Gustav Klimt was born on July 14, 1862 in the Viennese suburb of Baumgarten. The boy became the second child in the family of the not very successful engraving artist Ernest Klimt and his wife Anna Finster. In total, the Klimt family had seven children - three boys and four girls. The photo and biography of Gustav Klimt are interesting enough to study.
Childhood and parents
Ernest Klimt, father of Gustav, was born in Bohemia and dedicated his life to engraving gold. Mother, Anna Klimt, was desperate to become a musician, but she did not reach her goal. Ernest spent his childhood in poverty, because the country's economy in those years was not going through the best of times, and the boyās parents didnāt have regular income, and work turned up from time to time. All the sons of Ernest Klimt followed in the footsteps of their father and became artists. A brief biography of Gustav Klimt begins precisely from these times.
Education and development
Due to the fact that Gustav's father was an artist, the boy learned the basics of drawing from him. Then, in 1876, Klimt went to study at the Vienna Art and Craft School, specializing in architectural painting. Already in 1877, Gustav's brother Ernst entered the same educational institution.
Klimtās training at the school ended in 1883, and the historical genre artist Hans Makart became a kind of idol and model of art for the boy. During the training, many artists went against the law, but Klimt was not one of them and adopted educational conservatism.
After graduating from college in 1890, Gustav and Ernst and their friend, the artist Franz Mach, worked together and painted frescoes in the theaters of Reichenberg, Rijeka, Karlovy Vary and many other provincial cities of Austria-Hungary. Already in 1898, Gustav Klimt was awarded the Franz Josef Imperial Golden Cross award for his services in the field of art. After that, the artist became an honored member of the universities of Vienna and Munich.
The year 1892 was not easy for Gustav. Father and brother Ernst died, thereby maintaining the family became his concern. Such difficult times did not pass without a trace and reflected on the artist. It was at this time that he began to develop his own artistic style. The biography, books, works of Gustav Klimt deserve attention.
Association of Vienna Artists
In 1897, Klimt and other artists who departed from the conservatism and traditions that dominated the House of Artists at that time founded the Vienna Artists Association, the Vienna Secession. He remained in the Gustav association until 1908. The main goal of the Vienna Secession is to organize exhibitions for artists who also depart from tradition and write in an unusual style. In this way, the best foreign works were attracted to Vienna, and the work of the group members became popular thanks to the magazine published by the association. The Vienna Secession did not have clear rules and a single style. Naturalists, realists, symbolists successfully coexisted here. The government supported the aspirations of artists and leased them land on which it was decided to build an exhibition hall. The symbolism of the association of artists was Athena Pallas - a symbol of justice, wisdom, art. The biography and work of Gustav Klimt are studied to this day.
In 1894, the artist was hired to create three paintings that embody such faculties as Philosophy, Medicine, and Law. They were supposed to decorate the ceiling of the assembly hall in the headquarters of the University of Vienna. They were only finished in 1900 and received sharp criticism for the overly frank genre that they called "pornographic."
New waves
Klimt was a supporter of new trends, so he transformed traditional ideas into an unusual style for conservatives, with an emphasis on the erotic component. A wave of discontent and criticism, ranging from political circles to religious ones, served as a result of the fact that the paintings did not adorn the main building of the university. This order was the last public and large-scale in the work of the artist. However, these three paintings have not sunk into oblivion; they were acquired by the philanthropist August Lederer.
In the thirties, the Nazi authorities nationalized the collection of works by Klimt, which was owned by Lederer, and at the end of World War II went to the Immerhof Palace, but in 1945 the Soviet army entered this area and the retreating SS troops set fire to the palace. All Klimtās paintings perished in the fire. All that has survived to this day are sketches, draft versions, black-and-white photographs of three paintings and one color photograph of the personification of āMedicineā. We can only imagine how powerful and majestic these three destroyed works of art looked. The biography and work of Gustav Klimt is briefly described in the film Klimt.
A real challenge to society was the painting āNaked Truthā, written in 1899. Gustav Klimt portrayed a naked woman with red hair, who holds a mirror of truth in her hands.
In 1902 he finished work on a part of the Beethoven monument, the second part was the work of the sculptor Max Klinger. The Beethoven Frieze was intended only for the 14th exhibition of the Vienna Secession, but after the exhibition the work was saved.
