Klimt Colours Vienna (V4)

A path through Standpark

White stone, white snowy streets, white horses pulling white carriages, white light when the watery winter sun peeped through the heavy clouds; a perfect backdrop for the brilliant bursts of gold, bronze green, red velvet and the warmth of glowing cafés. Vienna's emerald summer frock is buried deep beneath her winter cloak in December.

A decorated doorway and street corner opposite our apartment.

Walking around Vienna, early afternoon.
Left: Watch for cars, horses, trams and pedestrians before crossing the wide avenues. Right: C having a Mr Tumnus moment.

Gold and copper - Parliment and the Hofburg

Crossing the Danube Bridge from one Ubann station to another. Modern Vienna behind M.
A park that would be full of people in summer, the beach volleyball stadium was empty! 

If you stand beside the statue of Prince Eugene in the Helden Platz (a parade square and lawns between the Burgtor and the Hofburg Complex facing the Ringstrasse) all the white stone crowned with copper and bronze green seems coloured with the overlays of Austrian history.

C guarding without a weapon!  The Aussere Burgtor (image from a travel brouchure) Domes of the Museums either side of Maria-Therese Platz in behind. Neue Berg left of the photographer.

In the middle of the space, Archduke Charles holds the Austrian flag forever high, commemorating his victory over Napoleon as his troops protected Vienna in 1809. Prince Eugene saved Austria and Europe from the Turks and is astride his horse looking over the seat of power. Behind him is the Neue Burg, part of Franz Joseph's building spree at the end of the Empire, it is forever shadowed by the memory of Hitler standing on its balcony announcing Anschluss to the cheers or tears that split the country. The optimism of earlier freedoms shine proudly in their white stone glory. Building after building, built by architects unafraid of raiding every heroic style known to man for their designs, line the Ringstrasse. Interrupting this view is a gate, a triumphal arch called the Ӓussere Burgtor.  It was built to commemorate Austria's final victory over Napoleon in 1813, left standing and alone when the ancient city walls, separating the citizens and the Crown, were toppled in 1858. Standing here, a rainbow of national pride, compromises, victories, and defeat, seem to swirl.

Left:Neue Burg with Eugene out front. Right: Not sure that Archduke Charles would be impressed with this want of respect!

For a few years Vienna glowed with creative genius that integrated with the needs and rights of everyday living. Making life beautiful for everybody was the aim of the Gesamkunstwerk movement that many artists flocked to Vienna to become a part of.

The heavy, artificial classicism of the Emperor's building spree and the flow of money from the new industrial age created a similar situation for artists in Austria as the Impressionists were facing in Paris. The modern artists of Austria also broke away when rejected for exhibition from the conservative mainstream. The Austrians had something that the French Impressionists lacked - Gustav Klimt.

Klimt was voted head of the Secession movement(modernist artistic breakaway) and determined that a large exhibition of Gesamkunstwerk should be held. The enormous success and profits of this exhibition, that even the Emperor visited and supported, resulted in the design and build of the Secession building. This building was the first to be built to purpose, to exhibit both flat work, furniture, sculpture and crafts. A few streets back from the Ringstrasse, south of Karls Platz and behind the Academy of Fine Arts is a building with a ball of gold covered leaves topping the entrance like a scoop of ice cream. Also in gold is inscribed "To every age its art, to every art its freedom".

Secession building designed by Joseph Olbrich 1897-98.  Owl motif,  the knight from Klimt's Beethoven Frieze.

At the time of the Secession, Gustav Klimt was already famous for his interior murals decorating the Burg Theater and the work he had done in many wealthy business men's homes. The source of the money that made all of this possible - the industrial age, was rejected and the artists hankered after a return to nature and simple living, with many rejecting the formal attire of the day and wearing large flowing smocks in their private domains.

Gustav Klimt and one of his many cats and his reform clothing attire - Dressed a little more formally.
When commenting on the fact that he had never painted a self portrait he said - "I am less interested in myself as a subject for painting than I am in other people, above all women...There is nothing special about me, I am a painter who paints day after day from morning to night..whoever wants to know about me ...ought to look carefully at my pictures.' 

A ceiling in the Burg Theatre that Klimt, his brother Ernst and friend Franz Matsch design and paint.
It is called 'The Theater of Shakespeare.'

Klimt is Gold to Vienna's tourism, not just because of the amount he lavished on his canvases, but because of the bright colours with bold patterns influenced by Jugendstil (German version of the French Art Nouveau, more geometric than floral.) that shine through store windows on cold winter days.  The tourist Euros keep Old Vienna turning over.

Three golden ladies scanned from postcards bought at the Upper Belevedere.
Left:Adele Bloch-Bauer, 1907 in Neue Gallery NY. Centre: Hygieia a detail from 'Medicine' destroyed in a fire 1945.
Right: Emilie Floge 1902 in Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien.

The colour of Klimt is more than just his portraits, the strange blend of Nietzsche's pessimistic philosophy (that the world was an awful place but that human will was able to overcome with meaning even without happiness) and a very healthy appreciation of the female form has produced a catalogue of works that intrigue.

Left: The Three Ages of Woman 1905, many prints are for sale in the tourist shops with the ancient one cropped out.
Right: an early portrait of a friend's daughter - Sonja Knips 1898, hangs on a wall facing 'The Kiss' in the Upper Belevedere.

