Gustav Klimt's Paintings Show Byzantine Essay

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This style came later during the latter part of his ten years as member of the Wiener Sezesion. The objective of this association was to separate themselves from contemporary art and to provide Vienna with quality foreign art pieces. Klimt's pieces, at first, failed to win renown and only became accepted with his so-called 'Golden period' called so due to the generous use of gold leaf in his paintings.

Klimt's encounter with Byzantine art and his being influenced by it, primarily, initiated from Alfred Roller, a painter colleague who had a great influence on his life, and who had encouraged Klimt to visit Ravenna and study the famous mosaics there. Roller himself had studied them when painting friezes and mural for the Breitenfelder-Kirche. Accordingly, Klimt visited Ravenna the following spring and, taking Rollers advice, studied the mosaics. His companion, Max Lenz commented on the huge impact that the mosaics had on Klimt.

Gordon remarks that Klimt may have deliberately employed the Byzantine use of gold in his paintings -- particularly as 2-diemnstionsl background coverage surrounding his erotic figures -- in order to evoke the golden ground surrounding Byzantine art. In Byzantine art, such a technique is used in order to negate space hence time. Klimt may have adopted the same technique and intention with the idea of transposing the concept of loss of time in regards to the eternity of love. This can be particularly seen and felt in the famous painting of the kiss where only the faces and hands or the lovers are seen; their lack of self is lost in gold.

Similarly, the decision to imitate the Byzantium influence of painting image as surface could have been, too, to express the underlying emotion of the picture. With Byzantium art, 3-dimensionality was reduced to surface expression in order to express the spirituality of Christianity, whilst Klimt may have intended to adopt the same technique with the intention of allowing eroticism to protrude.

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This can be clearly seen in the picture the Adele Bloch-Bauer of 1907 where the Adelle, clasping her hands, is dressed in gold is a gold-saturated picture. The onus is on the Adele with the swirling symbols hinting at erotic overtones. More manifest is this in the Kiss (1907-08) where a great swirl of gold studded with colored rectangles are intended to visually express the emotional and physical depiction of erotic love. The man is leaning over and kissing the kneeling woman. Both are shrouded in gold and bedecked with petals. Only the faces and hands of this couple are visible, possibly alluding to the lack of selves that both feel.

The Golden Knight is shown in the Beethoven frieze (1902) which was to be homage to Beethoven. Here a naked man and woman are shown praying for a knight who will embark on a search for happiness. A second woman gazes at the scene, whilst above the knight another woman gives the knight a laurel crown. The flatness of the figures and the gold surface contributes the same impression of negativity: the atmosphere and figures are foremost. They are primal to the art.

The same is true with the tree of life where swirling energies of life's continuous cycle envelope lovers embraced under the tree. It is the symbols and the negated background that, again, portray the essence of Klimt's idea.

In conclusion, Gustav Klimt's art forms show definite signs of Byzaninium influence that he, no doubt, picked up from his travels in Ravenna and Venice. Certain representations remain common, whilst Klimt's particular characteristics remain unique to the artist......

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