Golden period
Despite the fact that many of Klimt's works were sharply criticized, there was also a āgolden periodā in the work of the artist. He was noted by the positive reaction of critics to the artistās work, and these years are considered the most successful in his work. This name is no coincidence, Klimt used a lot of gilding in his works. The most popular painting of those times is āKissā, written in 1907-1908.
Lifestyle
Klimt led an unremarkable lifestyle, worked at home and devoted all his free and non-free time to painting and his family. He was not friends with anyone and was not distracted by anything. Due to the fact that his work was in demand, Klim received many orders and had the opportunity to choose what he liked. Since many of the artist's works had a clear erotic orientation, even prostitutes became his models. Gustav Klimt did not share his techniques and his vision of the world and art. There was only one answer to all the questions: "If someone wants to find out something about the personality of the artist, you should only carefully consider the paintings, all the answers in them."
A family
Gustav Klimt never married, although there are legends about his many novels. Various sources attribute the artist from 3 to 40 illegitimate children. For example, the famous Austrian film director and cameraman Gustav Uchicki claimed that he was the son of a great artist. The biography of the artist Gustav Klimt is quite entertaining.
Back in 1890, Klimt met with Emilia Flegge. This happened due to the fact that her sister married her brother Gustav - Ernst. When the brother died, his wife, Helen, went to Klimt's family nest with her daughter. The artist was appointed guardian of the niece. The biography of Gustav Klimt in the aspect of the family is very mysterious.
Emilia Phleghe
Already in 1904, the Flege sisters opened their own fashion house and made a splash in Viennese fashion, becoming the leading couturier. Girls skillfully adapted the fashion of Paris to local preferences. In the fashion house Flegge, the richest women in Austria dressed. Gustav also made a considerable contribution to this matter, because he not only was engaged in scenery for shows, but also in models of Flegge.
More often, Emilia and Gustav appeared together, and soon became completely inseparable. Here, the opinions of biographers were divided, some are sure that the couple had an affair, while others - on the contrary. Emilia Fleghe never denied and was even proud of her modern views on the world around her, including her personal life. This was manifested in the fact that no one had given her a decree in matters of the heart, in which they agreed with Klimt. However, it makes no sense to deny the proximity of Emilia and Gustav, because after a stroke, Klimt's last words were a request to bring Emilia.
In 1915, the artistās mother died, and on February 6, 1918 he died in Vienna. The cause of death was pneumonia, before which Klimt had a stroke. He was buried in Vienna at the Hitzing cemetery. Many paintings by a truly great artist have remained unfinished. This completes the biography of Gustav Klimt.
Gustav Klimt's Style
Most of the artistās work was criticized. He portrayed mainly women, if a man appeared in the picture, his face was most often hidden. A vivid example of the most famous painting "Kiss." It just shows a man bent over a woman, who presses her lips to her cheek, thereby hiding her face. They kneel, in golden robes, among many flowers.
Klimt's works are criticized to this day, especially heated discussions are practiced by feminist art critics. They note that the artist depicts women in his paintings as an object of male desire, playing a passive role.
Toward the end of his life, Gustav Klimt began to move away from his style, abandoning extravagant gold. Already in the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which dates from 1912, it is noticeable that now the artist is more interested in color harmony. However, Klimt did not have enough time for experiments, the First World War broke out, shortly after the start of which the artist Gustav Klimt died.
Interesting Facts
The artist's life was filled with creativity and interesting events, the memory of him lives in the hearts of art lovers today.
- In 2006, the premiere of the film "Klimt". The painting told the world about the life of the artist.
- In 2009, the premiere of the musical Gustav Klimt took place in Austria.
- You can find the character of Klimt in the following films: Mahler on the Couch and The Bride of the Wind.
- In 2006, the famous portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was sold at auction for $ 135 million.
- Klimt had a great love for women, and despite the fact that he was never married, after his death, 14 heirs claimed the right to inheritance. Therefore, the biography of Gustav Klimt for children is of particular interest.
- Strangers never believed that Klimt was an artist. Outwardly, he was more like an ordinary working peasant.
Stormy discussions about the work and the personal life of Gustav Klimt are ongoing to this day.