savour the full impact
was revealed to his guests. "One evening,"

says Ludwig Hevesi, "we were sitting together and looking at the
rather dry works of art Herr Warndorfer had been collecting. One
painting was hermetically sealed by two folding doors to shield it from
vulgar glances. This was Klimt's famous - or rather, infamous - Hope,
that young woman, obviously in the family way, whom Klimt had
dared to paint au naturel ... a deeply moving act of creation. There
she was, strutting along in her sacred state, surrounded on all sides by
Howthe vile and ugly faces of life's lustful and profane demons
ever, she can withstand all trials, and so she steadfastly walks along
the path of horror. Undefiled and undefilable, she is sustained by the
hope entrusted to her womb."
Klimt took up the theme of the pregnant woman again in Hope II
symbohc forms
(p. 135), in which he changed both the style and the
of the painting
when
it
''^
considerably. Instead of creating a densely ornamental network of

relationships between the figures within a tall, narrow rectangular
field,
Klimt
now chose
format - a square. The pregnant
his favourite
time a statue-like figure, has drawn her "allegorical

satellites" entirely towards herself: the skull seems to be sitting
directly on her pregnant body while the female heads are poised, like
woman,
this
the heads of soothing assistants, in a sleepily prayerful posture. This

time the woman's glance is averted, there is no special eye contact
with the figures or the viewer, and she is completely absorbed in

herself. Above all, however, this Hope is no longer a nude. Almost the
entire body has become a complex ornament with its own internal
from which only the woman's head, breasts

and raised hand protrude, representing - as in many of Khmt's other
paintings - female corporeahty. An allegorical reference to motherstructure, a patterned area
hood as a fertile, engulfing and at the same time threatening state may
well have already been present in Hope I. Here, however, it has been
compressed and rendered less ambiguous, because the individual
allegorical elements have now also become formal aspects of the
woman. This lack of ambiguity is also a loss: Hope I laid itself open to a
''^
variety of different interpretations,
all
connected with motherhood,
one of the major themes in Art Nouveau. The painting oscillated

between psychological and erotic or sexual aspects which, in turn,
contained an element of ambivalence and therefore also the threatening side of womanhood. In Hope II on the other hand, the allegory is
considerably more simple and superficial. It merely conveys Klimt's
central idea of the eternal cycle of life and death as a natural process.
The story behind Hope I as well as the reactions of art critics and art
,
131
historians to the painting clearly
lorded
it
show
the extent to which male artists
over their female models. This lordship was both economic
and aesthetic
in nature, with
no dividing
line,
and
critics
rians retrospectively provided the philosophy to justify
it.
and
Klimt's
histo-
mod-
surrounded by myths which still abound today. A glance

through the literature on Klimt quickly reveals the tenacity of a
number of anecdotes for whole decades. Based on scant established
facts, these episodes were embellished, amended and extended until
els are
was almost impossible to discern the historical core among the

numerous deposits of rumour and half-truth. Much of what can be
read on the topic of "Klimt and his models" in the literature on the
it
artist is
but the expression of people's vivid imaginations or indeed
sheer speculation on the part of modern authors.
Whenever there is any sensitivity towards the problematic relabetween the artist and his models, the role of the model is
tionship
often falsely idealized. Alternatively, irrespective of our
knowledge
of
existing social conditions, they are even ascribed emancipational
which are then said to have found their

expression in Klimt's art. Hans Hofstatter, one of the few authors who
talk about the role of the models at any great length, even maintains
that their depiction in Klimt's drawings must be regarded as revolutionary. Klimt, he says, was concerned with the "critical unmasking" of
society in his erotic drawings and with achieving a "re-assessment of
abilities
and
the role of
"work
intentions,
women
What is more,
own efforts; his
in society".
of liberation"
by
his
Klimt did not attain this

lack of artistic restraint
supposedly shows an attitude of protest on the part of his models and

indeed a certain freedom which they claimed for themselves. Hofstatter turned the artist's lordship over his models into its exact opposite the freedom of the models "to strike the most intimate poses and
display the most flagrant exhibitionism". Against the background of
the dominant, restrictive sexual morality of the bourgeoisie, this free-
dom was meant
as a "challenge", a
sensuality unfettered by morality.
demand
for a future-oriented
^''
Hofstatter failed to notice that the artist himself could constrain the
freedom of his models in almost every respect - socially, materially

and also aesthetically (his painting Hope / is a typical example) - and
that it was the artist who decided how a woman should be seen. As for
social prestige, models in particular were at the bottom of the scale.
They had no freedom to run their own affairs and no recourse to any
form of protest whatsoever. The definition of a woman's role by the
male artist apparently implied not only the "discovery" of eroticism
and sexuality but also the reduction of womanhood to eroticism and
sexuality and nothing else. It is therefore impossible to speak of liberation in connection with Klimt and his models. Furthermore the cultural
and social conditions at the time did not allow the development of
unrestrained female sexuality. Otherwise, one would impute that the
painter was pohtically committed and that he saw his art as a pohtical
medium. However, Klimt and the Secession were committed to the
aesthetic refinement of society and certainly not to an art that pointed
out social injustice.
132
Eqon Schiele The Family, 1918

,
Die Familie
133
Hope
II. 1907/08
Die Hoffnung II
Oil and gold on canvas, 1 10 x 1 10 cm
Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Ronald
and Helen Acheson Funds, and Serge Sabarsky
S.
Lauder
Opppusite:
Hope
I, 1903
Die Hoffnung I
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
135
Gold
Fish. 1901/02
Goldfische
Diibi-Miiller Foundation, Kunstmuseum, Solothurn
136
Water Serpents I, 1904-1907

Wasserschlangen
Watercolours and gold paint on parchment, 50 x 20 cm,
I
137
Gold Fish
(detail), 1901/02
Goldfischc
Diibi-Miiller Foundation, Kunstmuseum, Solothurn
138
Hope
/(detail), 1903
Die Hoffnung I
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
139
Judith
painted in 1901, was widely known and interpreted as Salome, even though its frame clearly bears the inscription
Judith and Holoiernes. In her attempt to analyse the pecuUar circumstance, Alessandra Comini suggests that the renaming of the
painting may have involved an involuntary act of suppression, leading
Judith
some even
142),
I (p.
to
maintain that the painter
made
a mistake. Comini bases
her supposition on the fact that Judith, unlike Salome, killed the man
herself - a fact which those who insisted on changing the title conveniently ignored^^
Klimt's painting contains no direct reference to the act of homicide.

The most important feature of conventional depictions of Judith, the
severed head of Holofernes, has been excluded almost completely

from the painting. Instead of telling the myth, Klimt portrayed Judith.
The threatening element in the picture, which - according to Comini
have puzzled guite a few art historians and critics, is

occasioned not by the gory decapitation of the man but by the depiction of Judith as a f emme f atale and her exhibitionist display of sensuality as the only standard she is prepared to recognize. Her mythologi-
seems
to
allowed the artist to conceal her transformation into a

sexual object, though he did this in such a way that the transformation
turned against the woman herself: rather than showing her as an
cal disguise
man who
active heroine killing a
impulses, she herself
is
overwhelmed by
makes her appear dangerously

"This Judith
eyes of
... is
has been overcome by his erotic
fire in
and
this
unpredictable.
a beautiful Jewish courtesan
men at all premieres. A slender,
burning
erotic feelings,
her dark glances and
lithe
who attracts the
and supple
mouth
a cruel
woman with
.
Mysterious
powers seem to lurk in this alluring woman, violent energies that

might not be guenched once those feelings catch fire - powers which
are forced to die a slow bourgeois death. Along comes an artist, strips
away the fashionable clothes from one of these women, puts her
The heroic women
before us, adorned with her timeless nakedness
of prehistoric times rise before our eyes, come alive and walk amongst
The body of this Judith has been painted wonderfully, this
us
boyishly tender, almost haggard body which seems to be stretching
.
and extending. And this flickering fleshy hue, with thousands of hghts
playfully and tenderly flitting across it, this skin which looks as if it is lit
from inside, as
if
we
could see the blood circulating in
its
vessels. This
whole pulsating body - in which there is no tranguility, where everything is alive and vibrant - seems electrified by the jewellery that
sparkles all around it."
The femme fatale was a popular subject at the turn of the century,
and the fact that she was seen as threatening reflects contemporary
changes in the role of women within society - changes that can be
seen in Klimt, too. The much-discussed "crisis of the male liberal ego"
in politics and society was by no means merely the result of economic
""^
140
Judi//)/ (detail), 1901

and
political
threat
change and the questioning
of a
man's
role.
Another
was the incipient emancipation of women in jobs and poUtics
well as
its
as
inevitable corollary, the changing role of the two sexes.
Klimt - together with many others - did not have the
slightest inten-
changes that were

taking place at the time. Contrary to popular belief, he did not want to
achieve emancipation through his art. He aestheticized the problems
by shifting them from reality into allegory and encoding them, as it
were, out of recognition. The allegorical power of revenge which
dwells in some of his female characters (such as Judith I the "hostile
forces" in the Beethoven Frieze the Gorgons of Justice] also derives
from the changes in women's social role, changes perceived as a
threat. The "unveiling" of the sexual element went hand in hand with
the process of controlling it aesthetically. Social change and the emancipation of women influenced moral standards as well as the appraisal
and artistic depiction of eroticism and sexuality. In Judith I Klimt still
took refuge in a mythological depiction, whereas later he sometimes
tion of analysing or describing the existing cultural
omitted the masking effect altogether. After

description of the picture clearly shows,
we
all,
as Felix Salten's
are certainly not con-
some kind of history painting, but with one of those

metamorphoses of womanhood that were characteristic of Klimt and
would have offended social taboos without their mythological guise.
fronted with
141
Judith
/,
1901
Oil
142
Judith
II,
1909
Oil on cdnvas, 178 x 46 cm

Galleria d'Arte Moderne, Venice
143
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The
Stoclet Frieze
Like the lovers in The Kiss

(p.
hoven Frieze
not
tell
(p. 113),
(p. 117),
wrapped up
153) are completely
the couple in the Stoclet Frieze

in themselves.
As
in the Beet-
they form part of a larger context, though
it
does
a story. Not only are the "hostile forces" missing in this mosaic
the promise of happiness has been purged of
frieze, so that
all
dan-
and timelessness. The

interpretation of the picture is made even more difficult by the absence of any clear communicative relation between the figures. In
many works - including Klimt's earliest ones - he created tension and
significance as well as particular relationships between the figures by
means of empty spaces. In the Beethoven Frieze, for example, this was
there
gers;
also a certain aimlessness
is
achieved with unpainted areas
of plaster. In the Stoclet Frieze
done by means
areas,
ornamented
of
though they
representational significance (the tree of

frieze,
it
lacks
all
and mythological
action
life).
still
it
is
have some
But unlike the other
or historical allusions.
The
decorative significance of the mosaic, executed with most luxurious

materials, clearly has priority over the actual message.
The wall
which forms part of dining-room decorations (p.

150), is of indeterminate content and therefore open to a variety of
interpretations. Indeed, it also lacks any contemporary references that
might form the basis of an interpretation, and Klimt himself hardly
commented on the frieze at all. He simply described the single woman
in the picture as a " dancer" which provides grounds for one particular
interpretation in which the woman herself is seen as an allegory of art
and the couple together as an allegory of love. Others align Expectation (p. 152) and Fulfilment (p. 153) as complementary parts in a
narrative, and a third view interprets the frieze as a Garden of Eden.
The spiral-shaped ornaments in which the figures are embedded
conjure up the idea of the tree of life or, following Christian imagery,
the "tree of knowledge" and this - according to yet another interpretation - makes it plausible to speak of a "garden of art and love"
which, "unlike the garden outside the palace windows (i.e. Stoclet
Palace) would never fade." ^^ The major motif of the picture is indeed
the "spiral tree", which forms an axis of the frieze. The colourful,
ornamental figures have, as it were, been "woven" into the ornaments
frieze,
Joseph Hoffmann Interior
of Stoclet
Palace, Brussels,
Indian ink and pencil on graph paper,
,
cm
Museum of Modern
33 x21
Art,
Vienna
of the tree.
With the
Life, central
section
Lebensbaum
Pattern for the Stoclet Frieze, around
1905/06
interior
and
artistic
dreams
of a
design of Stoclet Palace in Brussels,
were given the great task of putting

Gesamtkunstwerk into practice. And indeed they
the Secessionist artists of Vienna

their
Tree of
Tempera, watercolour, gold paint, silver

bronze, chalk, pencil and ogagne white
on paper, 195 x 102 cm
145
were able to do so without financial

cultural and political content.
constraints or instructions as to
1905/06
Paradoxically, the philosophical keynote which they endeavoured

to follow in their public
work and
their exhibitions only ever
fulfilment with the help of a private sponsor, far
found
away from Vienna. We
do not know very much about the conditions under which the palace
was built or indeed the conditions under which Klimt's work on the
frieze was done. Even the most important dates of the planning and
completion are uncertain. In 1905 Josef Hoffmann probably made the
first drafts of the building, and it is likely that Klimt's first visit to
Brussels was in 1906. His drafts may have been completed in 1906/07,
^*^
and the frieze itself in 1911.

The lovers in the Stoclet Frieze are very close - both temporally
and stylistically - to the couple in The Kiss. However, the frieze is
considerably more ornamental than the painting. If it were not for their
colourful garments, the two people - who are totally two-dimensional
- would merge completely with the ornamental background. The
distinction between the figures and the background is blurred even
further by the actual material. Unlike the Beethoven Frieze, Klimt only
used the most precious materials that were available, such as marble,
copper, gold, semi-precious stones, fayences and corals. ^^ The background and the figures are almost indistinguishable, as they consist of
the same material. This impression is further enhanced by the twodimensional nature of the mosaic: it is impossible to make any spatial
distinction between foreground and background. The figures are the
background, and vice versa. The only way of distinguishing between
a figure and the ornamental tree of life is by the actual patterns - the
146
Patterns for the Stoclet Frieze, around
Tempera, watercolour, gold paint,

silver bronze, chalk, pencil and
ogagne white on paper
a. Left-hand edge of the Tree of Life,
b.
c.
197 x115 cm
Expectation, 193 x 1 15 cm
Tree of Life, left-hand portion,
197 x105 cm
Tree of Life, centre portion,

195 X 102 cm
e. Tree of Life, rigtit-tiand portion,
198 X 103 cm
f. Tree of Lite, rigtit-tiand portion witti
stirub, 194 X 118 cm
g. Tree of Life, rigfit-tiand edge,
194 x120 cm
Austrian Museum of Applied Art,
d.
Vienna
yellowish white of the marble as well as the golden spiral pattern on

the one hand, and the strongly colourful garments on the other. Only
hands and faces still bear some semblance of Naturalism; the rest
their bodies has been replaced by an abstract two-dimensional
their
of
geometrical pattern.
These formal design features can also be found in other works of

the same time, e.g. The Kiss and - to an even greater extent - Klimt's
portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer I (p. 218) of 1907. They add an almost
fetish-like significance to the more or less Naturahst, non-ornamental
hands and faces - generally the most expressive features in portraits.
This significance is increased by the fact that the two-dimensional
ornamentation often fragments or severs the hands and feet, with the
result that they
seem divorced from the rest of the body.
It is
noticeable
no apparent reason which could be related to the overall

theme, the hands are often gesticulating wildly. Klimt's description of
that, for
the single figure in the Stoclet Frieze as a "dancer" may therefore

have been a retrospective attempt to explain her gestures.
The three figures in the frieze do not communicate with the viewer.
The woman in Expectation (p. 152) is looking in a direction almost
parallel to the surface of the picture. The woman in the couple has her
eyes closed, and the man not only has his head turned away from us
has sunk almost completely behind that of the woman whom he
embracing. This means that communication with the viewer is
but
is
it
carried mainly by the purely material nature of the mosaic: the exquisiteness of the material, its obvious preciousness and the luxuriously
sensuous charm of the surface are far more fascinating than the depiction of the people and the message it expresses. Having entered the
147
precious scene of this picture in order to decorate

style,
its
luxurious
the actors have turned into objects themselves.
become choice products
of the artist's craftsmanship.
life-
They have
The freezing
of
gone further here than in any of Klimt's

works. And once this has happened, inorganic nature is compensated
by having life breathed into it again. Thus it can establish contact with
the viewer. It does indeed seem as if the mosaic were looking at the
viewer - almost, one might say, as if it had a thousand eyes. The
patterns that grow in the branches in the form of blossom or leaves
have pairs of eyes which are placed above one another in a singular
arrangement, and these eyes are similar to those on the people's
life
into inorganic nature has
garments.
On
the
end wall
of the frieze (p. 151) Klimt
further. Interestingly,
it
took abstraction even
remains unclear whether
it is
only an abstract
human figure. This part of the frieze has frequently
pattern or another
been described as a purely abstract two-dimensional composition

with no more than decorative significance - in terms of art history, a
remarkable counterpiece to Josef Hoffmann's abstract relief above
one of the passage-ways at the Beethoven exhibition. However, its
position in a recess in one of the end walls of the room gives it special
emphasis and makes it the centrepiece of the frieze. For this reason it is
difficult to see why the narrow mosaic should have only a decorative
function and play no role in the overall content of the frieze. I agree
with the view, which has often been put forward, that the mosaic
shows a human figure. With its black horizontal line and a double
verticle line, the rectangle at the top centre of the ornament may well
represent the facial features of a human being, and the parallel vertical strips with their diversity of patterns can be seen as a garment or a
clothed body.
This animation of inanimate objects was quite

ture, interior decorating
and applied
individualization of inanimate matter,

features,
was
still
regarded as a form
way of literally giving "human traits"
art.
common in architec-
In the 19th century, the
endowing objects with
of spiritually
to
facial
enlivening them, a
inanimate things, objects and
meant dominating and penetrating the material

world with human imagination, creativity and formative spirit. Thus it
was possible to put the stamp of humanity on a product culture whose
automatic and industrial manufacturing process had alienated it from
human and artistic work as well as from true craftsmanship. This helps
us understand why everyday objects were decorated with human
figures - frequently to absurd effect - and why they were often
designed to represent parts of the human anatomy. Around the year
1900 this form of Naturalist imitation was vehemently criticized and
rejected, for example by Adolf Loos, though the struggle against
passive acceptance of anonymous, mass-produced, factory-made
objects persisted. It seems that, with the Stoclet Frieze, Klimt gave up
this resistance and surrendered to the material. Rather than trying to
humanize the inanimate world, he turned the image of a human being
into something inanimate. The physiognomy of the mosaic on the end
wall can perhaps be understood either as a last remnant of this disdesigns. This also
148
appearing human image or as a reaction

appearance.
If
we
to
its
impending
are right in interpreting the end wall mosaic as a
figure, then
in
terms of cultural history and
remarkably early symptom
of the crisis
art history
surrounding
human
dis-
human
it
is
depiction
modern times. The rejection of a NaturaUst depiction

of reahty had been prepared by the late 19th-century theory of art
history and applied art. The rejection of the styles and isms that
in the fine arts in
prevailed in historicism gave rise to a completely
new concept
of art
and works of art. The idea that art was autonomous had by then been
promoted so much that every single one of its functions was being
questioned and a work of art could only be defined as "an appearance
of objects in form and colour in either two or three dimensions " ^^ This
meant that the role of the artist and his work also appeared in a
different light. Indeed, if all content, imitation and functional application of art was denied, then the production of a work of art had to be a
radically new creation without precedent - a naissance, as opposed to
the renaissance of 19th century styUstic repetition and imitation. But
where art's mimetic function is questioned, artistic creativity assumes
the rights of nature itself: "To form its works from inanimate matter,
the human hand follows the same laws of form that are used by nature
for its own works. In the final analysis, all creative artistic endeavours
of man are therefore nothing but a matter of competing with nature. " ^'
And it was said that the rejection of mimetic art went furthest where
the crystalline structure in organic nature recurred in a work of art,
where all similarity with external patterns had been shed, which
.
explains
why
applied art (and interior design) as well as abstract
ornaments played a central role in Viennese Modernism around 1900.