Entrance to the Upper Belvedere  -   part of 'The Kiss' 1908

Life and Death 1916  in the Leopold Museum

Klimt died in 1918 and so never saw what the Nazi's did to many of his contemporary's artworks. Many of his best friends and beloved patrons were Jewish and his modern works scandalised many of his generation but this didn't seem to dissuade Hitler. His generous nudes designed for the walls of the university were rejected as pornography by the people who had commissioned the work, he was accused of 'excessive perversion'.

Ceiling designs for the Vienna University.  Left: Medicine  Right: Philosophy. Both were ultimately rejected by the University Board for being unseemly, were stolen by the Nazis and burnt to stop them falling into communist hands.

Yet his work escaped the 'Degenerate Art' exhibition after Anschloss and the rejected murals were stored in Schloss Immendorf as National treasures to be protected, they were ultimately burned to stop the Russians from getting them. Morowitz, a Professor of Art History at Wagner College New York, suggests his work may have been saved because of his Beethoven murals around the walls of the Secession Building. Hitler loved Beethoven's 9th and the knight character Klimt used to illustrate this work appeared to mimic the Fuhrers idea of himself - liberating his country. As an Austrian art student himself, Hitler must have been aware of this work long before he became a Nazi. 

Klimt is an artist full of contradictions. He was a female form enthusiast, one estimate says he had 14 illegitimate children with almost that many women, yet he seemed to have a very loyal friendship with the sister of his sister in law. Emilie Flӧge was the Coco Chanel of Vienna. She was an early feminist and secessionist; influenced by Japanese textiles and Germanic folk costume. She became Klimt's muse and no doubt influenced some of the designs and patterns he covered his intricate nude drawings with oils and gold. At times he filled his studio with nude women and encouraged them to go about whatever they choose to do, sketching all the while and at others the only company he wanted were his cats. 

Left; A painting  'The Bride' found in his studio, found after his unexpected death shows that he painted his women naked before covering them in the Jugendstil prints he employed. Right: A commissioned portrait of a real bride, makes you wonder what the portrait may have started out as.

Klimt painted landscapes and gardens as well as his more famous expressionist portraits. His studio was at the back of a large garden planted with a huge variety to give him subjects, a wilder more impulsive Viennese Monét. He experimented with negative space - often with layers of colour giving a depth to 'black' that doesn't translate well in photographs or prints. Being able to see 'The Kiss' at the Upper Belvedere and  'Death and Life' at the Leopold were highlights for me. 

The Sunflower 1906, he painted many of his landscapes as a form of relaxation, rather than for sale or exhibition, on the shores of Lake Attersee.  Left: Church in Cassone(Verona, Italy)1913  

Exquisite Fairy tale quality landscapes like this 'Farmhouse with Birch trees' 1903 is a lot more optimistic than many of his figures.  Right: 'Tree of Life" 1905 - the center section.

Klimt's graphic skills were also in demand for advertising posters and 'enlightenment' posters. The secessionists actively shared their philosophy. His brother, Ernst, was a gold engraver and created frames for some of his work until he died in his twenties. The font used by both brothers in these endeavors was even used on Klimt's headstone. 

Gravestone in Vienna

Above:  Two of Klimt's posters.
Above the figure, Klimt has copied a line from Leopold Schefer - a German poet It says - Truth is fire and truthfully spoken words light up then burn. (1784-1862) She holds a mirror out to the public to take a serious look at their empty, industrialised, consumerism souls.
Right: Poster by Klimt for the first Secession Exhibition.

For 18yrs Vienna's art scene burned bright with many more artists, architects and composers in residence than just Klimt. He had a stroke in the last year of WWI then succumbed to the pneumonia virus on Feb 6. At least he was saved the pain of a world where art didn't really matter any more in the fight for survival during the recessions after the war.

A contemporary artist, Voka, has painted Vienna full of colour.

A Summary of Austrian History so brief that omissions create distortion:
The ruling family, Hapsburg, may be likened to a mother hen that over centuries (mid 1200s until the end of WW1) watched over a large cluster of naughty chicks forever attempting to sneak out from under wing. The family began as part of the Swiss confederation and at the height of their power were crowned as the Holy Roman Emperors. This gave them sovereignty over lands from Poland to the Mediterranean, the Spanish peninsula and much of what is now Italy. The Ottomans lay to the East and the Francs to the West. Continual wars for independence made a checkerboard of the Eastern European map. Queen Maria-Therese and her son Joseph tried to change the age old habit of letting the chicks rule themselves under the cloak of the Imperial family by centralising government of all vassal states to Vienna. This caused another rash of rebellion until Franz Joseph settled for the 'Austro-Hungarian' Empire in 1867, two countries with separate parliaments but united under one crown. For Austria, this time became a time of social reform, economic growth and a huge surge in art and architecture. Imperial walls came down and the Ringstrasse was built.The chicks of Croats, Serbs, Slavs kept peeping for independence and eventually one terrorist action, to further their cause, pulled the rest of Europe into the farmyard. Germanic defeat in WWI resulted in the final collapse of Hapsburg rule, The chicks were given territories with their own borders, Hungary and Austria became separate nations; until Hitler annexed Austria. She now became a chick under the black wings of the Nazi swastika.  After Nazi defeat those that had been exiled or detained for resisting Hitler's dictates (many Austrians welcomed Nazi rule and policy) returned to their homeland and were allowed to set up governrment as 'a liberated' country. Carved into 4 by the allies, Austria soon became a hub of Cold war intrigue. At last in 1955 Austria became an independent State once more and declared 'everlasting neutrality' in their new constitution. They joined the EU in 1999. Today the democratically elected President resides and works within the Hofburg complex.