Klimt, Austria’s Cultural Mascot
Walk into any of the many stores along Vienna’s Karntnerstrasse and you will find Klimt’s art on all manner of objects: cups, saucers, scarves, umbrellas, carpets, pens and whatnot. If you happen to walk into the Klimt Exhibition store in Karntnerstrasse a couple of blocks from Domkirche St. Stephen you will immediately see what I mean.
Nearby, the Belvedere hosts the most important collection of Klimt paintings. The centerpiece is The Kiss. A couple locked in a tight embrace. You see the back of a man’s head, a laurel (I imagine) wreath atop his dark black hair. The man is bent over a kneeling woman. The woman with her eyes closed in a posture of surrender to the embrace. Klimt’s trademark gold colors and ornamentation are all over the painting. The woman is painted in gold and primary colors with circular shapes. The man’s in black, gray and gold in linear shapes.
Klimt was the founder of the Vienna secession movement which marked the turn away from the conservative style of art toward more expressionist and experimental styles. Although influenced by older art forms: Byzantine, Egyptian and Japanese, from which he borrowed some of his motifs, he has a unique style and a Klimt painting is easy to identify.
I like his landscape paintings, depicting various viewpoints around Lake Attersee, the largest lake in the Salzkammergut region of Austria. His painting of Utterach at Attersee caught my eye for its dreamy landscape, the vivid, dark colors, the homes set on a hill by the lake, with windows providing few hints of mysteries within. A print of this painting hangs on my bedroom wall.