Having pointed out the radical experiment with form in this mosaic
value in showing the practical appUcation of the theory
which prevailed in the apphed art movement of Viennese Modernism,
as well as
its
we have probably not exhausted

picture on the
end
wall.
The
all
the possible interpretations of the
central,
elongated colourful shape, which
inserted into the golden ground
and on which the "head" has been

placed, also consists of three elongated strips. The interlocking pattern of narrow, elongated and round ornaments repeats the same
ornamental differentiation which Klimt used for the symbolical distinction between the two sexes in paintings hke The Kiss. His painting
The Kiss showed that this difference and the promise of erotic delight
were, in a sense, presented by the ornamental structures. In the
is
mosaic "painting" of Palais Stoclet, Klimfs treatment of the differences between male and female and their convergence became an
expression of total assimilation. This would mean, however, that the
Utopian idea of a reconciliation between the sexes, with a retrogressive
development
to their original
a considerable price.
The image
inorganic state, has been bought at
man
has in fact sohdified into

inorganic minerals or crystals, so that the only elements which are still
reminiscent of the erotic tension between the sexes are the abstract
of
ornaments.
149
Josef
Hoffmann
Stoclet Palace, Brussels. Dining
room with mosaics designed by
G.Klimt, 1905-1911
150
Pattern for the Stoclet Frieze, around 1905/06

End wall
151
Expectation, pattern for the Stoclet Frieze, around 1905/09
Die Erwartung
Austrian
152
Museum of Applied Art, Vienna
Fullitment, pattern for the Stoclet Frieze,

Die Erfiillung
Austrian
around 1905/09
153
The Break-Up of the Secession

and the 1908 Kunstschau
Exhibition
When,
in 1904, the
Secession spUt into two camps,
ably caused by two circumstances: disunity
among
this
was prob-
the group
itself
on
the one hand, and the decision on the part of the Austrian government
to stop its largely
unconditional financial support on the other. The
controversy over Klimt's Faculty Paintings had roused so

feelings
among the general public that when the
participating in the 1904
World Fair
rejected by the Ministry of Education.
planning
to exhibit
two
many
strong
Secession suggested
in St. Louis, the plans
The
Secessionists
were
were
in fact
of the controversial university fresco drafts.
be shown abroad and also that their contribution might consist entirely of works by Klimt "' simply went
beyond the political scope of the relevant state authorities. The idea of
art playing a conciliatory role in a political and economic situation
fraught with conflict had to be discarded in the light of the controversies now surrounding art policy itself.
At the same time there was an aggravation of the antagonism
between two Secession camps - the "Stylists", such as Klimt, and the
"Realists". Contemporary comments, however, show that this breach
was not really about stylistic differences at all and that the controversy
went beyond aesthetic problems. In fact, at the time, commentators
found it rather difficult to identify any differences between these
opposing ideas in terms of stylistic concepts and views. The Secession
included such a broad spectrum of artistic options that it was impossible to draw a sharp dividing line entirely on the basis of different
aesthetic modes of expression. Any attempt to divide the warring
The idea
that these should
Front View ol an Athlete, 1917/18

Pencil, 56 x 37 cm
1
listorical
Museum, Vienna
factions neatly into Stylists, Realists, Impressionists, etc. ignored the
more deep-rooted conflicts. Detailed comments show that

the split was not primarily due to aesthetic or artistic differences. The
roots of the conflict lay deeper, in the old and fundamental ideological
existence of
stance of the Secession, in

artists
its
perception of
itself
as a group of public
with a special mission.
Joseph August Lux may perhaps come closest to the truth when he
not only discusses artistic conflicts within the group but also criticizes
their socio-political role, which was being questioned from outside as
well. "The original idea in founding this group was not just to form an
artists' association that would continually organize the kind of exhibition that existed already but to do a certain amount of cultural work, to
help the right of the artist to participate in the tasks of our times and to
run a kind of educational programme for this purpose." This pro-
E mil Hoppe Project for the Design

Pavilion at the Kunstschau exhibition
Vienna, 1908
,
in
Pencil, crayon, Indian mk, pen, pastel

and gouache, 31 x 25 cm,
Private collection
155
gramme, said Lux, had by no means been exhausted: "The position of

appUed art and its pragmatic basis in our times have still not been
estabhshed in artistic terms. The same applies to all architectural
questions, matters of town planning, the preservation of historic town
monuments, the great tasks of preserving monuments, fountains, festive decorations, the nature and application of large and small
sculptures, the art of landscape gardening and the aims of graphic art
in contemporary life. These and many other problems still remain to
be solved before the multifaceted right of art to express life and the
power
evaluative
of talent
can be shown."
^^
Secession were summarized accurately as the

"right of art to express life" - but they were aims for the future. Lux
questioned not the Secession programme itself but the success with
The aims
of the
However, a faction must have formed

within the group which questioned the programme itself and wanted
to replace it with the concept of an autonomous art that was independent from all these "questions of life".
The pending crisis had been noticeable for some time. In 1903 Ver
Sacrum ceased pubUcation, officially because it had completed its task
of propagating the art and artistic philosophy of the Secession. Four
which
was put
it
into practice.
members had already

1903/4.
left
the association during the business year
1903 the Viennese Workshop was founded by Josef
In
Hoffmann, Koloman Moser and the banker and collector Fritz

Warndorfer, with the result that tendencies towards independence,
sphts and further splits were inevitable - this time towards more
functional
and economically
lucrative forms of art
(i.e.
applied
art).
Viennese Workshop was regarded as a step

towards commercializing the Secession and therefore not accepted
without protest. This was a tendency against which the Secession had
vehemently protested when it split away from the Co-Operative Soci-
The foundation
**^
of the
ety of Austrian Artists.
Indeed this very point - convergence towards the art trade and the
commerciahzation of art - now caused the smouldering confhcts to
culminate in a breach. In 1905 the first secessio took place within the
Secession itself, and in 1906 the Osterreichischer Kiinstlerbund (Austrian Artists' Union) was founded. Members included Otto Wagner,
Alfred Roller (the Imperial Opera stage designer and director of the
School of Applied Art) Franz Metzner, Josef Hoffmann, Max Kurzweil
,
and Carl Moll. The breach was in fact triggered off by Carl Moll's close
co-operation - both in the planning stages and when it actually took
place - with the art trade (the Miethke Gallery). The final split came
when
number of
alliance between
a
became concerned about an "uncontrolled

and commerce, which had originally been
artists
art
^^
opposed when leaving the Kiinstlerhaus association".

The group explained their decision and their reasons
in a letter to
the Minister of Education: "We, the undersigned, herewith announce

that
we
Because
will leave the Association of Austrian Artists (Secession).

of the active
association
that, in
156
view
we
of the
support which you have been giving to the
feel obliged to give reasons for this

massive changes in general attitudes,
step.
We
artists
feel
should
not limit their activities exclusively to the organization of temporary

exhibitions. Instead, they should endeavour to extend their influence
to
make use of
life of art in
modern
Indeed they are obliged to

any opportunity which offers itself in order to promote the
the broadest possible sense. Through their art they must
more and more areas
of
life.
convince increasingly wide sections of the population that no life

ever too rich to be enriched by art and that none is too poor for art
find
room
in
is
to
it.
"As our endeavours met with resistance and a lack of understanding among the majority of the association and as many of these
endeavours could not even be attempted within such a narrow
we
compelled to leave the association. This step was

further corroborated by our realization that most of our colleagues had
no confidence in the sincerity of our intentions, nor were they able to
show any goodwill towards them." '"'
The 1908 Kunstschau exhibition was the climax of the new Artists'
Association, now often referred to as the "Klimt Group". Also, it was
the ambitious attempt to put their demands into practice - demands
framework,
felt
be identified as a renewed affirmation of the old

Secessionist claims. The dimensions of the exhibition went beyond
that could quite easily
those of the Secession

exhibition
Rather than a single, self-contained
itself.
and an intimate
setting within a single room, reserved
aimed at expanding the whole

project to include a small townscape. Designed by Josef Hoffmann,
the entire complex included a variety of different sections with numerous peripheral buildings which were only intended for the duration of
the exhibition and would soon be demolished again. More comprehensively than any of the Secession exhibitions, a group of artists
was demonstrating the artistic articulation of "the whole" of life.
Indeed the exhibition itself could be read as a metaphor of the "whole
specially for the worship of
city"
and
its
society.
The
art,
it
exhibition quite closely reflected the ideas of
the Viennese Workshop, which also participated in
it.
Indeed, both
groups were modelled on the organizational concept of corporate

work as evolved by the Artists' Association.
It is worth noting that the Kunstschau adorned itself with the same
motto with which the Secession had announced its debut (in an
on its exhibition building): 'Give our time its art and art its
freedom'. However, it had opened up not only to the Viennese Workshop and the School of Apphed Art but also to new artistic currents.
Not only "Styhsts" were represented, but also artists like Egon Schiele
and Oskar Kokoschka. Even Ludwig Hevesi, a critic who gave a good
inscription
deal of favourable publicity to the Secession,
Kokoschka
as a "top savage".
simply described
The pubhc appearance
soon involved the newly formed group

scandals. However, they also heralded a
Viennese Workshop, postcard, 1909,

lithograph
of these artists
of ex-Secessionists in
more
new generation Viennese

Modernism whose expressionist leanings were diametrically opposed
to
the aesthetic
harmony
of
of the Stylists.
"The Kunstschau", wrote Joseph August Lux, "is meant to be a

house of life, or rather a pure mirror image of life as the artist would
like to see it fashioned. A universal building or indeed a parable of the
157
world which encompasses the entire calendar - the humdrum routine

of daily life and domestic art, the festive days of devotion and celebration,
the choice
moments
of art in all
its
greatness,
moments which
mean more than religion, the working days when noble gifts are borne
by joyful hands, the early hours of art in the dawn of childhood and the
subconscious mind, safely guided by one's instincts. We can only win
if we really grasp this mirror image of life, an image which has been
^''
transfigured by art, and if we use it to enrich our souls anew.
The complex
1908 exhibition still

reflected the "aristocratic elitism" of the Secessionist generation of
artists. Art was to encompass, shape and ennoble all facets of life. The
Kunstschau included not only posters, the most modern form of adverinterior decorations of the
but one room had been dedicated to the efforts of Franz Cizek, a
teacher at the School of AppUed Art, and his endeavours to promote
tising,
With his Small Country Villa Josef Hoffmann was able to

show an entire home, and there was even a cemetry and a garden with
a theatre. "Private and public building projects merge on the exhibition premises of the Kunstschau, the public sphere is reduced to the
idyllic intimacy of a private refuge. The large House of Life includes an
inexpensive residential building with a garden designed by Josef
children's
art.
Hoffmann, a day nursery, a restaurant, a poster room (i.e. a road not

open to the general public), a garden theatre, a pseudo church and a
pseudo cemetry. Children, old people, those who need comfort and
those who are seeking enjoyment - everyone is looked after aesthetically. Visitors are spoilt for choice by this tremendously wide array of
art exhibits based on the necessities of life and culture. Blurring the
distinctions between work and leisure, real professionahsm and dilletantism, this idyllic cultural environment also allows a measure of
amateur art - from Adolf Bohm's ladies' painting classes - on its
fringe."***^
Contemporary critics correctly noted that the exhibition became a

"festive garment" for Klimt. Sixteen of his paintings were shown, in a
room situated between those set aside for church and cemetry art.
Klimt also made the opening speech of the Kunstschau. Not only is it
one of his few remaining programmatic statements that were made in
pubhc, but it also gives us an idea of how the artists around Klimt saw
themselves, and
we
shall therefore quote
"Ladies and gentlemen,
its
for four years
exact wording.
now we have
not
had the
opportunity to show you the results of our work in the form of an

exhibition.
"It is
a well-known fact that
we do
not regard exhibitions as the
way of establishing contact between the artist and the pubhc;

purpose we would much rather take on large-scale public
ideal
for
this
art
projects, for
example.
"But as long as public
life is
mainly concerned with economic and
open to us, and we

must therefore be extremely grateful to all public and private factors
that enabled us to follow this path and to show you that we have not
been idle during these exhibitionless years. Rather - probably
political matters, exhibitions are the only option
because
158
we were completely free from any worries about exhibitions -
UIR .BIKM
Bertold Loffler poster for the Kunstschau

exhibition in Vienna, 1908
Private collection, by permission of Barry
,
Friedman
Ltd.,
New York
UA BUtOU WWi WUA
we have been working on
the development of our ideas with even

more dihgence and devotion. We are not a co-operative society, an
association or a union; we have joined forces quite informally with the
express purpose of holding

tion that
no area
of
human
this exhibition,
united only by the convic-
too insignificant or unimportant to

endeavours. As Morris puts it, even the most
inconspicuous thing can help to increase the beauty of this earth if it
has been made perfectly. Indeed, only by harnessmg the artistic spirit
give scope to
in a drive to
"So
this
life is
artistic
pervade the whole of life can culture make progress at all.

exhibition does not show you the final results of artistic
careers. Instead, it is a powerful review of Austrian artistic

endeavours, a faithful report on the current state of culture in our
Empire.
"And just as we define

with the word
artist'.
We
create but also by those
work
are called
who
we do the same
artists not only by those who
by you who are able to com-
of art'
enjoy,
very broadly,
prehend and appreciate what we have created. For us the 'artistic

world' is the ideal community of all those who create and those who
enjoy. The very fact that this building could be built and that this
exhibition can now be opened shows that such a community really
exists, that it is strong and powerful because of its youth, vigour
and
159
Oskar Kokoschka, 1886-1980
EgonSchiele, 1890-1918
the purity of
declare this
its
convictions.
modern
art
And
the attempts of our adversaries to
movement dead and
to fight against
us are
therefore completely in vain, for such a fight goes against the whole
- and indeed against life itself. Having worked on

this exhibition for weeks, we will part again and go our separate ways
as soon as it has been opened. But maybe, in the near future, we shall
get together in completely different groups and for different purposes.
Whatever the case may be, we depend on one another and 1 would like
to thank all those who have been working on this exhibition for their
diligence, their cheerful willingness to make sacrifices, and their loyalty. But 1 would also hke to thank all our patrons and sponsors who
enabled us to hold this exhibition, and in inviting you, dear visitors, to
take a good look at the exhibition, 1 now declare the 1908 Viennese
Kunstschau open." ^^
principle of growth
The programme
that
was
set forth in this
speech did not
differ
substantially from that of the Secession or the Viennese Workshop.
There was nothing original in the idea that beauty was comprehensive
and transcended all boundaries of genres within art (i.e. that art and
craft were on the same level, as were fine art and architecture or
interior design). Nor was there anything new in their ethical and
political views on the aesthetic refinement of life, views which also
implied a certain aesthetic ehtism. After
in the final analysis,
both
Viennese Workshop were only
affordable for the well-to-do, and their "aesthetic code" could only be
deciphered by a small group of educated people within the uppermiddle classes who took an active interest in developments in modern
Klimfs works and those
of,
all,
say, the
art.
What Klimt
did not express directly in his speech
cation of this life-reforming

160
programme with the
was
the identifi-
political reality of the
Habsburg monarchy. The "Austrian beauty" which was mentioned so frequently in connection with Secessionist art and art policy
- especially by Hermann Bahr - was not only reflected in the support
which the Secession received from the state (even though this was
only for a few years). Conversely, members of the Secession also
identified with the patriotic idea that life in the Habsburg monarchy
should be clothed in this "Austrian beauty". They accepted public
jobs which encompassed virtually all areas of artistic design, ranging
late
from stamps
to railway lines (e.g. Otto
exhibition buildings to
monumental
cious craft objects, from royal gifts to
schau took place
in the
was celebrated with

unlikely that
when
same year
Wagners
Stadtbahn), from
paintings, from posters to pre-
book
illustrations.
as Franz Joseph
The Kunst-
Us jubilee, which
a festive procession along the Ringstrasse.
It is
Klimt described the Kunstschau as "a powerful
endeavour" and a "report on the current

state of culture in our Empire" he merely did so by chance, at a time
when the Habsburg monarchy had reached a critical point and when
review
of
Austrian
artistic
large-scale festivities
were
to
lend cultural credibility to the loyality of
the masses towards their ruler and their Empire. This attempt to
invoke, once again, the unity of the Empire through people's cultural
identification with the patriarchal personality of the
Emperor was
removed from the philosophy of the Secession.

