Gustav Klimt's Jugendstil

    

One of my favorite artists, Gustav Klimt, is considered one of the best decorative painters of the twentieth century. Born in Austria in 1862, he was a renowned advocator of Art Nouveau, or, as the style was known in Germany, Jugendstil ("youth style").

Klimt also produced one of the century's most significant bodies of erotic art. Initially successful as a conventional academic painter. He received commissions to paint public buildings. Clearly, that bored him to tears. Sometimes, clients will commission us to paint something totally ridiculous in our own mind. We do it to pay the rent but I pretty much hate every moment of it and I am relieved when it is out the door.


His encounter with more modern trends in European art encouraged him to develop his own eclectic and often fantastic style. He was criticized by his contemporaries for developing the style we most love him for today.





I hear the same arguments going on today. I hear it in the fine art world as well as the tattoo community. I once had a tattoo artist employed at my shop that criticized any style that he wasn't working on himself. He felt that realistic color layering was the only style worth it's salt in today's world and that the traditional style was rudimentary and could be done by anyone. I like to work with artists that can pull off a lot of styles but focus primarily on one style becoming an expert in their field. Needless to say, the outspoken artist that thought he knew how everyone else should work is no long with us.

Ok, so I know there are those of you that can't gap that bridge between Klimt and tattooing. For me all those things blend together. I love styles and mediums. I am first and foremost an artist. I don't pretend to be a great art critic. I just know what I love and try to find ways to identify with the artists I admire. I learn a lot from understanding their lives.  I sympathize with their struggles.  I love the work and I love the process.  I want to get in their head.  After all, it's my blog right? I can have any opinion I want. I digress.. back to Klimt.

Klimt strongly believed in the equality of fine and decorative art, and some of his work shows his ambition to create aGesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), a union of the visual arts that might be created through ornament. This made him one of the most influential artists of the art nouveau movement that made it's way through Europe in the 19th century.

Although his art is now widely popular, it was neglected for much of the 20th century, and provoked opposition in his own day, facing charges of obscenity and objections to his lightly allusive approach to symbolism. His treatment of erotic themes was generally delicate and veiled in his paintings, but his drawings gave full expression to his considerable sexual appetite.

Maybe it was the time but there were a lot of artists during that period that were pushing the envelope of sexuality. It had the same quality to people of that era as the shocking journalism and photo exploitation we see today. People felt oppressed by what was socially appropriate so they spoke out. It's just become much harder to push the envelope today than in Klimt's day. How will our future generations view our version of "pushing the envelope"? Only time will tell.

He was never married but it is suggested that he fathered 14 children. He never courted scandal, but it dogged his career. It did not seem to both him much or stop him.

Gustav Klimt led a group of artists to resign the Viennese Künstlerhaus, a state-sponsored art institution under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture. The dispute was not merely a conflict between contrasting aesthetics, but rather a question of value and status of art itself. The resigning artists believed that art and culture should be left to the artists, rather than statesmen. This break led to the formation of the Vienna Secession and Vienna’s entrance in the ranks of the European avant-garde. Quite a troublemaker he was!

In Freud’s mind, he was certainly a troublemaker. Discoveries in psychoanalysis played a great role in the development of modern art and literature. The notion of the unconscious as the driving force of human behavior uncovered certain truths that many conservative members of Viennese society were not always comfortable. Freud’s idea that the instinctual passions are stronger than reasonable interests created many problems for a culture based on traditional and dynastic order. By analyzing dreams, Freud discovered that the source of all immorality and even “perversion” lies right at the centre of humanity, namely in the unconscious of every human being. Talk about being in different corners of the boxing ring. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that fight. 

There is no historical record of Klimt’s own interpretation of his works. He never did a self-portrait. We are lucky to have photographs of him. He cleans up nice in his formal photos but he looks a bit deranged in his group picture with the secessionists. I saw another one where he was holding a cat. He just has that look in his eyes. I'm just saying. It's that stare that only an artist lost in his work has. That eccentric gaze that depicts with genius or madness.




He was reluctant about giving his opinion on his art and believed that the viewer should interpret its meaning. I am sure there were lively debates with his fellow secessionists. He has a great body of work. Most of what the everyday art lover would recognize today are the depictions of women. Those were done primarily within the last 15 years of his life. His human figures seem to be caught between dream and reality.


"Whoever wants to know something about me - as an artist which alone is significant - they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognize what I am and what I want." - Gustav Klimt




The world lost some of his works in during WWII. Many of Klimt’s paintings had been evacuated to Schloss Immendorf, where in 1945 the retreating SS troops set fire to the castle to prevent it falling into enemy hands. Klimt’s University paintings, along with many other of his masterpieces were lost in the fire. I mourn for the suffering of humanity and although it can't compare to human suffering, I also mourn the loss of beautiful art that was lost to the world because of the Nazis.  All this happening to art created by a man that was long dead.  Blows my mind.

While some critics argue that Klimt's work should not be included in the canon of modern art, his oeuvre - particularly his paintings postdating 1900 - remains striking for its visual combinations of the old and the modern, the real and the abstract. Klimt produced his greatest work during a time of change and radical ideas, and these traits are clearly evident in his paintings.

I am grateful for those that came before me that took risks and marched to the beat of their own drum. 

-Renee Bangerter