Klimt

<p>The unfading popularity of <strong>Gustav Klimt (1862–1918)</strong> attests not only to the particular appeal of his luxuriant painting but also to the universal themes with which he worked: <strong>love, feminine beauty, aging, and death</strong>.<br /><br /> The son of a goldsmith, Klimt created surfaces of ornate and jewel-like luminosity which show the influence of both Egyptian and Japanese art. Through paintings, murals, and friezes, his work is defined by <strong>radiant color, fluid lines, floral elements, and mosaic-like patterning</strong>.<br /><br /> With subjects ranging from sensuality and desire to anxiety and despair, all this iridescence is also suffused with feeling. Klimt’s numerous images of women, characterized by <strong>curvaceous forms, tender flesh, red lips, and flushed cheeks</strong>, were particularly charged with passion, at a time when such frank eroticism was still taboo in Viennese upper-middle-class society.<br /><br /> This book presents a selection of Klimt’s work, introducing his pictorial world of decoration and desire, as well as his influence on artists to come.</p>