With the distance of irony and time, Robert Musil made such a parallel
action - the search for an appropriate form of homage to the ruler and
thus to the monarchy - the centre of his novel The Man without
Properties. With the foundation of the Osterreichischer Werkbund and
the increasing dominance of the Heimat style, this patriotism soon
hardened into a doctrine of art that persisted until the First World War
and legitimized the participation of a number of artists in the artistic
probably not very
far
glorification of the war.
However, when Klimt claimed in his speech to represent no more

and no less than the "progress of life", this did not accord entirely with
the demands of patriotic art. His solemn formula still implied the
claims of European Modernism, that is, self-reflection within a continually progressive development, in which the new could only ever
be defined in terms of its departure from the old, so that the old
became "pre-modern". The "Klimt Group" did not claim any more
than the Secession that it had found a static, universally appUcable
The inclusion of Expressionist art at the great exhibition

showed their flexibility and broad-mindedness in matters of art. In
identifying the artists' circle with the "progress of hfe", which was
concept
of art.
solemn formula, Klimt undoubtedly also divulged an

important part of his own, very personal artistic theory - a fraction of
that "philosophy of history" in which growth and decline were seen as
certainly quite a
an organic cycle and which, deeply rooted in the philosophy

de siecle, he expressed in many of his works.
of the fin
161
Josef
Hoffmann
tea set,
samovar over tea pot warmer, tea
pot,
sugar bowl and
milk jug, 1903
Hammered silver,
Austrian
coral,
wood, leather; samovar 27

of Applied Art, Vienna
xntm
rtiA(
HI
oDc^
3SB
Hoffmann sketch for a tea set, 1903

and charcoal, 21 x 34 cm
Josef
Pencil
162
cm high
Museum
Kulomdn Moser design

,
tor mdleriai, "Pdliu Leal"
(detail),
cm altogether
Museum of Applied Art, Vienne
Cloth, 40 X 31
Austrian
f^^^H^T^
Robert Orley design

,
1899
tor material,
(detail),
cm altogether
Cloth, 127 X 97
Austrian
"Cosmic Mist"
1900
Oskar Kokoschka Lovers with

,
Cat, 1917
Liebespaar mil Katze

Kunsthaus, Zurich
Opposite:
Eqon Schiele Seated Couple, 1915

,
Sitzendes Paar
gouache, 53 x 4 1
Pencil,
Albertina,
164
Vienna
cm
165
"rm not particularly interesting"
It is
of
course understandable that one should take an interest in
However, in Klimt's case such an

interest can only lead to disappointment. Although there are a large
number of highly elaborate legends, these are matched by very few
and indeed rather shaky facts. Klimt never made any lengthy statements about himself or his work. In his official speech at the Kunstschau, he expressed neither a general political conviction nor any
ideas about specific cultural policies. Not a single word indicates that
he might have had a carefully considered attitude on art policyunless, that is, one counts his vague and generally liberal idea of the
artist's autonomy and his unlimited freedom.
What is known about Klimt as a person is almost entirely - at best the personality of a famous
second-hand, and
beneath
all
it
is
artist.
often difficult to discern any core of truth
and the obvious flattery Even the few details that are
known about his outer appearance and his everyday habits hardly add
up to any clear-cut picture. "He is thickset, almost fat, an athlete, he
would have liked to wrestle Hodler, his manners are cheerful, downto-earth and unceremonious. His skin is tanned, like a sailor's, he has
protruding cheekbones and small, agile eyes. Perhaps in order to
make his face appear longer, he wears his hair a little too high above
his temples. This is the only thing which remotely indicates that he is
an individual with an interest in art. When he talks, he booms out in a
loud voice and with a heavy accent. He enjoys teasing people quite a
itr auf ohijcr Phorucrtphic
ufid dk- cljcnhUndlee beiMuunK der

Nimcns.
unlCfMbrift erdeB hiemit mUlch bwarlgr.
the obscure, cryptic innuendo, the admiring words of
idolization
bit."
Die Identifil
K. k. Pallzgidi;nkt!oii !n
A'ian.
Klimt's passport
Albertina, Vienna
90
number of biographical accounts he is described as "taciturn"

"His busy existence was concealed under the shell of a philistine life.
Klimt's daily routines were very bourgeois. He was so engrossed in
them that any divergence from his normal course was a horror to him;
going anywhere was a major event, and a big trip was only conceivable if his friends did all the shopping for him beforehand, down to the
In a
He even
smallest detail.
other people
preferred to leave his business matters to
The same clumsiness, which
often bordered on help-
was reflected in his mannerisms. In a small circle he would

thaw and be childishly cheerful, though normally he remained
completely silent and hardly seemed to be following the conversation
around him. Occasionally he would throw in a coarse word that cut
right through all the blandishments and rhetoric and hit the nail
squarely on the head. This crude exterior which he presented to others
was part of his disguise." ^^
lessness,
often
Gustav Klimt
Vienna
Albertina,
167
worth noting that KUmt showed no interest in his own person.

We do not have a single self-portrait of Klimt, apart from a small
caricature and some individual drawings and paintings, such as The
Kiss (p. 117), which have occasionally been identified - and indeed
very convincingly - as self-portraits. Klimt stated quite explicitly that
It is
he was not interested

not interested in
"There
is
no
self-portrait of
my own person as the object of a picture.
people, especially
.
in himself:
women, and, even more,
prefer other
other forms of existence
I'm sure I'm not particularly interesting as a person."
The
me. I'm
^^
which were connected with the exhibitions

as well as his business commitments, which he obviously found rather
a nuisance, were kept totally separate from his family life. The same
applied to his cultural activities and his travels, on which he was
plagued by homesickness and almost hypochondriac worries about
his health. But above all he drew a strict dividing line between his
work at the studio and his private life. "... Gustav's real home was not
his famous last studio in the little village-like side street in Hietzing,"
his sister was to write later. " Like all artists, he also needed a lot of love
and above all consideration. After all, he was not naturally gregarious
but a loner, and it therefore had to be the duty of his brothers and
sisters to eliminate all the little things in his daily life that were
168
social obligations
The artist's studio with the paintings he

was working on at the time of his death
National Library
Klinit in the garden of his studio

Albertiod, Vienna
inconvenient. Every night he used to join us, eat his meal with hardly a
word and then go

going,
to
bed
early.
We
understood his
silent
we knew how much he needed some peace and
coming and
quiet after his
fights with the world around him. Once he had gathered strength, he
would plunge into his work with such vehemence that we often
thought the flames of his genius might consume him alive ..." ^^
After Klimt's death there was at first a certain respectful restraint
before his personality was ruthlessly dissected and analysed.
"Thoroughly human in the fullest sense of the word," wrote Hans
a simple and very ordinary person to
Tietze, "he has passed away
outsiders, full of riddles to those who knew him, like a well that
became deeper, darker and more mysterious the more one looked at it.
-
and character appeared to be rather philistine; jealously guarding his inner soul whose blood had nourished the
alluring and horrifying magic of his art, he took his deepest secret with
him to the grave. Circumstances placed Klimt in the noisy marketplace of Vienna's art scene, but deep down he was a shy person
who hated public appearances more than anything else. He carefully
avoided making any statements about himself or his spiritual world,
and the hand which hovered over the paper like a feather became like
lead when he had to write a letter. Even friends were hardly ever
Superficially, Klimt's life
169
Klimt and Emilie Floge, both in painter's
smocks
allowed a glimpse behind the wall that Klimt had erected around
himself, and so their accounts and tales provide only an incomplete
picture of the man." Tietze also points out that his mother and one of
had been mentally ill, which was a considerable burden for

him: "Thus, his soul had been injured from early childhood onwards
." ^^
and his vital energy had been paralysed
However, the most frequently discussed chapter in Klimt's biography is his relationship with Emilie Floge, who has only recently been
the subject of an exhibition and a book. Considering that Klimt's taste
in women has been described as "Turkish" in various anecdotes, the
world's interest in examining Klimt's relationship with his chosen
partner comes as no surprise.
In 1891 Gustav Klimt's brother, Ernst Klimt, had married Helene
Floge. The marriage only lasted fifteen months, but must have had a
considerable effect on Klimt's life and career. Through Helene he met
her sister Emilie, who had been running a fashion salon together with
Helene since 1904. Later, just as his large-scale commissions for the
Ringstrasse buildings were about to dry up, this gave him access to
Viennese society. His friend, the painter Carl Moll, introduced him to
his sisters
170
Gustav Mahler's circle. However, this indirect patronage

by Emilie,
her involvement in his art and her emancipated
professional position
could not prevent the relationship developing along
stereotyped lines.
Emilie became the artists "muse", subordinate
and
totally subser-
vient to the artist's genius.
Commenting on
the fact that Gustav
and
Emilie never married, Christian Nebehay, for

example, wrote: "This
woman, who had put her life at the service of a great man
and who
never impeded
his artistic career,
deserves all the more respect when

consider the amount of prejudice towards any
loose haison that
was present in society. In extreme cases it could lead
to complete
ostracism, and so her social position was not easy." ^^
we
Details of Klimt's relationship with
Emihe Floge are almost excluus through his correspondence, which has been
preserved only partially. His reticence in writing letters
may well give us
the most interesting clue to Klimfs character. The
extent of
sively
known
to
his corres-
pondence, and indeed in this case his mania to write several up to

eight - postcards or notes a day, shows the
importance of this lifelong
relationship, which ended with Klimt's words on his
deathbed: "1 want
Emilie to come. " Most of what he wrote was absurdly
short and took
the form of telegram-style memos, without a single
hint of emotions or
allusions to their relationship, showing his fear of
emotional closeness.
Quite often, in fact, there was not even a 'Dear Emilie', and
the
closing
sentences were no more than stereotype formulas. It may well

have
suited Klimt that Emihe was economically independent
and that
he
commitments towards her, though his
reserve certainly fostered speculations about him as a
"womanizer".
However, when we examine the credibility of such stories, the
only
fact which remains is that Khmt had three illegitimate
children, one by
Maria Ucicky and two by Marie Zimmermann. This increased
his
renown and diminished Emilie Floge s role in the eyes of his bio-
had no
financial obhgations or
graphers.
While showing great understanding for the artist, authors have

been apt to saddle Emihe with the social consequences of this open
relationship. According to Klimt's biographers, his hcentiousness
had
become part of his fame, while Emilie was admired for her- supposed
- generosity. After all, " ... a real artist only lives for his work
Klimt
was someone who took a long time
Therefore he needed these
sudden flashes of enthusiasm as distractions. We know that he would
often interrupt the painting of a portrait to go next door and draw
one
of the models who were always waiting there, simply in
order to loosen
up his hand, which had become tired from painting. So in order to be
creative, he had to guard his personal freedom." ^^
.
This confidence in EmiUe's "unshakable friendship and infinite
warmth" had
be extended to Marie Zimmermann when it was

discovered that Klimt had had two children by her: "We can see Klimt
as a caring, faithfully supportive lover ... If, until now,
we have
admired Emihe Floges attitude towards Khmfs fleeting fancies, we
now have every reason to extend the same admiration to Marie Zimmermann. For her love was great enough to accept that, although she
had born him children, she had to bow to another woman." ^^
to
171
Landscapes
A large proportion of Klimf s works are landscapes. Nearly a quarter of his paintings
devoted
- though
to this subject.
drawings - are
landscape drawings was partly
virtually
This lack of
none
of his
due to his method of working. He worked outside and used sketch

books which, except for a few, have been lost. Sometimes he did not
complete his landscapes until he was back in his studio in Vienna, and
occasionally he may have used photographs as an aid. It is worth
noting that in the rest of his work - his allegorical pictures - landscapes are almost
totally missing,
while conversely his landscapes
contain virtually no narrative elements and only very few people.
They are mood landscapes and paintings of "views" (Fritz Novotny).

Most of them are square, which makes them appear motionless and
tranquil. In nearly all of Klimt's landscapes, this tranquility
totally
is
undisturbed by any activity or kinetic energy. Even the diffuse,

"Impressionist" direction of the light
(for
instance in his lake views)
serves to emphasize the general sense of calm.
energy and motion adds an element
of
The lack
of kinetic
timelessness to nearly
Forester's Lodge in Weissenbach at Lake

Atter, 1912
Private collection
all his
landscapes.
It
has often been stressed that Klimt's landscapes have an allegori-
cal content
which
"Refinement
is
is
...
similar to that of his other allegorical themes.
was
distinctive feature in his landscapes. Klimt
He painted neither mans sensuHis early works were sombre mood
not a painter of unbroken originality.

ality
nor the openness of nature.
Tall, slender trees stood as metaphors of a man's noble

dark marshes and ponds a parable of all things transient, but
the seductive charm that emanates from the unfathomable.
landscapes.
solitude,
also of
Such scenery
of
melancholy and withdrawal from the world vouch-
safed a state of festive solitude. After the turn of the century this
solemn detachment gradually diminished

The blossoming beauty
of gardens, flowers and fruit came to be draped in a "festive mosaic
garment" which - contrary to nature's laws - lent it an air of immortality and permanence. The dense web of brush-strokes merges the
and
spatial zones into a suspended curtain of colour, impenetrable
.
holding our glances captive like the veiled picture of Sais. Distance
becomes akin
remains
aloof.
to closeness, yet this closeness
allows no access and
^^
"
However, there were
other, entirely trivial
reasons for Klimt's interest
and circumstantial
landscapes, such as the long
summer
sojourns he spent on Lake After with the Floge family from 1900
Houses in Unterach on Lake Atter,

around 1916
Oil on canvas, 1 10 x 1 10 cm
173
Church at Unterach on Lake

on canvas, 1 10 x 1 10 cm
Private collection, Graz
Oil
onwards. Describing his daily routine in a letter to Marie Zimmermann

in 1903, he also communicated something of the "philistinism" often
ascribed to his person: "You want to
my
follow regular.
daily routine. Well,
get
up very
it's
know what
sort of
schedule
very simple and indeed quite
early in the morning, usually at
6,
though
sometimes a little earlier or later. If the weather's nice and the sun's
shining I go to some nearby woods where I paint a little beech grove
with a few fir trees in it. I carry on until 8 o'clock, have breakfast and
then go for a swim in the lake where I'm always very careful. Then 1 do
some more
painting.
cloudy a view from
If
the sun's shining,
my window.
sessions in the morning,
Then
study
paint the lake,
and when it's
Sometimes, instead of these painting
my Japanese books - in the open air.
lunch time. After the meal
it's
until supper. Before or after
have a nap or do some reading

go for another swim, not every
supper I
day but usually. After supper 1 start painting again - a large poplar tree
at dusk, with an approaching thunderstorm. Occasionally, instead of
painting, I go bowling with a few friends in the neighbouring village,
though this is rare. Then it gets dark, 1 have a little snack and go to bed
early so that I can get up in good time the following morning. Sometimes this schedule is interrupted by a bit of rowing to loosen the
muscles
The weather here is very changeable - not at all hot, with
frequent showers of rain. As for my work, I'm equipped for all eventualities, which is very good to know." ^^
.
174
Atter,
1916
<'
,
I*'
Malcesine on Lake Garda, 1913

Oil on canvas, 110x110 cm
1945
.i^
.1^
,11.
Bi
'
la
v"'
in
Aside from Klimt's interest in symbolism ana his personal workaday motivations, Johannes Dobai quotes yet another reason for the
artist's discovery of landscapes - particularly "mood landscapes" -
around the year 1900: the controversy surrounding art poUcy at the
birth of the Secession and the row over Khmt's Faculty Paintings.
Landscapes reflected, as it were, a measure of non-political privacy
and introspection. '"" "They have in common the expression of meditative contemplation ... of the phenomenon of life outside the realm of
human
tience."
existence, unfolding, as time goes on, with cool, quiet pa'"^
Such pictures enable us
to lose
contemplating a depiction of nature
full of
ourselves completely in
atmosphere. There are
almost no dramatic or dynamic elements. The partiaUty of the view,

the direction of the hght, the spatial arrangement and even the square
format typical of Klimt's landscapes captivate the viewer by conjuring
up a dehcate atmosphere. Klimt's favourite compositional techniques
for creating a specific
atmosphere include the sporadic use
ments, such as parts of a
some
its
tree, as well as
of frag-
extremely high horizons. In
paintings of Lake After, these turn the surface of the water with
reflections
and
refractions of hght
and colours
into the sole subject
Naturalism was nearly always undesirable, as was

topographical accuracy - even though such accuracy did indeed occur
of the painting.
in
some paintings
Two
(e.g. of
Lake
Atter).
concepts link Klimt's landscapes with his "humanity paint175
mgs" history
that of organic
and the idea
ending growth.
life
outside and independent of
man-made
of natural history as a cyclical process of never-
A symbolist interpretation of his landscapes
itself particularly
when we
suggests
consider his water paintings: his
"still
ponds", Lake Atter and his marsh paintings follow a common Art
Nouveau attitude - the idea of water as the mother of all (organic) life,
an interpretation which is supported formally by the depiction of

boundless expanses of water, i.e. water surfaces that encompass
almost the entire painting. '^ Some of Klimt's drawings, such as Fish
Blood, Water Serpents, Water in Motion, Gold Fish and Mermaids
(pp. 63, 137, 67, 136, 58) are about water in this symbolist sense,
establishing a direct link between woman and water. They speak of
the same regressive fantasies that were expressed in " humanity paintings" such as Death and Life, The Three Ages of Woman (pp. 123 and
and Hope (p. 134).

However, the fact that Klimt's landscapes formed their own independent biological cosmos (almost entirely lacking sky, clouds or
stars) without reference to man, also has a socio-historical significance. Confronted with the increasing exploitation of nature and the
feeling that it is under mounting threat, we tend to feel a growing
yearning for a "pure", unadulterated nature, forever renewing itself,
as it were, from its own resources. Not only do Klimt's landscapes lack
any depiction of human labour or activity, but man's work has not
122)
Poppy Field, 1907

Mohnwiese
on canvas, 1 10 x 110
Oil
176
even left any traces within nature. His peasant gardens, his avenues
and even his views of buildings appear as compacted multi-coloured
ornaments of an untouched, organic nature. The growth which Klimt
depicts in an increasing number of new variations is the growth of
plants. Animals are extremely rare, and people only occur in a small
number
such as The Grounds of Schonbrunn Palace and

Molcesine on Lake Garda (p. 175), where they are purely incidental.
The slow and invisible growth of plants emphasizes a time dimension that is both independent of human history and points beyond it. It
is a static nature - matched by the static sguare
format of the landscapes - and it is only very rarely disrupted by the rapid and dramatic
changes brought about by changing hght or by the weather. Even
then, however, Klimt only depicted the state before The Big Poplar
Tree, Approaching Thunderstorm or after the event After the Rain,
p. 93), but never the dynamic change itself.
of paintings
This self-sufficient biological passivity of a nature independent of
man
called for an approach in
which the
artist
remained
strictly
detached, uninvolved. In 1899 the art historian Alois Riegl pubhshed

an essay entitled "Die Stimmung als Inhalt der modernen Kunst"
(Atmosphere as the Contents of Modern Art), and in his introduction

and confessional for an academic paper - he
characterized the understanding of nature at the turn of the century.
surprisingly personal
For the quiet contemplation of nature, he says,
it is
necessary
to
Farmtiouse in Upper Austria, 1911/12

Oberosterreichisches Bauernhaus
Oil on canvas, 110x110
177
TiS*iW
>
'
'If^'
have inner peace and a "broad perspective", so that the viewer (who
derives aesthetic enjoyment from nature in the same way as from a
painting) is reUeved of "the anxious pressure which never leaves him
in his normal life". Instead, he is given "atmosphere", a feeling of
"harmony above the dissonant noise and of calm above the movement.
"
'o"
These observations sound like direct descriptions of Klimt's landscapes - though with one exception: Klimt almost never took a "broad
perspective", presenting an overall view which might allow us to look
at
nature or a certain scene from a distance. Rather, they are charac-
by a " close perspective " which - according to Riegl - destroys

distance. Klimt's landscapes are close-ups and, as Dobai puts it, often
turn nature into an "interior". '^ Rather than casting a section of
nature as a landscape in the usual sense of the word, the artist's view
points to the potential infinity of the whole of nature - both with regard
terized
to
space (sectional character of the paintings) and time (restful passivslowness of biological growth).
Indeed, apart from some of his earlier works, Klimt even goes as far
ity,
any hint of a horizon, that is, any spatial depth stretching

background. In this sense, it may therefore be a little
misleading to compare his landscapes with interiors. Often they
become two-dimensional decorative patterns, which explains why the
as omitting
far into the
178
Apple Tree I, around 1912

Apfelbaum I
Apple Tree II, dround 1916

Apfelbaum II
viewer remains "outside", faced with an impenetrable, ornamental

"
mosaic " This mosaic sometimes even has a material density as in the
ornaments in the ladies' portraits of the Golden Phase or even the
.
abstract ornaments on the side wall of the Stoclet Frieze
(cf. p.
151),
Garden Landscape with Mountain Peak Apple Tree I, around 1912,

1905). This
p. 178; Poppy Field, 1907, p. 176; Roses under the Trees
without
using a
effective
where
Klimt
perspective"
is
even
"close
central perspective - layered his paintings for depth. The layers
(
appear as thick two-dimensional areas.

