The Life and Paintings of Gustav Klimt

Who was Gustav Klimt?

Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was the first president of the Vienna Secession art movement, the Vienna-based group influenced by Art Nouveau that included artists, designers, and architects. Klimt was interested in combining beauty and utility, and he is known for his opulent artworks featuring elements of eroticism and sexuality, his primary subject being the female body. He is most famous for his painting The Kiss (1907), which depicts two lovers painted with a rich golden design engaged in a passionate embrace. 

The biography of Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt was born in 1862 in Baumgarten, near Vienna, the son of the gold engraver Ernst Klimt. From an early age, Klimt showed great talent for the arts, and he was awarded a scholarship in 1876 to attend the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule). He studied there until 1883 and received his training as an architectural painter. The curriculum and teaching methods at the Kunstgewerbeschule were quite traditional, and Klimt never challenged or questioned them. His training included doing studies of the works of Titian and Peter Paul Rubens, while he discovered the works of Diego Velázquez at the Vienna Museum of Fine Arts. He greatly admired Velázquez and the most famous Viennese historical painter of the era, Hans Makart. Makart’s technique, which used dramatic effects of light and a great theatricality, had a significant influence on Klimt.  

In 1877, Klimt’s brother Ernst also enrolled in the Kunstgewerbeschule. The brothers and their friend Franz Matsch began working together and opened a studio after finishing their studies. By 1880, they had received several commissions and were involved with painting murals in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna with one of their professors. They specialised in interior decoration and theatres in particular. In 1886, the painters were asked to decorate the Viennese Burgtheater, which gained them their position as the foremost decorators of Austria. Gustav Klimt’s artworks for this project include the Cart of Thespis, the Altars of Dionysos and Apollo, and the Theater at Taormina.  

Over time, Klimt began to develop a more personal style and his work became quite controversial due to its sexual undertones. In 1900, Klimt’s paintings for the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna were criticised as being pornographic, and he decided not to accept any more public commissions in the future. However, he achieved acclaim with his masterful use of the gold leaf technique and the paintings that would come to be known as his “golden phase”. Plenty of private commissions followed, allowing him to be selective about whom to work for. Klimt’s art had a big influence on his contemporaries, most notably the younger artist Egon Schiele, who was mentored by Klimt.        

In 1897, Klimt became one of the founding members and the president of the Vienna Secession group, which he joined until 1908. The group’s aims were to provide exhibitions for unconventional young artists, to bring foreign artists to Vienna, and to publish their own magazine, Ver Sacrum (‘Sacred Spring’), showcasing the work of the members. It brought together Naturalists, Realists, and Symbolists who wanted to renew the decorative arts and create a “total art” unifying painting, architecture, and decorative arts. 

From the 1890s onwards, Klimt spent most of his time with Austrian fashion designer Emilie Louise Flöge, a sister of his sister-in-law, who became one of his favourite models and his companion for the rest of his life as well as one of the most famous muses in art history. Klimt is said to have fathered 14 children, though he kept his romantic life mostly hidden from the public eye. He died in 1918 following a stroke and pneumonia as a result of the worldwide influenza pandemic that year.