Gustav Klimt

Klimt was born in Austria in 1862 and studied at the Vienna School of Decorative Arts. In 1883 he opened a studio that produced murals executed in traditional 19th century academic style. Some of these murals still hang in the Vienna Burgtheater and in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. As his style matured he founded the Vienna Sezession, a group of artists working in a style similar to Art Nouveau that was adamantly against academic art. Klimt left the group eight years later displeased with their increasing trend towards naturalism. Klimt painted figures in flat, highly decorative backgrounds, the most famous of which is, The Kiss. These backgrounds often enveloped the figures in vividly juxtaposed colors and expressed the influence of Byzantine art with the use of gold paint. By painting the figures surrounded in ornamental detail he eliminated the concepts of space and time thereby creating eternal figures. His paintings are intimate and emotional and express the play between life and death, ecstasy and terror.

Gustav Klimt Images:
Allegory Of Sculpture
Baby 1917-18
Beethoven Frieze , Hostile Forces Detail The Gnawing Sorrow
Beethoven Frieze, 1902
Danae
Danae, 1907
Death and Life
Der Kuss
Die Erfullung
Die Erfullung - Detail
Die Hoffnung II
Die Musik
Fregio Stoclet
Fulfillment, 1905-09
Girlfriends (Le Amiche)
Goldfish, 1901-02
Hope II
Hygeia Detail from Medicine, 1900-07
Hygieia
Judith I
Lady W/Fan (Donna con ventaglio)
Maiden (Virgin), 1913
Music
Poesie
Portrait De Emile Floge
Portrait of Maeda Primavesi
Rough Water
Schloss Kammer Am Attersee
Schloss Unterach on the Attersea
Sea Serpents I
Sea Serpents II
Sea Serpents III
Sea Serpents IV
Seated Nude Woman, Study
Stoclet Frieze Expectation, 1905-09
The Embrace, Drawing
The Gold Cavalier
The Kiss (detail)
The Kiss, 1907-08
The Kiss, Drawing
The Three Ages of Woman (detail)
The Virgin
Three Ages of Woman
Tke Kiss - Detail
Tree of Life, 1905-09
Water Serpents I, 1904-07
Water Serpents II, 1904-1907
Women Friends
Young Ladies