Klimt' s seeming paradox of a close perspective and a lack of accessibility presupposed a very special technique of perceiving landscapes on the part of the artist. Not only did Klimt use a square
template to find suitable sections, he apparently also used optical
gadgets such as a telescope and opera glasses in order to produce a
close perspective from the distance. On a postcard from a summer
hoHday sent to his sister Hermine in 1915, he complained about his
forgetfulness: "Have arrived safe and well. Forgot opera glasses -
need them urgently."
"^''
179
Landscape Garden (Meadow in Flower), around 1906

Gartenlandschaft (Bliihende Wiese)
Oil on canvas, 1 10 x 1 10 cm
Private collection, New York
180
SchloB
Kammer at Lake Alter around

Kammer am Attersee
I,
Schloss
1908
Narodni Gallery, Prague
181
The Park, 1910

Der Park
Gertrude A. Mellon Fund, Collection, The Museum
New York
182
of
Modern Art,
Farm Garden with Sunflowers, around 1905/06

Bauerngarten mit Sonnenblumen
183
Avenue in
Schloss Kammer Park, 1912

Allee im Park von SchloB Kammer
184
Unterach on Lake Alter, 1915

Unterach am Attersee
Rupertinum, Salzburg State Collections, Salzburg
185
Farm Garden with
Crucifix, 1911/12
Bauerngarten mit Kruzifix, 1911/12

Destroyed by fire at Immendorf Palace in 1945
186
Garden Path with Chickens, 1916

Gartenweg mit Huhnern
in
1943
187
"
Solitary Dialogues "
Klimt's Erotic
Drawings
drawings were regarded by many

critics as the best things in his entire oeuvre - a view which is still
shared by several art historians today. We must bear in mind, however, that these works were the least likely to be widely known to
Klimt's contemporaries. Although a few drawings were occasionally
shown at exhibitions and some were published in Ver Sacrum or in
very limited private editions of erotic prints, many drawings only ever
served as sketches for other works and were therefore never presented to the public. Not until Klimt's death did it become possible to
gain an initial overview of his drawings. As early as 1918, the year
Klimt died, the art dealer Gustav Nebehay organized an exhibition of
the artist's legacy. Since then-andparticularly since the 1960s -there
have been many publications and exhibitions of Klimt's drawings,
though it was not until 1984 that a comprehensive oeuvre catalogue in
three volumes was published by Alice Strobl, containing just over
3,000 drawings which are still accessible today. It is estimated that
originally the drawings ran to about 5,000 - 6,000 sheets. Not only did
the artistic guality of these drawings serve to increase Klimt's fame,
but their erotic aspect, in particular, has always held a certain fascination. Klimt's reputation as an "erotic master" was based particularly
on his drawings. They are regarded as an important indication of his
protest against the moral ideas of his time and the emancipatory
Even during
function of his
<'
his lifetime Klimt's
Girl-Friends from the Front
and Back,
around 1905
45x31 cm
Museum, Vienna
Black chalk,
Historical
art.
However, considering that only very few drawings were published

during Klimt's lifetime, it seems rather devious to claim that they had a
subversive function and to ascribe some kind of practical significance
to them. There are at least two reasons why we cannot regard this as
social art, i.e. an art which deliberately and purposefully aims to bring
about social change: firstly, Klimt never pursued any socio-political
objectives with his art, and secondly, most of his drawings were only
meant as studies in preparation for other works or as private sketches
without any public significance whatever.
Those who see this part of Klimt's sketch work as a manifesto
against certain aspects of the suppression of women (a point which
will be discussed later) are taking a very general and dubious view of
the scope of art. Not only are they grossly overestimating the effectiveness of aesthetic objections to unfavourable social conditions, but they
was
work has always been far
are ignoring the socio-political conditions under which Klimt's art
created and discussed.
Then
as now, his
Seated Woman, with Open Legs, 1916/17

Pencil, red crayon, highlighted in white,
57
x38 cm
Oil
on canvas, Austria
1S9
more admired than critically analysed. And although it is true that

Klimt was continually at loggerheads with a number of groups, this is
by no means an indication of any social or cultural commitment on
did indeed create the occasional scandal because of
his "obscenity" - for example with his exhibition of sketches for the
Faculty Paintings - but the greatest resistance to his works (especially
Klimt' s part.
He
the Faculty Paintings)
was due to his world view rather than his liberal
attitude towards the erotic.
Contemporary attitudes towards the erotic element in Klimt' s work

can hi gleaned from the only known legal action that was taken
When
Klimt published a number of studies for

Medicine (p. 83) in Ver Sacrum, he was nearly prosecuted for offending against "public decency". However, the regional court disagreed
and protected the artist, pointing out that these were sketches "for a
against his drawings.
mainly aimed at
artists." Putting forward legal arguments, the court underpinned the
cultural and political principles of promoting modern and Secessionist
art. The freedom of the arts, it said, must not be subject to any limitation, and the only permissible form of state intervention should be that
publicly exhibited
work
of art in a journal
freedom:
of protecting this
"It
which is
should hardly need mentioning that no
narrow boundaries must be drawn with regard to the objects of an

artist's imagination or the execution of an artistic idea. Nor must there
be a prohibition on the natural depiction of nudity, which has always
been part of any art. And whenever we are deahng with a serious work
of art, purely governed by aesthetic considerations, it would be inappropriate to speak of an offence against people's sense of morality or
modesty."
^^
did Klimt draw? Roughly speaking, Klimt used drawings in

two contexts: either as preliminary studies for paintings and monumental paintings or as autonomous media of his private obsession to
What
create for himself images of erotic

interior, genre, etc.
- none
women. Landscape,
architecture,
of these categories were relevant to his
drawings. There are some pictures of couples, e.g. in preparation of

The Kiss (p. 117), as well as some drawings that can be called "family
pictures" but drawings of children and indeed of single men occur so
,
seldom that they are interesting simply because they are rare. Male
nudes only ever played a (minor) part while he was a student at the
School of Apphed Art and in his early works. In his studies, preliminary sketches and autonomous drawings he concentrated almost
entirely on women, producing portraits, nude drawings and - one of
the largest areas within his oeuvre - erotic depictions of his models.
These
advent
erotic
of
drawings did not begin
to receive
pubUcity until the
reproductive techniques, the popularization of
modern
and the pubhcation
books primarily devoted to erotic

drawings. It is an established fact that Klimt had never intended or
regarded these drawings as anything other than private notes, and
only when they were published, studied, catalogued and exhibited
exhibitions
did they
become
of
objects of art history. Indeed,
it
was only when they
received wide mass media coverage that they ceased to be objects of

private obsession and came under the scrutiny of art lover rather than
190
Recumbent Semi-Nude from the

1914/15
Blue crayon, 37 x 56
Historical
cm
Museum, Vienna
Right,
artist.
Indeed, this
is
the only point at which
we can
begin
to
ask
all
those questions which concern the complex relationship between the

viewer, the work and the depicted person, questions which also
include the issue of voyeurism.
Many
drawings are quite bluntly aimed at a male

viewer. Klimt often arranged models in postures where they were
exposing or offering themselves. For some nudes he chose an
extremely close-up view together with an equally extreme perspecof these erotic
body were particularly stressed or the

women appeared fragmented an artistic device to emphasize and
enhance the erotic and sexual element of the moment captured in the
tive so that certain parts of the
drawing. The psycho-physical states that interested Klimt included

sleep, feelings of passivity, dreaminess
sensations in endless variations.
It
is
and the
entire
gamut
of
sexual
therefore hardly justified to
womanhood": the range of

models was rather limited.
describe him as a great "psychologist of
emotions which Klimt allowed
"Womanhood"
his
for Klimt, consisted in
an unlimited capacity
for erotic
and sexual enjoyment - no more. Although he had elevated sexuality

to the level of art in a way nobody had ever attempted before, he also
tried to
"It
reduce the female

is
certainly true,"
lechery and
and indeed
lust,
in
Klimt
to this
element.
writes Mattenklott,
knew no medium
"that to express his
but the sexuality of
women,
such a radical sense that he would probably have

191
Seated Semi-Nude with Closed Eyes

(detail), 1913
Pencil, 57 x 37 cm
Historical
wanted
to
altogether.
discard
On the
men
as
other hand,
the object of female sexual desire

it
was with unconcealed pleasure
that
For Klimt, the bodies
he depicted the tender caresses of lesbian girls.

of the embracing girls may have combined to form that world which
womanhood represented for him - an erotic world that was not
impeded by forbidden pleasures
or perversions. Indeed, the girl-
friends in his drawings or the entranced female masturbator do not
seem to be interested in causing a scandal. They are images of a totally

which the man as an outside
his
lewd
suspense. However, he
voyeur
holds
breath
in
and
^^
is always outside, tense with fascination."
The solipsistic element of this erotic world can be seen in terms of
content and form. The drawings contain virtually no indication of an
overall spatial context or higher meaning. They no longer have a
self-centred, drowsily solipsistic world, in
spectator
literary or mythological significance,
192
which the depiction
of the erotic
Museum, Vienna
Reclining
Semi-Nude Leaning
1913
Pencil, 56 x 37
Bacli
(detail),
Historical
cm
Museum, Vienna
needed
in 19th-century art in order to
be
justified,
and which
is
also
(e.g. Danae, p. 209).

any narrative or historical elements also means that
the drawings have no temporal dimension.
It has often been described how Klimt frequently isolated his models by drawing only their outlines and then enhancing this isolation by
omitting any internal modelling of their bodies. The Art Nouveau
"
harmony " of contours - often totally unnatural - sometimes turns the
depicted women into patterns or ornaments reminiscent of textiles or
present in Klimt's allegorical Symbolist paintings
The omission
of
woman is
means of creating
distance, though we should perhaps put this more tentatively and
speak of a means of controUing the relationship between the drawing
and the viewer. The women are often shown with their eyes closed or
averted. By contrast, in a painting like Hope I (p. 134) the effect
depends partly on the woman's calm gaze directed straight at the
applied
art.
The
passivity of the
a further
193
viewer, and in Judith
I (p.
142) her gaze
is
even
felt to
be provocative.
The drawings, on the other hand, do not usually give occasion for
direct communication between the woman and the viewer at all. This
is what gives the women their distinctive autonomy, making it seem
that they are governed only by their egos and their emotions. The
same formal devices also give the impression that the "image of
woman" can be formed and exists independently of the viewer and his
gaze - which is of course not really the case at all. If one chooses to
these drawings are totally dependent
and the viewer, then it is indeed possible
to believe that they are about woman's desire for autonomous, "emancipated" power over herself, her body, her desires and her sexuality.
At the same time, eroticism and sexuality are depicted as though they
were the only - and final - sphere in which autonomy can be achieved.
This control which is exercised by the viewer's gaze gives rise to a
ignore the obvious fact that
on the gaze
of the
male
all
artist
Upper Portion
of
Two
Lovers, around
1908
Pencil, 55 x 35
Historical
194
cm
Museum, Vienna
Girl-Friends Embracing, 1905/06

Pt^ncil, 38 x57 cm
Owner unknown
number
of questions which have never really been examined propBecause, instead of "interpreting" Klimt's drawings as autonomous works of art, critics would have to include themselves as viewers
(and the nature of their academic or private interest) in the actual
erly.
They would have
analysis.
perception - the work of
to
examine not only the object
of their
- but also the process of perception itself.

In Klimt's erotic drawings - and indeed throughout his entire
oeuvre - it is never the man who feels sexually stimulated. He never
art
loses control over himself. Instead, Klimt
sonalizing the
to protect
woman. One
was
interested in deper-
of the functions of distance
both the (male) observer and the
artist
and
isolation
is
from such an experi-
ence. By making only the woman an object, a divide is maintained

between the sexes, and the man's power over the "image of the
woman" - both in the process of creation and in its observation protects him from any questioning of his identity. The identity of
woman, on the other hand, is attacked by being reduced to no more
than an eroticized product of nature.

"It is
impossible to say in one sentence what the object of Klimt's
He loved women - this would be saying too

much. After all, his perception of women was far too restricted. He
loved the female body - but such a statement says too much and too
little. Unless specific commissions demanded otherwise, his interest
focused on the erotically stimulating body and the way it excited him,
lust as a
graphic
artist
was.
not the female body in general.
It
would therefore be more accurate to
say that he was interested in the female element of the female body,
unambiguously sexual aspect." '*^^

This perspective of femininity often evokes the impression that the
women's bodies are fragmentary. Either only part of the body has
been depicted, or certain sections of it have been emphasized by
means of perspective so that it seems like a torso. In recent years there
has been some controversy in the history of feminist art as to how one
should assess this fragmentation of the female body. To put it simply,
there are two opposite opinions: adherents of the one view feel that
and frequently
in its
195
any fragmentation of this kind attacks a woman's integrity and is

therefore an indication of the dominating "male point of view" others,
however, warn that it is wrong to cling to the "phantasm of the whole
body" as it has no psychological or social equivalent and a body can
never be experienced in all its original completeness.
Klimt restricts our view of the female body to certain sexual
aspects. He draws attention to them by various formal techniques
(perspective, foreshortening, distortion, shifts in proportion) and by
sophisticated use of concealment and revelation. In his book Geschichte der erotischen Kunst (History of Erotic Art), Eduard Fuchs has
been one of the few authors who emphasize this fact: "When Gustav
;
Klimt paints a female nude, he always stresses her genital area. He

often does so very discreetly and delicately, but so unambiguously
that our glance is necessarily directed towards it. And wherever the
encounters an area of the picture to

which the artist has paid special attention. " " The sexual impact of a
woman's body is often caused by clothing her in such a way that she
observer's eye
comes
to rest,
it
seems unclothed: "The women's clothes, pulled up, folded over and
cast aside change his nudes into naked bodies; studies of unclothed
bodies become erotic pictures of sexual desire or satisfaction. The
nakedness of the body is underlined by textile ornament, nudity is
peeled out of fabric. Instead of concealing, the material provides a
frame or presentational setting for an object of desire: the breasts of
two girlfriends, the arched buttocks of a girl, or the open legs of a
woman; he doesn't clothe - he reveals." "^
The extent to which the fragmentation of the body can mean the
fragmentation of the person is evidenced by Klimt' s treatment of his
models (cf. for example the comment on Hope 1, pp. 127ff.). With his
"synthesizing" eye he was able to create new, idealized shapes based
on a variety of models - selected from the academy "model market"
for their physical attributes - their movements, postures and "body
Girl-Friends Lying on their

Stomactis, 1906
Red crayon, 37 x 54 cm
Albertina, Vienna
Two
196
Two Nudes Lying on
their Backs,
(1905/1906)
Red crayon, 37 x 56 cm
New Gallery at the Joanneum State
fragments" For Klimt, models were not real people but merely physical shapes that could be utilized artistically. His words that a model's
"posterior
is
Museum, Graz
some idea
of the extent to
real people.
often
more beautiful and intelligent than her face" gives

which he applied the "artistic principle" to
"^
Although Werner Hofmann speaks about the "selfishness" of such

a creative act, he only means it in a "purely artistic" sense. Nevertheless, he is the only art historian who has analysed in depth the relationship between the work, the (nude) model, the artist and the viewer.
"With the female body, Klimt had control over the origin of all form,
from which all his themes developed like the fruit from the seed ... In
her
passivity the woman is the graphic epitome of a mouldable
substance at the mercy of the creative act." "* The direction of this
painterly act can also be turned around: the substance is not only the
"material" from which the image of a human being is created, but this
image can also be changed back, as it were, into the substance. This
has already been discussed. In the Stoclet Frieze, the artist had
reached an extreme point of this reversal: it is no longer possible to
decide whether the picture on the side wall of the dining room (p. 151)
is that of a person - and if so, what sex? - or an abstract mosaic pattern.
This retrogressive change of human beings into substance, with the
.
gradual dissolution
of the
depicted persons into the (ornamental)
material of the picture can also be seen in Klimt's ladies' portraits.

197
Thus Hofmann gives a precise description of the male artist's

woman, though only in relation to the artist' s act of
creation which - as we should understand it - necessarily includes his
control over the
control over the substance as the "origin of
all
form". Surprisingly,
Hofmann makes no distinction

between models and the material which the artist uses (canvas, paper
etc.) but groups them together under the concept of "substance". By
equating the artist's act of creation with that of sexual intercourse and
without even qualifying his approach,
its
inherent "self-surrender", he then
between the
artist
and
his
model
into
tries to turn
its
exact opposite and com-
pletely denies the element of control or dominion in
dominance
is
the relationship
it:
"The
man's
of course limited and diverted into a give-and-take
dialogue.
In Klimt's
work, although the
In the final analysis,
it is
Klimt
woman is not art she makes the artist.
who receives, and he repays his female

womanhood." '" Thus the
painter and his model has been deliber-
creator by creating a world in the form of
between the
turned upside down. Hofmann suppresses everything
real relationship
ately
that can
be said about the actual control of the painter over his model. It is
totally obscure what the active and autonomous role of the model and
indeed her "repayment" should be. Instead, he points out the significance and the identification of Klimt's "world" with his "image of
Woman" which went so far in his drawings that all allegorical or
198
Recumbent
Lovers, from the Right,
around 1908
Black chalk, 35 x 55
Historical
cm
Museum, Vienna
historicist extras, "disguises"

full
and justifications were omitted to permit
concentration on the psychological and erotic.
The above-mentioned
stylistic peculiarities of
Klimfs drawings
may now be more
easily identifiable as formal expressions of Klimt's

obsessive concern with "womanhood". The isolation of the girls
through their outlines, the lack of spatial reference points, the idiosyn-
way
which bodies and gestures create their own space, the

absorbed oblivion, drowsiness and passivity of the women - all these
elements indicate the exclusiveness with which Klimt treated erotic
and sexual feelings and on which he based his image of womanhood.
The more he succeeded in purging it, as it were, from all qualifications,
and the more he approached his ideal image of womanhood as the
epitome of the erotic, the more the women he depicted became independent of any communication with the viewer. Thus, they keep their
distance in a solitary dialogue. "Only as sexual beings do Klimfs
women gain any territory, and it is only within this territory and with
cratic
in
the corresponding intimacy that
works
Klimt's
Khmt renders their gestures in his late

Like classical sculptures which look at us with blind eyes,
emotional gestures are introverted and nearly always
.
The meaning of these gestures will remain their secret

The eyes of these women are mostly cast down or closed. Their sexuality is meant to be looked at. Are they allowed to be aware of it at all?
The sexuality of women has been discovered, but it seems as if they
were only half conscious of it and as if the other half were their social
bodies. The gestures of Klimfs women are reminiscent of somnambulists or dreamers, and this numbness cloaks their movements like a
restrained.
veil of inhibition." "^
Even in the most trivial protestations that Klimt was interested in

the emancipation of the instincts one can discern the truth that Klimfs
search for a "female image
world" enabled him to discover and

sensitively depict experiences which, until then, had been taboo in art.
One cannot deny, however, that this gamut of female erotic emotions
of the
had sprung from the obsessions of a male artist whose own male
identity crisis made him look for a female identity.
199
'The World in Female Form"
One
only has to browse through an oeuvre catalogue of Klimt's
monumental works (about 220 are given in the catalogue by Novotny and Dobai) to realize that they fall into very neat
categories and that the painter had certain focal points of interest, with
a clear emphasis on women's portraits (though the individuals cannot
paintings and
always be identified), allegories, "humanity paintings" and landscapes. There are not many paintings outside these four subject areas,
and one has to go back to his 1899 historical genre painting Schubert
at the Piano (p. 47) to discover an exception. Obviously, one will find
other subjects among his early works, when Klimt was still far more
dependent on commissioned work - for example, men's portraits
disappeared completely from his oeuvre Portrait of Count
Traun, 1896; Hofburg Actor Josef Lewinsky as Carlos, 1895, p. 50; and
Joseph Pembauer, 1890, p. 51). If we add the drawings to this survey,
then this definition of a small number of subjects becomes even more
obvious. Klimt's pictures of women, which largely determined his
which
later
reputation and his fame, are indeed in the majority.
Even
Klimt's earliest
works show
his
tendency
Art History
portfolio,
Egyptian Art
II,
which he started
p. 30)
and compositions for his
in 1895
women
women as
Museum of
to prefer
identification tags in his art. In his paintings for the Court
Allegories,
New
such a way - both
allegorical
Series)
he used
and
as regards content - that an erotically stimulating vividness was
added to them. "*' He did so by painting them in an untraditional.
Modernist manner. Step by step, Klimt abandoned the historical pattern which he had learnt during his academic training, that is, the
distanced, statue-like depiction of the female body. At the same time,
he was beginning to diversify or split the image of Woman into that of
the erotic femme fatale and the magna mater Tragedy; p. 45) on the
one hand and the idealized society lady on the other.
In his allegories, "humanity paintings", portraits and drawings,
the artist's message is generally conveyed by women. They are at the
centre of those grand, monumental allegories, and they also dominate
his later paintings, which are difficult to interpret and devoid of any
action or allegory. They also prevail in his drawings, which are often
regarded as the most important part of his oeuvre.
traditional depictions of
in
stylistically
gK2?
Half-length Portrait of a
ttie
Front,
Pencil on sUghtly
57 X 38
Nude
Girl,
from
around 1916
brown paper,
cm
Kunstmuseum, Berne
Klimt's "oedipal revolt" (as Schorske calls
it)
broke completely
with the male-dominated paintings of the 19th century and of

historicism.
However,
his revolt
was not
just a philosophical
The Virgin
(detail),
1913
Die Jungfrau
its
and

Oil
201
aesthetic protest, but partly - though not exclusively
- that
of a gener-
ation conflict in the midst of a particularly dramatic political
and
cultural crisis. Klimt's work relates to the radical changes which were
affecting male and female images as well as the relationships between
men and women in society.
Although PQimt almost exclusively used "womanhood" as a
medium of identification, this does not mean - as is often claimed -
works constituted an analytical and reflective penetration of a

different psyche comparable to Freud's psychoanalysis - quite apart
from the obvious fact that Klimt was far less interested in himself and
the artistic analysis of his psyche than almost any other artist. It is at
this point that the widespread comparison between Klimt's art and
Freud's psychoanalysis breaks down. Freud's "revolt" consisted in the
productive transformation of his own "social death", that is, he managed to re-shape a totally stagnant traditional career and indeed his
that his
failure to
adapt
to the
conventional
with his therapeutic attempts,
demands
of society. Interacting
this transformation
culminated in an
unprecedented and radical self-analysis as the basis of his discoveries

and his academic and analytical work. However, no matter how hard
we try, it seems impossible to detect any comparable efforts of selfexamination or self-reflection in Klimt's work.
One possible explanation of this remarkable circumstance could
be that Klimt never took an interest in his own masculinity (cf. his
words "I'm not particularly interesting"), though he was certainly
interested - and indeed exclusively - in a man's (and his own) female
masculinity. His search for an identity in the midst of cultural and
personal crises did not lead to any self-examination or an examination
of bisexuality (which had been discovered by Freud) but to the
attempt to find his identity in the image of a woman.
Klimt was by no
means alone in this. Under headings such as "feminization" and "selffeminization", the "re-assessment of femininity" has been described
as the "revaluation of male femininity". These changes and new
values in the relationship between man and woman were a cultural
phenomenon of the 19th century and therefore reflected in all the
' '
mean that a man turned

he claimed womanhood for himself" (Silvia
arts."^ "Self-feminization" of a
towards
women
but that
man
''
"did not
The male image tended to disappear from art, which was

then monopolized by the female image - though at the expense of
Eiblmayr).
women
demons, mythological figures and fetishes.

Woman's image changed into that of Judith I (p. 142), witches, legendary figures (Water Serpents, pp. 9 and 137) and monsters Beethoven
Frieze, pp. 104f.), or - with the discovery of nudity for advertising in
turning
into
Art
Nouveau
into the aesthetic allurement of
commercial products.
These pictures do not document man's surrender to the power of

come to terms with an ahen feminity.
Rather, they are projections of "male femininity" (Eiblmayr). Not only
in Klimt's art did such projections lead at times to the mutual convergence of the two images of male femininity and the feminization of
man. Art Nouveau, in particular, knew a large number of ways in
which the difference between the sexes was neutralized, e.g. through
Eros or indeed his attempt to
202
Woman
ing,
with Raised Lower Arms, Standfrom Right to Left, around 1908
Pencil,
56x37 cm
Museum, Vienna
Historical
Lady with Cape and Hat, Three-Quarter

View from the Right, 1897/98
Black and red chalk, 45 x 32 cm
Albertina, Vienna
h^
the androgynous image of
mankind or the mascuhnization of Woman.

Otto Weininger, the anti-feminist theoretician of femininity at the turn
of the century, spoke of a "neutraUzation of the sexes" which, he said,
was
and in fact a characteristic feature of the

its image of mankind. Quoting Klimt's words that "at
certain times more mascuHne women are born", he commented contypical of the times
Secession and
temptuously that
probably explains the entire 'Secessionist' taste

which gives the beauty prize to tall, slender women with flat chests
and narrow
"this
The immense
proliferation of dandyism and

few years can only have been caused by an
increase in femininity in our times. " '" The converse of this mascuhnization of women - the feminization of men - was a threat to the artist
hips.
homosexuality in the
last
'
203
because
then cut
it
made him aware
off
Many
and depicted
of Klimt's
of his
own
feminine aspects. These were
as hostile forces.
contemporaries expressed a good deal
of
under-
standing for his (self-)feminization. They pointed out not only the
extent to which Klimt dealt with the image of Woman in his art, but
also the central role which this search played in his life as an artist and
a person. Their
identity
artistic
and
comments showed that they were interested in Klimt's

image of Woman should be understood not as an
that his
manifestation of an experienced reality but as a "creation" that
went beyond the realm of art and aimed at stabilizing the male ego.
"The direction Klimt has taken," said Hans Tietze, "can be followed
much more clearly in his portraits of women. Klimt has experienced
womanhood profoundly and, being a genuine eroticist, he has created

each woman from within himself. He has projected himself into every
contour of her body, her dress, every smile and every movement.
Flattering her, he has captured every expression of her vitality, but
what he paints and draws
is no mere rendering of reality. His type of

both experience and yearning, true and untrue. It is the
confession of an artist. His eroticism - his devotion to the subject and
his mastery of it - makes Klimt a prophet of female beauty." ^^
woman
is
Another contemporary, Berta Zuckerkandl, commented that "Klimt

paints the woman of his time. Down to the most secret fibres of her
Leda, 1917
Oil on canvas, 99 x 99
i^î
204
Destroyed by
1945
fire at
cm
Immendorf Palace
in
The Virgin, 1913

Die Jungfrau
being, he has followed the structure of her frame, the outlines of her
shape, the modelling of her flesh and the machinery of her movements
and has made them
permanent part of his memory. With his feet

firmly on this secure ground, he varies the theme of Woman in all its
relations to creation and nature. Whether they are cruel and lustful or
cheerful and sensual, his women are always full of mysterious charm.
The scintillating fleshy hue of a woman's slender body, the phosphorescent sheen of her skin, the square angularity of her broad head
and the sinfulness of her ginger-haired mane add up to an overall
effect which is profoundly psychological and picturesque. In his portraits he creates sinewy, racy women with a thirst for life or a general
drowsiness, and despite all their typical differences, they are all
creatures who owe their existence to KUmt's grace. As an ideal figure,
however, he dissolves a woman's body into magnificent, decorative
lines. All elements of chance and everything that is individual or
characteristic has been eliminated, and all that remains with the
a
greatest stylistic purity
modern woman."
In fact, in
on Klimt"
of
is
the artist's sublimated extract of the typical
^^^
an inconspicuous comment in Hermann Bahr's "Speech

1901, it is no longer the content of his art which is the
object of desire but the painting as such:

1
am in love with his
and
art,
only a lover can reveal to a
innermost significance,
it is
"
Friends say
indeed a feeling akin
jocularly that
to love. Just as
man what life means to him and develop its
feel the
same about these
paintings."
^^^
The
205
forms of the responses to Klimt's art, which we have aheady discussed

in the context of the Secession exhibitions, were related to modes of
experience that were regarded as specifically feminine at the time:

observing, enjoying and empathetic feeling. Mood - a central theme
of the
time - united
attitude.
Not
all
those features in an aesthetic-psychological
and analysis of the world was at the

some kind of passive aesthetic
which the egocentric enjoyment of one's own self was
rational control
centre of an experience of art but
education in
more important than developing one's

content of
attitude towards the thematic
art.
The phenomenon of the man's femininization in the woman's

image makes it tempting to seek explanations in the personality of the
artist himself and to enquire about "male hysteria", a question which
was being discussed at the turn of the century. However, too Uttle is
known about Klimt's biography to draw any conclusions. Klimt never
made statements about his image of women except through his art,
and, as
we have
many layers
seen, his relationships with
women
are obscured by
legend and anecdote. But there are a small number of

accounts published immediately after Klimt's death, for example in
the form of obituaries. These must have been relatively fresh and can
of
therefore claim a measure of authenticity.
They
certainly give the
impression that there was very little truth to today's myth of Klimt's
"Turkish taste for women" '2^. In 1919, Hans Tietze wrote that,
"according to his friends, ... Klimt's power seemed riddled with
Although he was basically kind-hearted, he led a sohtary existence and met with indifference and hostility because his
greatest need was love. We are trying to understand these contradictions in human terms so that we can gain a better understanding of his
profound and mysterious art. There are even greater secrets, and
these must be handled very gently when dealing with an artist whose
song of praise to the enticing magic of the female body takes so much
room in his work. Klimt's rugged forcefulness had an enormous effect
on people, particularly women, and whenever he appeared there was
a strong air of earthiness about him. Again, there was that internal
contradiction which paralysed his unconditional surrender to life. For
many years he was bound to a woman in the most intimate friendship,
though without ever daring to commit himself completely. That vicontradictions.
which is present in some of his most

drawings may well be full of most painful
brantly erotic neurasthenia

delicately
sensitive
^^''
experiences. Klimt did not dare to take the responsibility of happiness

upon himself and the only privilege he gave to the woman he had
loved for years was to attend to his painful death. " '^^ Klimt's contemporaries - such as Hermann Bahr - regarded neurasthenia as male
male ego which was exposed to the deprivation

encoded intimations conceal more than they explain. They do, however, give us an inkhng of
Klimt's personality, which must have been far less one-dimensional
than many choose to make out nowadays. Furthermore, they show
that no simple, straightforward correspondence can be established
between the artist's personality and his work.
hysteria, a crisis in the
of its personality. Tietze' s quite delicately
206
The Dancer, around 1916/18

Die Tanzerin
Private collection, by permission of the
St. Etienne Gallery, New York
Danae
who was loved by Zeus in the form of a gold
has often been depicted by famous artists. When Klimt
it, he gave it his own distinctive features, eliminating all
The legend
shower,
painted
narrative
moment
and
of
of
Danae,
transitory elements. Instead,
conception -
he captured the timeless
in ancient mythology, the conception of
Perseus. Within a single painting Klimt
combined the Art Nouveau
motif of "omnifruitfulness" and his obsession with a totally self-con-
The connection with the original myth has

been severed almost completely. The attributes generally ascribed by
long-standing iconographic tradition to Danae - as in the case of Leda
(p. 204) - were reduced to a minimum. The compositional elements
are curved outlines and ornaments, entirely serving the erotic effect of
the painting, which is further enhanced by its golden colours. The
focus on Danae and the distorted perspective in the painting add a
sexual dimension to her whole body, though at the same time distance
is created by the ornamental elements: "The gold shower entering
Danae's body and the ornamental elements give a guality of holy
ecstasy to this ancient motif. The experience of sexual pleasure, which
is granted by the enticing ornaments, is more than mere compensation. It achieves something which a male partner would be unable to
do, that is, it changes the woman's flesh into an ornamental cipher - a
work of art. Eros becomes an icon. "
In no other picture did Klimt
push the reduction of Woman to her sexuality to such an extreme. To
illustrate this point and without further comment, Werner Hofmann
quotes from fin-de-siecle ideology (Otto Weininger and Karl Kraus),
which saw "the entire female body as an appendage to the genitals " '^''
Danae is one of the most extreme examples illustrating Klimt'
concept of a totally autonomous femininity. Indeed, this autonomy is
served by the distance which is maintained even in this painting by
means of stylization and formahzation. Like numerous other nude
paintings by Klimt, it displays a self-absorbed sexual craving in which
nudity itself becomes decor. Khmt's "revolution" does not really
offend at all, even where it breaks taboos. Occasionally, as in this nude
painting, which was supposedly aimed at his critics, he broke taboos
quite deliberately and with irony. But because of its calm, aesthetic
harmony, his depiction of the erotic also permits calm, composed
viewing. "Sensuality and the erotic are present everywhere, but these
sparsely clad women, these sleeping nudes, were actually accepted
by Vienna's bourgeoisie and aristocracy. Klimt overcame moral prejudices by means of a rich decor. Embraces, a naked body against a
background of old gold or azure and the women's clothes mingle with
the multicoloured flowers of a meadow or the impression of sumptuous beauty and unhmited wealth which characterize all paintings by
Klimt. As a result, we forget the women' s nudity, which is no more than
tained female sexuality.
^'^'^
a decorative element in such a magnificent ensemble."

208
'^^
Danae, 1907/08
Private collection, Graz
The most significant aspect of the painting is not

distance which is created by the ornamentaUzation of
so
the
much
the
woman's
body, but the narcissistic regression that stimulates these formal energies.
As
in
many
other works by Klimt, the
woman
is
overcome by
drowsiness and sleep, so that Danae can be depicted as completely

wrapped up in herself and her instincts. This gives her autonomy from
the viewer. Danae is an "icon of the feminine Narcissus" - created out
of male fantasies and so engrossed in herself that there is no room for
any object of love other than her own body. While in Leda the principle
maleness was still present in the symbolically encoded form of a
black swan's neck and head, it is reduced here to the abstract symbol
of the black rectangle in the shower of gold - one ornament among
many.
of
209
Ladies' Portraits
It is a remarkable
best-known works in
among
fact that Klimt's portraits, whichi are
his oeuvre,
the
have never attracted much attention
accuracy with which they depicted Uving persons. Instead,

there has been far more interest in their formal properties and their
for the
development. Indeed, his portraits of the ladies of Viennese society

have been analysed sociologically and seen as metaphorical statements, as it were, on the life of the social ehte and society at large at the
Habsburg Empire, rather than as artistic treatments of a

Thus they have been seen in similar
terms as achievements of cultural and historical analysis, and - yet
again - Klimt has been falsely credited with a critical attitude. Even
Max Eisler, one of Klimt's first biographers, hardly showed any interend
of the
particular character or person.
est in the depicted
persons or the function
of a particular portrait.
gave a very general description of Klimt's portraits

as expressing criticism of the Decadence: "... In general it is ... a
spoilt, cultivated, urban social class which he portrays
usually a
sardonic or blase lady, intellectually indifferent or even mindless, who
wants to appear important or scintillating. Klimt never verges on the
satirical - his taste and indeed his indifference forbids such an
attitude. But on the whole, because of his uninhibitedly pragmatic
depiction, he stands as the historian of this lukewarm, indolent and
empty social class. Nevertheless, everything is still pohshed, partly
because of the seriousness of his artistic approach, even towards this
kind of material - an attitude which links these portraits not only to
one another but also to the rest of his works." '^^
It is only logical that those who ascribe an analytical or critical
function to Klimt's portraits should concentrate on formal aspects
which support their belief. There are numerous descriptions of the
contrast between two- and three-dimensional space, between ornament and skin colouring and the polarity of distance and (erotic)
closeness or availability and withdrawal. "Klimt dematerializes the
substance of a body and dissolves it into decorative movements, while
at the same time giving weight and a sensual function to the decorative accessories. Thus he succeeds in eliminating all exact definition
from his figures. He always surrounds them with an aura suggesting
both distance and proximity
The surface bearing the image of the
woman changes; it is no longer reliable, it seems to hint at unknown
depths. Because of the amazing optical illusion between background
and foreground, two- and three-dimensional space, clothes and body.
Instead, he merely
Study for the Portrait of Amalie

Zuckerkandl. 1917/18
Pencil, 57 x 38 cm
Albertlna, Vienna
Portrait of Johanna
Staude (unfinished),
1917 18
Johanna Staude
Bildnis
Oil
211
Half-length portrait of Klimt's sister (de-
1887/88
47 X 33 cm
tail),
Historical
and reticence, it is no longer possible to grasp his portraits

an 'objective' way." ^^
However, this needs to be qualified, because Klimt did indeed
distinguish between different degrees, ranging from the formal means
of allegorical and mythical depictions to those of official portraits,
where the erotic element is much more remote, more sublimated. In an
analysis of the colours in Klimt's Portrait of Margaret StonboroughWittgenstein (p. 217), Thomas Zaunschirm has discovered that this
complex relationship between closeness and distance is reflected in
the relationship between the transparency and density of the paint
and the artist's treatment of colours. The iridescent white and grey
structure of the brilliantly painted dress make it appear both veiled
and transparent. ^^^
It is worth noting that these portraits lack any clear spatial structure
in which the women depicted might find support. One exception is
willingness
in
Klimt's Porlrait of Sonja Knips of 1898, in
which the seated
woman
gives the illusion that she has been placed in a garden. Within the
artist's oeuvre, this is an extremely rare portrayal of a figure in a
natural setting. In all other portraits, the spatial definition of a location
has been replaced by the heraldic integration of the figure into the
surface of the picture. Merging into complex ornamental areas, the
women are virtually banished to the painting's background - from
212
Museum, Vienna
Woman's Head. 1917/18

Frauenkopf
Wolfgang-Guriitt-Museum,
of the City of
New
Gallery
Linz
which naturahstic depictions of the subject's face, features and hands

protrude. As a result of this pronounced difference between naturalistic and decorative two-dimensional elements, Klimt emphasized a
woman's gestures and features and therefore also her expression,
character and the significance of her personality. On the other hand,
however, these parts of the body also appear Hke fragments or iconic
elements, oddly detached from the rest of the body.
"The argument which was relevant to Cubism at the time, between
two- and three-dimensional space, has
its
Secessionist analogy in
these works, sometimes at the price of losing physical
clarity.
How-
ever, the fragmentation of the objects depicted always had a decora'^^

tive purpose and never disrupted their physiognomical integrity."
The impact
of the naturahstic faces
is
further
enhanced by ornahats. Another func-
form of halos, crowns or

tion of these decorative yet meaningful forms is to capture a figure in a
structure of two-dimensional ornamental areas as if it were totally
mental surrounds
immobile.
Bauer
I,
in the
Emilie Floge, 1902; Fritza Riedler, 1906; Adele Bloch-
1907; pp. 216, 219 and 218).
The increasing use of ornaments in Klimt' s portraits was a gradual

development. The ladies portrayed became more and more "disembodied". Unlike his other, "anonymous" ladies' portraits, it is not the
entire body which is given erotic significance, but the eroticism is
213
ornaments (in a similar way to The Kiss). Furthermore,

the ornaments add an element of material luxury and preciousness to
the characters, as if their status were much higher than is suggested by
the photographs of the same persons. And unlike these photographs,
despite the detailed naturalism, each lady is given an aura which goes
far beyond were portraiture.
This aura is further emphasized by a formal "trick", that is, being
viewed from below which makes the depicted person seem slightly
raised. The extreme lengthening of some figures, who appear to be
looking at us from a somewhat higher position, also serves to stress
their distance as exclusive society ladies. Their ornamental garments
are meant as a reflection of their social prestige. Thus, the portrait has
become a way of lending dignity to the person portrayed as well as
distance to the viewer, a certain majestic stateliness which may not
always be due to their social positions but which has been accorded to
them by the artist. That such an elevation sometimes made these
ladies feel rather uneasy can be gathered from the rejection of Klimt's
Portrait of Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein by her family and the
re-working of a portrait of Ria Munk into a Dancer (p. 207). In his
speech, Hermann Bahr tried to interpret these portraits as showing
something of the "innermost nature of each lady" ^'^^ but this is
precisely what his portraits conceal. And indeed, they do so by means
of wealth - a wealth which manifests itself in status, conventions and
golden ornaments. The true personality and nature of the ladies including their eroticism - only ever shines through very indirectly
and as if it had been fragmented by the ornaments.
Despite his rather exaggerated and effusive enthusiasm, Peter
Altenberg has nevertheless discovered a very important feature of
Klimt's portraits: rather than portraying the ladies, they "clothe" them
and put them into a context of unreal existence. Altenberg therefore
shifted onto the
Woman with Hat and Bag (The figure

duplicated), study for the Portrait of
AdeleBloch-Bauerll, 1912
Pencil, 57 x 37 cm
Alhertina,
Vienna
is
sees them as part of Klimt's endless projective typology of
woman-
hood. "These ladies' portraits are like the perfect creatures of nature's
most tender romanticism. Delicate, finely proportioned, fragile

creatures - the poet's dream, never-ending and never finding release!
Their hands are the expression of a noble soul, with a hint of childlike
vitality, refined and at the same time kind-hearted!
"Whatever their positions may be at a certain hour or on a certain
day in real life, they are all outside earth's gravity. All of them are
princesses in a better and more delicate world. The painter realized
this, he did not allow himself to be confused and he raised them to their
rightful position, to their own high and lofty ideals!
These are the
aspects that count in the artist's eyes. This is how the woman should be
.
seen! Staring into the mysteries of existence, proud, invincible, yet

tragically sad
beauty that
is
and
introverted! Except for the beauty of those hands, a
supernatural and triumphs over
life
and
its
manifold
snares and perversions. Those hands say, 'We will remain like this
Portrait of Adele Blocli-Bauer
Bildnis
Adele Bloch-Bauer
11

214
II,
1912
until
we
we were born
to
and
be seen in the dignified old lady that

inspire enthusiasm in painters and poets! They are
are seventy,
it
will
our only unfailing climaxes'."
''''
Portrait of
Emihe Floge, 1902
Bildnis Emilie Floge
on canvds, 181 x 84 cm
Oil
216
Portruit ui
Margaret Stonborough-Witlgenstein
1905
Bildnis Margdret Stonborough-Wittgenstein

Bavarian State Collection of Paintings, Neue Pinakothek, Muiuch
217
0
I
Adele Bloch-Bauer 1, 1907

Adele Bloch-Bauer
Oil and gold on canvas, 138 x 138 cm
Portrait of
Bildnis
218
Portrait o/ Fntza Ricdlcr.
1906
Bildnis Fritza Riedler

Oil
219
Mdda Primavesi, dround

Mada Primavesi
Oil on canvas, 150 x 110.5 cm
Portrait of
1912
Bildnis
Metropolitan
220
Museum of Art, New York,
gift of Andre and Clara Mertens, in

ory of her mother, Jenny Pulitzer Steiner, 1964.
mem-
Portrait of
Eugenia Primavesi, around 1913/14

Eugenia Primavesi
Bildnis
Private collection, U.S.A.
221
Portrait of
H ermine Gallia,
Bildnis
1903/04
Hermine Gallia
National Gallery, London
Oil
222
Portrait of a Lady,
1917/18
Damenbildnis
Oil on cdnvas, 180 x 90 cm
Wolfgang-Gurlitt-Museum, New Gallery of the City
of Linz
223
Late Works
When
Klimt died on 6th February 1918, a
number
of unfinished
works were found in his studio. These have defied all interpretation
until now, not only because of their fragmentary nature but also their
allegorical content. To some extent, they can be seen as further
developments of Klimt's cyclical and allegorical "humanity paintings"
of the "Golden Phase" - a new discussion of the "cycle of life",
depicted as a natural and fateful process. Here, however, the cycle
seen more optimistically and
is
more regressive terms, without any

allusions to social events and institutions, as was the case either
openly Faculty Paintings, pp. 76ff.) or in encoded form Hope I, p.
134) in his "humanity paintings", where the allegory of motherhood
was partly treated as a social institution.
What makes it difficult to decode these paintings is the lack of
in
iconographic elements
to facilitate
such a task. What
is
more, there
is
hardly any coherent interaction between the different characters.
They are completely reduced

227)
is
an exception
for interpretation in
in that
it
and emotions. The Bride (p.

at least a very general framework
to passivity
affords
which the figures form part of a
natural, biological
context, eroticized but without extreme passions or emotions. This
is
reminiscent of Klimt's metaphor of different ages, painted back in
The Three Ages of Woman p. 122), and also Death and Life (p.
123). Those earlier works, however, displayed greater clarity of form
as well as content, whereas his later works became increasingly ambiguous in content and freer in form. In his late works the allegorical
element is even more obviously presented by female protagonists
than before. Men are either absent altogether The Three Ages of
Woman The Virgin, p. 205), or - as in Klimt's cyclical "humanity
paintings" - they are depicted concealing themselves. Their feelings
1905
Two Female Nudes, Standing

Technique, dimensions and owner un-
known
are not
Life
shown and
Adam and
their
scope of action has been frozen
Eve, p. 229). These paintings, too,
Death and
may perhaps be
men's "self-feminization" - projections of an eroticized female nature and naturally erotic womanhood,
though women are totally reduced to their sexuality, just as in Klimt's
erotic drawings, both with regard to content and form. All these late
paintings are dominated by drowsiness, sleep and a somnolent,
regressive numbness, without hope of an awakening that might bring
understood within the context
of
relief.
The lack
of realism
naturalistic details)
is
in
these paintings (despite some highly
a result of their stylization, form
and - often
Girl-Friends (detail). 1916/17

Die Freundinnen
1945
ir
225
- allegorical content. Klimt's formal devices are no less resisand material content that is
depicted. "The smoothness and sharpness of the outlines had been
replaced by
more restrained, painterly lines
The power of the
ornaments, too, had been softened by a new element of restraint
Thus, in his last paintings, the Bride and the Virgin, he achieved a new
synthesis, a new interplay of form and thought. His clusters of people
diffuse
tant to critical analysis than the spiritual
are in fact only very superficially related to the masses of people in

Philosophy and Medicine, and despite the traditional allegorism,
hardly any remnant of 'literature' is left. Their mysteriousness is of a

completely novel kind. This was achieved by emphasizing a painterly
form that abandoned illusionism altogether. Klimt's eccentric juxtapositions still dominated his paintings
However, the end result though incomplete and in the form of a promise - was a vision of
.
226
Baby
1917/18
1 10 x 1 10 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Oil
(detail),
on canvas,
The Bride (unfinished), 1917/18

Die Braut
Private collection,
Vienna
dreamlike uncertainty, elevated into a realm
be imagined
superfluous,
were
still
of
forms that could only
in his earlier compositions. Starry skies
and
so
had
his abstract geometrical fields,
had become
though there
the inhibited and dejected gestures as well as the ecstatic
ones, but because of the new, less meticulous outlines, they were no
longer burdened by their previous tragic seriousness. Everything had
become more
weightless, with a calmly breathing, radiant
organic liveliness."
and
^^^
While Klimt had always refrained from critically examining contemporary society in his art, his late works show an even more radical
refusal to comment on social reality. Indeed, they no longer contain
the slightest hint of man as a social or historical being, and there is a
sign of powerful, Prometheus-like saviour or "strong well-equipped
outsider" with the historic task of redeeming mankind. The topic of his
227
paintings is no longer a work of redemption, but the state of being

redeemed. This redemption is outside space and time, it is a plant-like
state without memories of the past or visions of the future. Man merely
exists, without communicative gestures, i.e., the persons depicted
cannot be defined as forming a social group or belonging together in
any way. Communication between individuals and the sexes has been
replaced by the renunciation of any connection with time or society
and the return
to infantile levels of
mankind
or the
human
psyche.
Refining his aesthetic techniques, Klimt pushed his development

to its
extreme and indeed
its limits:
"An
artist
who wants
to
show
dissonances in the social structure," says Werner Hofmann at the end

of his Klimt monograph, "must reflect critically on his own language
and make it accessible to dissonance. Naive trust in the unchangeable

ornamental nature of any form, including ugly forms, does not allow
any dissonance or truth in one's style without the decorum of beauty
Stylization prevents the artist from
engaging in a fundamentally
never open, but closed, it is consonance, not
dissonance. A creative urge which is dominated by stylization remains
limited to self-assertion and affirmation. It precludes both a critical
.
creative act:
its
form
is
language and a critique of forces within society. Its

festive garment, woven by art, brings about general reconcihation,
and legitimizes both itself and the existing social conditions. The
painter Gustav Khmt also displays this one-sidedness, which shows
both the limits and the greatness of his art." "^
Khmt's late works underline the dilemma or fundamental contradiction which permeates his entire oeuvre. The image of pure,
erotic and totally natural happiness becomes reduced to mere regression. Klimt' s oeuvre can be understood as an aesthetic alternative to
the historical culture of his father's generation. As such it brought forth
a "world in female form" as a resonse to the crisis in society and the
individual. Khmt offers us the Utopian realm of an autonomous,
natural eroticism, a regressive fantasy world which necessarily had to
deny its social and individual origins. This regressive Utopia of a
feminine culture relieved the man, in particular, of the necessity to
perceive the social' reality which frightened and threatened him. In
many works this reality was suppressed altogether. In his Faculty
Paintings, for example, Klimt contrasted it with projections of a bUnd,
eroticized and supposedly natural cycle. Or he carefully excluded
social reality from the sacred sphere of art and the cult of the artist, as
we have seen in the way in which the Secession organized and staged
its exhibitions. Klimt' s popularity and also his central role in Viennese
Modernism were both a result of this oddly regressive Utopia. Works
such as The Kiss and the Beethoven Frieze radically refuse to be
perceived in terms of everyday reality, and it has therefore always
been possible to enjoy and understand them as promises of unsulhed
analysis of
its
erotic delight.
228
Adam and Eve (unfinished),

Adam und Eva
1917/1?
Chronology
1862
Klimt is born at Baumgarnear

ten
Vienna on 14th July. He is
the second of seven children. His
father, Ernst Klimt (1832-1892) is
an engraver and comes from
Bohemia. His mother, Anna Klimt
(nee Finster, 1836-1915) was born
and bred in Vienna. Brothers and
sisters:
Klara (1860-1937), Ernst
(1864-1892), Hermine (1865-1938),

Georg (1867-1931), Anna (18691874) and Johanna (1873-1950).
with his brother Ernst and their

fellow-student Franz Matsch.
Takes part in Laufberger
Joins the School of Applied
and Imperial Austrian Museum for Art and Industry,

Vienna, where he is taught painting by Prof. Julius Viktor Berger.
Vienna's
the procession for the Imperial
terior
silver
230
Starts
working together
1887
Klimt
883
city
view
commissioned by
council to paint an inis
of the old
Burgtheater.
wedding.
1888
1
decoration work on the
sgraffito
Finishes his training at the
School of Applied Art in Vienna.

Forms Kiinstlercompagnie (Artists'
Company) and opens
studio to-
Completion
of the
theater paintings. Klimt
is
Burg-
awarded
the Golden Cross of Merit.
1888/89
Trieste,
Travels to Cracow,
Venice and Munich.
1890
Starts
Franz Matsch.
Art of the Royal
1879
start
staircases of the Burgtheater.
work for the Museum of Art History

in Vienna as well as the artwork of
gether with his brother Ernst and
1876
pany
1883-85
The
three artists take
on decoration jobs
pal theatre of
886
for the
Fiume
munici-
(Yugoslavia).
Klimt and his
Artists'
Com-
working on the deco-
rations (spandrels and intercolumniation) of the staircase in the
Museum of Art History in Vienna.

He is the first person to receive the
newly created Imperial Award
for
Joseph Maria Olbrich (left) with Koloman Moser, Gustav Klimt (both on rechning chairs) and an unidentified person in Klimfs garden
his painting
Burgtheater
Auditorium
at the
Old
(p. 40).
1894 Klmit and Matsch are commissioned by the Ministry of Education to paint the Faculty Paint-
1891
Joins the Co-Operative
ings
(p. 76f.) for
the ceiling of the
Society of Austrian Artists (KUns-
grand auditorium
tlerhaus). It is suggested that he

should receive a professorship at
versity.
the
Academy, but he
is
not ap-
1896
at
Vienna Uni-
Klimt and Matsch submit
pointed. Together with his brother
sketches for the arrangement of
Ernst and Franz Matsch, he re-
their Faculty Paintings.
ceives the "highest possible recog-
Opposite,
1897
Museum of Art History.
tive Society of Austrian Artists.
1892
Viennese Secession is founded by

Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef
Hoffmann and Klimt, who becomes
left:
Klimt in the garden of his studio

Albertina, Vienna
His brother Ernst and his
father both die.

Opposite, right:
Klimt in a painter's smock, with a cat
its first
in
tront of his studio

Klimt leaves the Co-Opera-
nition" for his decorations at the
1893 Travels to Hungary, where

he is commissioned by Count Esterhazy to paint the theatre in Totis.
president.
He
paints his
The
first
landscapes and works on the Faculty Paintings, Philosophy (p. 80) and
Medicine (p. 83).
231
1898
First
Secession exhibition.
Foundation of the Secession journal Ver Sacrum. After lengthy arguments, Klimt is eventually commissioned to paint the Faculty
the public.
The Bavarian
State Col-
lection of Paintings acquires
Music
(p. 13).
Spends the summers
Lake
designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich,

is opened. Klimt is accepted as a
1902
member of the
the Secession, with Klimt's Beet-
International Socie-
and Enand as an associ-
ty of Painters, Sculptors
gravers, London,
ate
member of the Munich
Seces-
sion.
1899
Concludes
his sopraporte
paintings Scliubert at the Piano
(p.
and Music (p. 46) for the music

room of Dumba Palace.
47)
Rescinds the contract for

the Faculty Paintings and buys
back the drafts. Klimt Group leaves
the Secession. Travels to Berlin,
190002
The Secession Building,
Paintings.
1905
at
After.
where he shows 15 paintings

exhibition of the
at
an
German Artists'
Union, and receives the
Beethoven Exhibition
of
Villa
Romana Award.
hoven Frieze (pp. 104ff.) as a prominent work of art. A number of

drawings are bought by the Alber-
Artists'
tina Graphics Collection, Vienna.
Brussels for the
first
Frieze), then to
London and
1903 Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser found the Viennese

Workshop, which Klimt then in-
1906
Foundation of the Austrian

Union, of which Klimt be-
comes president in
1912. Travels to
time
Stoclet
Flor-
He is made an honorary
member of the Royal Bavarian
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.
ence.
fluences considerably. Collective
Secession exhibition with 80 works
1907
Ravenna and
Florence. Continues to work on his
Faculty Paintings, making radical
Completes his facuify

Paintings and exhibits them in
Vienna and Berlin. J. Zeitler, Leipzig, publishes erotic drawings by
vehement protest. Receives Gold

Medal for this painting at the Paris
World Exhibition. Becomes a
changes.
Klimt.
member of the Berlin
drafts for the Stoclet Frieze (p.
1900
Together with landscapes,

exhibits his unfinished Philosophy
at the
Secession Building, arousing
Secession.
by Klimt. Travels
904
144f.),
1901
Klimt's painting Medicine
meets with vehement rejection

from the press but interest among
232
Klimt
is
to
asked
to
produce
a mosaic frieze for Stoclet
Palace in Brussels. Takes part in

exhibitions in Dresden
Munich.
and
1908
Kunstschau
in
Vienna, an
exhibition which encompasses
areas of
art,
all
including 16 paintings
by PQimt. The Kiss (p. 117) is

bought by the Austrian State Gallery. Klimt is given the Gold Medal
Top
left:
for
Gravestone at the Hietzinger cemetry

The Three Ages
122). Travels to
the
of
Women
(p.
Munich and spends
summer at Lake Alter.
dent of the Austrian Artists' Union.

Takes part in the Great Art Exhibition in Dresden. First health holi-
day in Bad Gastein, where he goes

Top
right;
The ante-room of Klimt's studio

Albertina, Vienna
1909
Takes part in the international Kunstschau exhibition in

Vienna. Starts working on the
mosaic frieze for Stoclet Palace,
Brussels, at the Viennese Workshop. Also participates in the Inter-
every year from
1913
now
on.
Exhibitions in Munich,
Budapest, Mannheim. Spends

summer at Lake Garda, painting
landscapes.
national Art Exhibition of the Berlin
Secession. Travels to Prague, Paris
1914
Exhibition of the Austrian
and Spain. End
Artists'
Union
of his
"Golden
Period".
Brussels.
1910
1917
Takes part in the Venice
Rome. Travels
Honorary member
Academy
Biennial.
in
of
to
of the
Fine Arts, Vienna,
af-
has been rethe fourth time by the
ter his professorship

Opposite,
left;
Breakfast at the TivoH Dairy

Opposite, ngfit:
On
LakeAtter, W09
1911
Contributes eight paintings
to the International
Art Exhibition
Rome, where he is awarded

prize for liis Death and Life (p.
Travels to Rome and Florence.
in
jected for
Ministry of Education.
1st
123).
1918
Suffers a stroke in his
Vienna on
1th January. Dies
6th February, leaving
1912
Klimt
is
appointed presi-
flat in
on
numerous
unfinished paintings.
233
Notes
1) Cf.
Serge Sabarsky in his introduction
Zeichnungen (exhibition catalogue

1984,pp.
of
to:
Gustav Klimt.
drawings), Hanover
A Bridgehead to Modernism'. In: Intellectual and the

Future in the Habsburg Empire, London 1987, p. 36.
Klimt:
9ff.
19) Schorske, op.cit., pp. 200ff.
Die Fackel, 13th July 1908, pp. 24f. Quotation from:

Werner Hofmann, Gustav Klimt und die Wiener
Jahrhundertwende, Salzburg 1970, p. 11.
2)
The most recent summary of the early history of the

Secession can be found in Wolfgang Hilger, "Geschichte der
Vereinigung bildender Kiinstler Osterreichs' Secession
1897-1918". In:Die Wiener Secession. Die Vereinigung
bildender Kiinstler 1897-1985, Vienna 1986, pp. 9ff.
20)
'
3)
Walter Koschatzky in his introduction to: Christian M.

(ed.), Gustav Klimt Dokumentation, Vienna 1969
Nebehay
(no pagination).
21)
4)
Hermann
Bahr,
Rede
iiber Klimt,
Vienna 1901, pp.
Quoted from: Nebehay,
22) Ver
6)
Nike Wagner, Geist und Geschlecht. Karl Kraus und die

Wiener Moderne, Frankfurt 1982, p. 41.
Erotik der
Cf Carl Schorske, Wien - Geist und Gesellschaft im
7)
fin-
de-siecle, Frankfurt 1982, pp. 210ff.

8) Cf.
Alessandra Comini, Gustav Klimt, London 1973,
p. 28.
Gert Mattenklott, Figurenwerfen. Versuch iiber Klimts

Zeichnungen'. \n:Gustav Klimt. Zeichnungen (exhibition
catalogue of drawings), op.cit., p. 27.
9)
10)
Sacrum, year
1,
issue
1,
January 1898,
p. 27.
23) The original idea was that there should be a Secession

building on the Ringstrasse. This scheme had already been
approved by the City Council of Vienna, but failed, partly
because there was doubt as to whether the Secession was
really a "modern artistic movement". When Olbrich, the
architect, submitted his plans, the council changed their
minds and decided not to include it among their monumental
buildings on the Ringstrasse. From the point of view of town
planning, it would have had rather a prominent position for a
building, so that its style and the artists' association itself
would have received far more status than the council was
prepared to give them. Cf. Otto Kapfinger/ Adolf Krischanitz,
Die Wiener Secession. DasHaus: Entstehung, Geschichte,
Erneuerung, Vienna, Cologne, Graz 1986, pp. 15ff.
Jacques Le Rider, Modernismus/Feminismus -
und die asketische

Alfred Pfabigan (ed.). Ornament und Askese
im Zeitgeist des Wien der Jahrhundertwende, Vienna 1985.
Modernitat/Virilitat. Otto Weininger
Moderne.'
24) Ver
Sacrum, year
1,
issue
1,
January 1898, pp.
If.
In:
11) Hans Bisanz, 'Gustav Klimt - Zeichnungen und

Vorstellungsbilder des SeeUschen'. \n:Gustav Klimt.
Zeichnungen (exhibition catalogue of drawings), op.cit.,
25)Bahr,
26)
From
loc.cit.,
1901, p. 10.
the exhibition catalogue.
Quoted from:
Hilger,
op.cit., p. 13.
p.
20.
27) In 1898 Austria celebrated the 50th Jubilee of the
12) Schorske, op.cit., pp. 210f.
and
213.
13) Albert llg, 'Moderne Vornehmheif. In:Gegen den Strom.

Flugschriiten einer literarisch-kidnstlerischen Gesellschaft,
issue XX. Vienna 1886, pp. 10-13.
14) Cf. Alice Strobl,
1:
1969, p. 135.
Thomas Zaunschirm, Gustav
Klimt - Margarethe
Stonborough-Wittgenstein, Frankfurt 1987, p. 10.
5)
op.cit.,
4ff.
Gustav Klimt. Die Zeichnungen. Volume
1876-1903, Salzburg 1980,
p. 15f.
Emperor Franz Joseph. The Secession tried to organize an

event parallel and in competition with the Kiinstlerhaus Cooperative Society and indeed on the premises of the
Horticultural Society, which were also used by their rival
organization. This can be regarded as a last-minute attempt
to participate in the cultural activities of the
Jubilee Year.
Zuckerkandl, Ich erlebte fiinfzig Jahre

Weltgeschichte. Stockholm 1939. Quoted from: Nebehay,
28) Berta
op.cit. 1969, pp. 135ff.
15) Letter to
Rudolf Eitelberger of 2nd February 1884.
ibid.,
1969, p. 81.
16)
Schorske,
17)
This painting together with
ibid., p. 198.
many other works such as his
29)
30) Ver
its
counterpart Music and
Sacrum, year
33) Die
Kunst
not a view of antiquity through the eyes of a

contemporary culture which is trying to assimilate it in the
form of an ideal image of the past. It is an attempt to come to
terms with a conceptual essence of the past via transitory
objects, which are given archaeological authenticity and a
permanent factor represented by music." Irit Rogoff, Gustav
op.cit.,
1970, p. 23.
234
1,
January 1898,
p. 3.
31) Schorske, op.cit., pp. 215ff.

32) Ibid., p. 216.
IS
issue
1969, p. 149.
drafts for the Faculty Paintings
were burnt at Immendorf Palace in 1945, where numerous

works of art had been stored during the Second World War.
18) "This
1,
op.cit.,
fiir alle,
Munich
1900.
Quoted from: Hofmann,
34) Ibid., p. 218.

35)
The
petition of the Secession to the Minister of Education,
von Hartel (26th March
1900),
is
worth noting in
this context.
freedom of art, they asked for state

showing that the dialectic of state promotion
In the interest of the
protection, thus
and state intervention was beginning to take shape. Among

other things, the artists expressed the following resolution;
"The
association turns to Your Excellency as a figure of
authority. We herewith solemnly protest against occurrences
that might seriously endanger the sincere artistic interests of
We consider the said work Philosophy] an
our fatherland
outstanding and highly encouraging manifestation of
Austrian art ... If certain people, who are highly respectable
but incompetent with regard to artistic questions, were to
become influential, then the free development of art would
suffer immensely. We would therefore most humbly petition
Your Excellency to accord art the protection without which
any profitable development, having started so promisingly,
would be impossible. " Quoted from: Fritz Karpfen,
Osterreichische Kunst. Gegenwartskunst, Vienna 1923, p. 26.
.
36)
op.cit.,
1969,
p.
240.
37) Schorske, op.cit., p. 228.
53) As early as 1 902, the author Ludwig Hevesi regretted in a

review of the exhibition: " If it is true that the frieze, together
with the rest of the exhibition, is only meant to serve this
temporary Beethoven purpose and will subsequently be destroyed, then Austrian art will have suffered a major loss, and a
masterpiece will have gone up in smoke on Beethoven's
altar." Quoted from: Gustav Kyimt. Zeichnungen (exhibition
catalogue of drawings), op.cit,
p. 147.
54) When, in 1970, a Socialist government took office in

Austria, the new federal chancellor, Bruno Krcisky suggested
owner of the frieze, that the Austrian

restore it. The frieze, which was stored in
the archives of the Austrian Gallery, was in a very poor state.
The restoration was started by the Austrian Bundesdenkmalamt, the Federal Austrian Agency for the Protection
of Monuments.
to
Erich Lederer, the
state should
buy and
55) Schorske, op.cit, p. 248.

56)
Werner Hofmann, Gesamtkunstwerk Wien. In:Der Hang
zum Gesamtkunstwerk (exhibition catalogue), Aarau/

38)
Quoted from: Hofmann,
op.cit.,
1970, p. 23.
39) Berta Zuckerkandl, Zeitkunst -Wien 1901 - 1907.

Quoted from:Gus?av Klimt. Zeichnungen (exhibition
drawings), op.cit., pp. 149f.

In an interview quoted by Berta Zuckerkandl, Klimt
described the comphcations of the personal involvement of
von Hartel, the Minister of Education. The more the official
state support for the Secession was criticized, the more the
Minister of Education was held personally responsible, so that
the destiny of the Secession and its artists became dependent
catalogue
of
on him personally.
Frankfurt 1983,
p. 88.
Marian Bisanz-Prakken, Der Beethoven-Fries von Gustav

Klimt in der XIV. Ausstellung der Wiener Secession 1902)'
In: Wien 1870-1930. Traum und WirA/ichkei7 (exhibition
catalogue), Salzburg and Vienna 1984, p. 537.
57)
58) Fritz Novotny, introduction to Novotny/Dobai, op.cit, p.

36. Commenting on Klimfs allegorism, Ludwig Hevesi, who
reviewed the exhibition, made a teUing statement: " Klimt has
painted the yearnings of mankind for happiness. That, at any

rate, is the general gist, because allegories are never meant to
be understood completely. " Quoted from:Gus/av Klimt.
Zeichnungen (exhibition catalogue of drawings), op.cit., p.
147.
41)lbid.,p.238
Hermand, Der Schein des schonen Lebens. Studien

zurJahrhundertwende, Frankfurt 1972, p. 148.
59) Jost
42) Ibid., p. 238
Quoted from: Christian M. Nebehay, Gustav Klimt. Sein

Leben nach zeitgenossischen Berichten unci Quellen. Munich
43)
1976, p. 171.
44)
Hofmann,
45)
Quoted from:
op.cit, 1970, p. 24
Fritz
Klimt,Salzburg 1967,
61) GertMattenklott, Figurenwerfen. Versuch iiber Klimts

Zeichnungen'. In:Gus/av Klimt. Zeichnungen (exhibition
(my italics)
Novotny/Johannes Dobai, Gustav
p.
Werner Hofmann, DasFleischerkennen'. In: Alfred

Pfabigan(ed.), Ornament und Askese im Zeitgeist des Wien
der Jahrhundertwende, Vienna 1985, p. 122.
60)
catalogue), op.cit,
p.
291.
388.
62) Cf. Eva di Stafano. In: Wolfgang Pircher (ed.). Debut eines
Jahrhunderts. Essays zur Wiener Moderne, Vienna 1985, p.
46|lbid.
124f.
47)
Quoted from:GusfavKî/7j/. Zeichnungen
catalogue of drawings), op.cit,
(exhibition
p. 144.
64) Ibid., p. 125.
48) Schorske, op.cit, p. 240.

49)
MeisterOlbrich'. In: Gotthard Wunberg

Die Wiener Moderne. Literatur, Kunst unci Iûsikzwi-
Hermann Bahr,
(ed.).
63) Ibid, p. 122.
schen ISQOund i9i0, Stuttgart 1981,
p. .510.

66) Arthur Roessler,
Khmt und seine Modelle.
zeitung 15th August 1953, pp.

50)
op.cit.,
52) Ibid.
Arbei/er-
1969, p. 349.
Rudolph Lothar, Von der Secession. Quoted from: Gotthard Wunberg (ed.): Das.lunge Wien. Literatur- undKunstkritiker 1887-1902, volume II, Tubingen 1976, pp. 921f.
51)
In:
lOff.
67) Bertha Zuckerkandl.

p.262f.
Quoted from: Nebehay, op.cit,
1976,
Quoted from: Thomas Zaunschirm, Gustav KlimtMargaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein. Ein osterreichisches

68)
Schicksal, Frankfurt 1987, p. 17.
235
and the requirements of automatic mass

The enterprise went into liquidation in 1932.
small, eUtarian public

69)
Nebehay,
op.cit.,
1969, p. 56.
production.
Alessandra Comini, Fantastic Art in Vienna. New York

1978, p. 15. (Life and death are equally present in the great
continuum of biological renewal.)
70)
71) Otto Weininger, Geschlecht und Charakter. Eineprinzipielle Untersuchung, Munich 1980, pp. 281f. and 288. Here
quoted from: Jacques Le Rider, Modernismus/ Feminismus-
Modernitdt/Virilitdt. Otto Weininger
op.cit.,
an interpretation of the two

Stefano, op.cit., pp. 109ff.
Novotny/Dobai,
op.cit., p. 49.
.]Deutsche Kunst undDekoration,

87) Josef August Lux,
XXIII, 1908/09, 44. Quoted from: Hofmann, op.cit., 1970, p.
[
llf.
88)
73) For
74)
86)
und die asketische Mod-
erne. In: Pfabigan, op.cit.

72)
85)Hilger, op.cit.,p.49.
Hofmann,
1970, p. 12.
op.cit.,
Catalogue of the Kunstschau exhibition in Vienna, 1 908;

quoted honv.Gustav Klimt Zeichnungen (exhibition
1969, p. 428.
89)
Hope paintings, cf
catalogue), op.cit., p. 150.

90) Alfred Lichtwark, Reisebrief. 1924.
Novotny/Dobai, op.cit., p. 389.
Hans Helmut Hofstatter, GustavKlimt-Erotische
Zeiclinungen, ed. by Louisa Seilern, Cologne 1979, pp.
Quoted from:
18ff.
9 1 Hans Tietze, 'Gustav Khmts Personhchkeit. Nach Mitteilungen seiner Freunde'. In: Die bildenden Kiinste, 2, 1919,
)
75) Alessandra Comini, Titles Can Be Troublesome: Misinterpretations in Male Art Criticism'. In:/ir^ Criticism, vol. l,no.
2,
issue 1-2, p.
9.
New York 1979.

Nebehay, op.cit., 1969, p. 32. Quoted from: Alessandra
Comini, Gustav Klimt. Eros und Ethos, Salzburg 1975, p. 9.
Khmts words about not being "particularly interesting" in
92)
Gustav Klimt. Gelegentlictie Anmerkungen.

Vienna/Leipzig 1903. Quoted from: OttoBreicha (ed.), GusJav
Klimt. Die goldene Pforte. Werk- Wesen- Wirkung. Bilder
und Sciiriiten zu Leben und Werk, Salzburg 1978, pp. 3 If.
76) Felix Saltan,
Breicha, op.cit.,
p. 33.
Hermine Klimt on her brother Gustav, recorded by Rosa

Poor-Lima, 'Eine alte Wiener Kiinstlerfamilie - Das Erbe des
Maler- Apostels Gustav Khmf ln:Neues Wiener Tageblatt, 29
December 1940. Quoted from: Nebehay, op.cit., 1969, p. 26.
93)
77) EduardSekler, Jose/ Ho/mann. Dasarchitektonische

Werk, Salzburg 1982, p. 94.
78) The frieze was inlaid

metal, enamel, ceramics
on 15 marble plates, using mosaic,
and gold, with members of the Viennese Workshop co-operating on the project. Cf Alice Strobl,
Gustav Klimt. Zeichnungen. Vol. II: 1904-1912, Salzburg
1982,pp. 139f.
94) Tietze, op.cit., p.
1.
95)
Nebehay,
op.cit.,
1976, p. 184.
96) Ibid., p. 183.
The material itself is said to have cost about 100,000

crowns. The work does not simply depict the wealth of the
79)
artist's
cUent,
it
"materiahzes"
97) Christian
M. Nebehay, Gustav Klimt schreibt an eine
Liebe'. In.Klimt Studien (Mitteilungen der Osterreichischen
it.
Galerie), Nos. 66/67,
Grammatik der bildenden Kiinste.

Quoted here from: Hofmann, op.cit., 1970, p. 41.
Vienna 1978/79,
p. 103.
80) Alois Riegl, Historische
81) Alois Riegl, Historische
Graz/Cologne 1966,
82) Cf.
Grammatik der bildenden Kiinste,
op.cit., p.
Hofmann,
388.
op.cit.,
100)
& Floge, place
of publication
1988, p. 12.
Johannes Dobai, Gustav
Salzburg 1981,
Joseph August Lux, 'Die Spaltung der Wiener Secession'

In.Hohe Warte, year 1, 1904/05, p. 318.
1970, p. 16.
99) Inselrdume. Teschner, Klimt
unknown,
p. 21.
Novotny/Dobai,
98)
Klimt. Die Landschaften,
p. 13.
83)
84 The Viennese Workshop was founded by two lecturers of

the Academy of Applied Art, Josef Hofmann and Koloman
Moser, as well as the industrialist Fritz Warndorf er. The aim
was to manufacture and market works of high-quality and
artistic craftsmanship. "... the promotion of the economic
interests of its members through training and educating the
same in applied art, producing a variety of objects of art and
craft, following designs by members of artistic co-operative
societies, opening workshops and seUing the finished products. " Entry in the trade register, quoted from: Elisabeth
)
Schmuttermeier, 'Die Wiener Werkstatte'. In-.Traum und

Wirklichkeit. Wien J870-7930 (exhibition catalogue), Vienna
1985, p. 336. Althoughthe Viennese Workshop was able to
put its artistic aim into practice, it failed economically, due to
the incompatibility of their costly arts and crafts products for a
236
101) Ibid., p. 14.

102) Ibid., p. 19.
103) Alois Riegl, Die Stimmung als Inhalt der modernen

Kunst. GraphischeXiinsfe, XXII, 1899,pp. 49ff. Reprintedin:
Alois Riegl, Gesaminelte Auisdtze, Augsburg/Vienna, 1928.
104) Ibid., p. 28. Riegl's conclusion about the social function of
art is in fact quite close to the Secession's "secularized religion
"Art must conjure up, as if by magic, what nature only

man in certain rare moments. In the final analysis
and insofar as man's fine arts go beyond the purpose of usefulness and decoration -though we regard this as higher art' too
it has from the very beginning never had any other purpose
than to give man the reassuring certainty of that order and
harmony which he misses in the narrowness of the world's
of art"
ever affords
))
tumult, a harmony for which he is forever yearning and without which life would seem unbearable to him." op.cit., p. 31.
105)Dobai,op.cit.,p.20.
120) HansTietze,
Gustav Klimf.
XXIX, 1917-18,
219.
p.
In:
Kunstchronik.N.F.
1 2 1 Berta Zuckerkandl in Zei!;{unsf - Wien J 90M 907.

Quoted from:GusfavKiim^ Zeichnungen (exhibition cata:
106)
Anselm Wagner, Aspekte der Landschaft bei Gustav

'
logue of drawings),
op.cit., p. 149.
Klimt'. In: I nselraume, op.cit., p. 45.
Hermann Bahr, Gegen
Vienna 1903. Quoted from:

Gustav Klimt. Zeichnungen (exhibition catalogue of draw107)
ings), op.cit.
Hermann Bahr, Rede iiber Klimt, Vienna
123)
Anton Feistauer, NeueMalereiin Osterreich, Zurich/
109) Ibid., p. 27.

110) Eduard Fuchs, Geschichte der erotischen Kunst.
individuelle Problem II, Berhn 1977, p. 270.
p. 14.
Das
1 24 It is difficult to decide whether Tietze already had in mind
the psychoanalytical meaning of the term as a sexual event,
111) Mattenklott, op.cit., p. 32.
unable to reheve the hbidinous tension or whether he was

thinking of the older, more general sense, i.e. nervous exhaustion as a result of physical strain or over-excitement.
op.cit., 1976, p. 259.
113) Werner Hofmann, EinsameZwiegesprache'.

issues, 1980, p. 77.
In: art,
125) HansTietze,
126)
11 4) Ibid., p. 79.
1901,
Leipzig/Vienna 1923, p. 11: "Eros plays a prominent role,

indeed his taste in women is almost Turkish ..." And: "He
loved the good hf e, and he loved peace as if he was a real
oriental. He even looked like one, he was benevolent and
generous and, as a real bachelor, lived the light-hearted life of
Vienna, with wine, women, song and games. " (op.cit., p. 13)
108) Mattenklott, op.cit., pp. 27f.
112)
122)
Klimt,
Gustav KlimtsPersonlichkeit,
Werner Hofmann, Das Fleisch erkennen
op.cit., p. 10.
In:
Pfabigan,
op.cit., p. 122.
IS) Mattenklott, op.cit., p. 34.
127) Weininger, quoted from:
116) a. Hans Bisanz, 'Gustav Klimt - Zeichnungen und Vorstellungsbilder des Seelischen' ln:Gustav Klimt.
Zeichnungen (exhibition catalogue of drawings), op.cit., pp.
.
Hofmann, op.cit.,
1970,
p. 35.
128) Jean-Michel Palmier, Traume um Egon Schiele'. In:

Wolfgang Pircher(ed.),DebuêinesJa/jrhunder/s. Essays zur
Wiener Moderne, Vienna 1985, pp. 129ff.
14ff.
129)
117) Against the
background
of these considerations
circumstances become important, e.g. the

work in a "painters smock " and
apparently enjoyed being photographed in this outfit. As can
be seen in photographs of himself and Emilie Floge, it was
very similar to the dress of the suffragettes In fact, Klimt even
designed suffragette dresses for Emilie Floge and her salon.
seemingly
Max Eisler, Gustav Klimt, Vienna
1920, pp. 22f.
even
trivial
fact that Klimt preferred to
130) Nike
Erotik der
Wagner, Geis( und Geschlecht. Karl Kraus und die

Wiener Moderne. Frankfurt 1983. Quoted from:
Gustav Klimt. Zeichnungen (exhibition catalogue of draw-
ings), op.cit., p. 23.
118) Cf also the essay by Jacques Le Rider, Modernismus/

Feminismus - Modernitat/Virilitat. Otto Weininger und die
asketischeModerne'. In: Pfabigan, op.cit.; also: Christina von
Braun, Mannliche Hysterie Weibliche Askese. Zum Paradig.
menwechselindenGeschlechterrollen'. In: Karin Rickfed),

Das Sexuelle, die Frauen und die Kunst, Tubingen, undated,
pp.
131) Zaunschirm, op.cit., pp. 56ff.
132) Ibid., p. 35.

133) Bahr, op.cit., 1901, p. 17.134) Peter Altcnberg, Bilderbo-
gendeskleinen Lebens, Berlin 1909 (the quotation refers to

works by Klimt which were exhibited at the 1 908 Kunstschau).
Quoted from: Nebehay, op.cit., 1969, p. 423.
lOff.
135) Novotny/Dobai, op.cit., p. 45.
und Charakter. EineprinUntersuchung, Munich 1980, p. 90. Here quoted from
119) Otto Weininger, Geschlecht

zipielle
Le Rider;
136)
Hofmann,
op.cit.,
1970, pp. 49ff.
am indebted to Sylvia Eiblmayer for pointing out
the essay by Christina Braun and also the discussion of

"(self-)feminization".
237
Bibliography
BAHR, Hermann, Rede
iiber Klimt,
DOBAI, Johannes, Zu Gustav Klimts Gemalde Der Kuss
Vienna 1901
In-.Mitteilungen der Osterreichischen Galerie, year 12, 1968,

no. 56, pp. 83-142
BAHR, Hermann, Gegen
Klimt,
BAHR, Hermann, Gustav
Klimt. 50 Handzeicltnungen,
Vienna 1903
DOBAI, Johannes, Klimt's Hope

of Canada Bulletin. 17/1971
Leipzig/Vienna 1922
BISANZ, Hans, Gustav
Klimt.
'.
/'.
DOBAI, Johannes, Opera completa
Zeichnungen und
Vorstellungsbilder des Seelischen'. In.Gustav Klimt.

Zeichnungen (exhibition catalogue of drawings), Hanover
1984, pp. 13-22
DOBAI, Johannes, Gustav
In:The National Gallery
di Klimt,
MUan
1978
Klimt. Die Landschaften, Salzburg
1983.
BISANZ, Hans, Ornament und Askese'. In: Alfred Pfabigan

(ed.). Ornament und Askese im Zeitgeist des Wien der
Jahrhundertwende, Vienna 1985, pp. 130-141
EISLER, Max, Gustav Klimt, Vienna 1920

EISLER,
Max
(ed.),
Gustav Klimt. Eine Nachlese, Vienna
1931,'^1946
BISANZ-PRAKKEN, Marian, Gustav Klimt. Der

Beethovenlries. Geschichte, Funktion und Bedeutung.
Salzburg 1977, new and enlarged edition Munich 1980. This publication continues to be the most important source of
information on Klimt's main work, even though extensive
restoration has taken place since its publication, bringing
new insights into the artist's work, and although the frieze is
now accessible to the general public.
BISANZ-PRAKKEN, Marian, Der Beethovenlries von

Gustav Khmt in der XIV. Ausstellung der Wiener Secession'.
In: Wien 1870-1930. Traum und
catalogue), Salzburg/Vienna 1984
Wirklicbkeit (exhibition
FLIEDL, Gottfried, Das Weib macht keine Kunst, aber den

Kunstler. Zur Klimt-Rezeption'. In: Renate Berger/Daniela
Hammer-Tugendhat, Der Garten der LUste. Zur Deutung des
Erotischen und Sexuellen bei Kiinstlern und ihren
Interpreten, Cologne 1985, pp. 89-149
HATLE, Ingomar, Gusfav Klimt. Ein Wiener Maler des

Jugendstils, Graz 1955 (unpublished doctoral thesis)
HEVESI, Ludwig, Acht Jahre Secession.
Chronik, Vienna 1906
HEVESI, Ludwig, Kunstschau
BREICHA, Otto (ed.), Gi)s(av Klimt. Die goldene Piorte.

WerA- VJesen - Wirkung. Bilder und Schriften zu Leben
fiir
in
Bildende Kunst. Leipzig 1908,
Wien
Kritik
Polemik
1908'. In: Zeitschrift
19, pp. 245ff.
und
HEVESI, Ludwig, Altkunst- Neukunst, Vienna 1909
Werk, Salzburg 1978. A collection of 70 years' worth of

source material. Because of its wealth of important and
authentic contemporary statements on Klimt's work, this is
one of the most readable - and indeed richly illustrated books about the artist.
HILGER, Wolfgang, Geschichte der Vereinigung bildender

Kiinstler Osterreichs' Secession 1897-1918'. In:Die Wiener
Secession. Die Vereinigung bildender Kiinstler 1897-1985,
Vienna/Cologne/Graz 1985
COMINI, Alessandra, 'From Facade
Psyche, the
Persistence and Transformation of Portraiture in Fin-deSiecle Vienna'. In: Tibor Horvath (ed.). Evolution generale
developpements regionaux en histoire de i'art. Acts of the
Twenty-Second International Conference oi Art Historians
to
et
HOFMANN, Werner, Gustav Klimt und die Wiener

Jahrhundertwende, Salzburg 1970. - Although this book was
published some 20 years ago, it is still one of the best
discussions of Klimt's work. Giving a broad panoramic view
of the cultural history of Austria, the author presents a critical
1969, Budapest 1972
COMINI, Alessandra, Vampires, Virgins and Voyeurs in

Imperial Vienna'. In: Thomas B. Hess/Linda Nochhn (eds.).
Women as Sex Objects. Art News Annual 38, New York
analysis of Klimt's oeuvre as well as the antagonistic aspects

of the history of art and culture towards the end of the
Habsburg monarchy.
1972. Also in: Women as Sex Objects. Studies in Erotic Art

1730-1970, London 1973, pp. 207-221
HOFMANN, Werner,
COMINI, Alessandra, Gustav Klimt, London 1975
HOFMANN,
COMINI, Alessandra,
Fantastic Art in Vienna,
New
5,
York
HOFMANN,
Szeemann
COMINI, Alessandra, Titles Can Be Troublesome:

Misinterpretations In Male Art Criticism'. In:Ar/ Criticism,
vol. 1, no. 2, New York 1979.
1958 (manuscript)
238
Vienna
Werner, Gesamtkunstwerk Wien'.
(ed.),
In:
Harald
Der Hong zum Gesamtkunstwerk -
Europdische Utopien
Frankfurt 1983, pp.
HOFMANN,
Klimts,
In :ar^ issue
Werner, Gustav Khmf. In-.Experiment

Weltuntergang: Wien um 1900 (exhibition catalogue)
1978.
DOBAI, Johannes, Das Friihwerk Gustav
Einsame Zwiegesprache'.
1980
seit
1800 (exhibition catalogue), Aarau/
84ff.
Werner, Das Fleisch erkennen'. In: Alfred

Pfabigan (ed.). Ornament und Askese im Zeitgeist des Wien
der Jahrhundertwende, Vienna 1985, pp. 120-129
HOFMANN, Werner, Gustav Klimf. In: Vienne 1880-1938:

L apocalypse joyeuse (exhibition catalogue), Paris 1980, pp.
ROGOFF,
192-227
London
GUSTAV KLIMT,
introduction by
1987, pp. 29ff.
SCHORSKE,
50 Handzeichnungen. With an
Bahr. Vienna 1922
Hermann
Carl, Wien - Geist und Gesellschalt im Fin-deFrankfurt 1982. -The chapter on Klimt is one of the
most readable contributions to the cultural and historical
understanding of Klimt's life and work. Together with
Werner Hofmann's book of 1970, Schorske's contribution is
the only one which attempts a consistent interpretation of
some important works (such as the Faculty Paintings) and the
'crisis of the hberal ego' in a social, cultural and historical
siecle,
Klimt Geddchtnisausstellung (Memorial Exhibition). XCIX.

Ausstellung der Vereinigung Bildender KLinstler Wiener
Secession (catalogue), Vienna 1928
GUSTAV KLIMT
Gustav Khmt: A Bridgehead to Modernism'.

and the Future in the Habsburg Empire.
Irit,
In-.Intellectuals
1862-1918. Zeichnungen (drawings)
context.
F.milie
Floge and Gustav Klimt. Doppelportriit
in
STEFANO, Eva
Ideallandschalt (exhibition catalogue), Vienna 1988/89
di. Die zweigesichtige Mutter'. In: Wolfgang

Debut eines Jahrhunderts. Essays zur Wiener
Moderne. Vienna 1985, pp. 109-126
Pircher
'Klinger. Beethoven'. XIV Ausstellung der Vereinigung

Bildender KUnstler Osterreichs. Secession (April June 1902, exhibition catalogue), Vienna 1902
(ed.),
STROBL,
Alice^
Gustav Klimt. Zeichnungen und Gemalde,
Salzburg 1962,^^1965, '-^1968
LUX, .l()st>ph August, XIV. Kunst-Ausstellung der

Vereinigung bildender Kiinstler Osterreichs - Secession
1902. Klingers Beethoven und die moderne Raum-Kunst'.
In-.Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Darmstadt 1902, 10, No.
STROBL, Ahce,
'Zu den Fakultatsbildern von Gustav Klimt'.

Vienna 1964, issue 2, vol. 4, pp. 138-
In-.Albertina-Studien,
169
l,pp. 475ff.
STROBL, Ahce, Gustav Khmt

LUX, Joseph August, Kunstschau Wien 1908'.
Kunst und Dekoration, Darmstadt 1908/09, 23,
In:
no.
Deutsche
1,
In: Wey/;<u;is/,
No.
9,
in der Kritik seiner

46th year, 1976, pp. 845-855
Zeit'.
pp. 33-
61
STROBL, Ahce, Gustav
MATTENKLOTT,
III:
Klinits
available drawings.
Klimt. Die Zeichnungen. Vol. I: 18781903, Salzburg 1980. Vol. 11: 1904-1912, Salzburg 1982. VoL
Gert, Figurenwerfen. Versuch iiber

Zeichnungen'. In.Gustav Klimt Zeichnungen
(exhibition catalogue). Hanover 1984, pp. 27-35. - This essay
by an expert in German literature is one of the most readable
attempts to describe and analyse the sohtary dialogues' of
Klimt's erotic drawings
1912-1918, Salzburg 1984- oeuvre catalogue
VARNEDOE,
Kirk,
Wien
of all
1900. Kunst, Architektur
und
Design, Cologne 1987
and the relationship between the
VERGO,
viewer and the drawings.
Peter,
Gustav Klimt's Beethoven
Frieze'. In:
The
Burlington Magazine, 115, 1973, pp. 109-113
NEBEHAY,
Christian M. (ed.), Gustav Klimt Dokumenlation.

Vienna 1969. - Even though this large volume is in many
ways vague and out of date due to more recent and more
precise statements, and although it is rather too complex in
structure, it is still indispensable because of its extensive
quotations of sources on Khmt's life and work.
NEBEHAY, Christian M., Gustav Klimt, Sein Leben nach

zeitgenossischen Berichten und Ouellen, Munich 1976
VERGO,
Peter, Gustav Klimts Philosophie und das

Programm der Universitatgemalde'. In:Mieiiiingen der
Osterreichischen Galerie, 22 23, 1978/79, pp. 69-100
Wien 1870-1930. Traum und Wirklichkeit (exhibition

catalogue), Salzburg/Vienna 1984
Wien um 1900
NEBEHAY, Christian M., Gustav Klimt. Das Skizzenbuch

dem Besitz von Sonja Knips, Vienna 1987
(exhibition catalogue),
Vienna 1964
WORBS,
Michael, Nervenkunst. Literatur und

Psychoanalyse im Wien der Jahrhundertwende. Frankfurt
aus
1983.
NOVOTNY,
Fritz,
Zu Gustav Khmts Schubert am
Klavier
'
\n:Mitteihmgen der Osterreichischen Galerie, Salzburg

1963,7,No. 51,pp.90ff.
WUNBERG,
NOVOTNY,
ZAUNSCHIRM, Thomas,
Fritz/DOBAl, Johannes, Gustav Klimt, Salzburg
1967. - First and still indispensable catalogue raisonne of

Klimt's paintings and monumental paintings, with an
extensive bibliography.
PIRCHAN,
Emil, Gustav Klimt.
Em
Kur^stlcr aus Wien,
Gotthard (ed.). Die Wiener Moderne. Literatur,

Kunst und Musik zwischen 1890 und 1910, Stuttgart 1981
Gustav Klimt- Margarethe
Stonborough-Witlgenstein. Ein osterreichisches Schicksal.

Frankfurt 1987. - This study, which analyses a single
painting, explains the background story of the portrait and
the contradictions between the real role of the lady portrayed
and Klimt s rather styhzed portrait.
Vienna/Leipzig 1942,^1956
239
The publisher would like to express his gratitude to all museums, galleries, collectors,
archives and photographers for their help in providing photographic material.
Whenever possible, we have quoted the location and owner of each work, together
with its title. We would also like to thank the following persons and institutions:
Galerie Welz, Salzburg (pp.
18,47,52,58,76,83,85,87,89,90,94, 121, 143,

Planegg (pp. 2, 13, 34,
48,55,108,109,113,114,117,122,137,141, 142, 176, 181, 184,185,200,205,215,
218, 229); Foto Fiirbock, Graz/Austria (p. 197); Photobusiness Meyer, Leopoldsdorf/
Vienna (pp. 28-31); the photographers Hans Wiesenhofer, Vienna (pp. 22-27, 9&-99)
and Hans Riha, Vienna (pp. 106-7) and Ernst und Sohn, Publishers, Berlin (p. 154).
16, 17,
174, 175, 186, 187, 204, 209, 221, 224); Artothek,
240

Gustav Klimt - 1862-1918 The World in Female Form

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-mil,,

Lady with Hat and Feather Boa, 1909

mit Hut und Federboa

Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna

1998 Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH

Cover design: Angelika Taschen, Cologne

Printed in South Korea

The Break-Up of the

Secession and the 1908

"I'm not particularly

Klimt's Erotic Drawings

The Secession Building and

"The World in Female

The Three Ages of Woman

Introduction - Klimt's Popularity

journey from Athens

to Vienna. With all the

will take the train

Far Eastern travellers

the standard cliche.

with ten hours for Vienna - after an

journey of two days and one night. He only has two

Lovers, Standing, around 1908

inexhaustible source for advertisers.

most widely read tabloid paper,

example, has used

Klimt's art to advertise for a series on Austrian love

Year concert of the Vienna Philharmonic, which is always televised

A popular publishing house may want to use Klimt's art to

The Beethoven Frieze (detail), 1902

duplicated and modified

many times by the mass media, has been well

emphasized that the frieze was the work of an artist who

was produced very cheaply. Since then, however, it has

whether he should really be counted among the ranks of the great

nobody would have wanted to see Klimt's art as part of ReaUty.

ecstatic reflection of fin-de-siecle society than a critical,

clear-sighted discussion of social reality at the time of the disintegrat-

Habsburg monarchy. Even during his lifetime he was simply

has disappeared almost altogether.

Water Serpents II, 1904-1907

There can be no doubt that most

an almost propaganda-like quality

Secession exhibition poster. All

together with his

occasional practical involvement as the head, organizer and

spokesman of the group, makes him one of the

conflicts as a 'crisis of the liberal ego', a personality crisis

will see that the

- which only lasted a few years

soon turned out to be a mistake. The Austrian minister of education, in

endeavours and allowed themselves and

Such antagonism poses a number

which will be discussed in the following chapters. Questions about

exquisite hyper-refinement of expertise, Klimt

dreadful state of affairs called

thus sharing the fate of every-

and passes away with time."