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Klimt & Rodin: An Artistic Encounter
On the 100th anniversary of their deaths, Gustav Klimt and Auguste Rodin are celebrated as two pioneers of modernism who set new standards in their chosen media. Although they worked in different media, Auguste Rodin and Gustav Klimt were two artists whose output generated both incredible enthusiasm and virulent denunciation in their lifetimes. On the centenary of their deaths, in 1917 and 1918 respectively, this opulent volume highlights the remarkable parallels between the two creators: their passion for the human figure, erotic subject matter, pioneering techniques, and the achievement of international success. In chapters of alternating perspectives, this book features essays on fin-de-siecle Vienna, the phenomenon of artistic celebrity, and a tribute to the two seminal works that each artist gave the same name: The Kiss. Bringing these two masters together for the first time in such a detailed manner, this book captures a significant moment in European culture and demonstrates why their geniuses still speak so profoundly to us today.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published December 19, 2017
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January 26, 2018This exhibit combines reproductions of many major works of surviving classical Greek and Roman sculpture as the full color works they originally were. Just enough pain has survived on the originals for researchers to determine the color that these works originally boasted. The reproductions are combined with a few original works from the period that still have visible traces of their paint on their surface.
Art historian have known for quite some time that classical sculpture was originally in color. But for a surprisingly long and influential period, art history asserted that the sculpture of the classical world was originally presented as it was found- in white stone. Thus the artists of the Renaissance, in seeking to emulate the artists of ancient Greece and Rome as they had known their work and understood them, created neo-Classical works in white marble.
The fading of paint over millennia has, perhaps, had a socio-historical role in the formation and dissemination of notions of racism and white supremacy. With these reproductions, the supposed white ideal of the cradle of European civilization is revealed as a misunderstanding. Many of the characters, if idealized in body, were not presented as white only but many races and colors beside.
On the level of enjoyment, I will say that the color made the works more visceral. Viewing now-white original works of classical sculpture is an impressive, if more contemplative experience than seeing these figures staring at you with the natural color of eyes. It also provides a yet more sensual experience than all-white sculptures, and the homoerotic intent of some of the works is all the more obvious.
For all that, I must say the piece I most enjoyed was an original that had a still-detectable painted design on top. It was a barely raised relief of a mourning widow, the thinness of the raised figure making her seem all the more fragile.
Art historian have known for quite some time that classical sculpture was originally in color. But for a surprisingly long and influential period, art history asserted that the sculpture of the classical world was originally presented as it was found- in white stone. Thus the artists of the Renaissance, in seeking to emulate the artists of ancient Greece and Rome as they had known their work and understood them, created neo-Classical works in white marble.
The fading of paint over millennia has, perhaps, had a socio-historical role in the formation and dissemination of notions of racism and white supremacy. With these reproductions, the supposed white ideal of the cradle of European civilization is revealed as a misunderstanding. Many of the characters, if idealized in body, were not presented as white only but many races and colors beside.
On the level of enjoyment, I will say that the color made the works more visceral. Viewing now-white original works of classical sculpture is an impressive, if more contemplative experience than seeing these figures staring at you with the natural color of eyes. It also provides a yet more sensual experience than all-white sculptures, and the homoerotic intent of some of the works is all the more obvious.
For all that, I must say the piece I most enjoyed was an original that had a still-detectable painted design on top. It was a barely raised relief of a mourning widow, the thinness of the raised figure making her seem all the more fragile.
May 11, 2021
The two artists have much in common. Both emerged from the Symbolist period and forcefully redefined the art of their time in the media of sculpture, painting and drawing. Despite their diverse working methods and materials, they explored similar genres, including portraiture and the female nude, and common themes such as human psychology, sexuality, desire and compassion.
KLIMT'S PAINTERLY IMAGE OF HUMANITY AND THE WORLD AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE 'FACULTY PAINTINGS' AND THE BEETHOVEN FRIEZE:
Gustav Klimt was commissioned by the Senate of the University of Vienna to produce a series of paintings for the ceiling of the university's great hall. While Klimt's paintings draw on the existing tradition of history painting, particularly as practiced by its Viennese exponent Hans Makart, they already exhibit stylistic features that will characterize the subsequent development of his artistic thinking, including a symbolically heightened Neoclassicism and an orientation toward contemporary life and thought. This development continues in the "Faculty Paintings" - Klimt chose to represent philosophy, medicine and jurisprudence - which also become increasingly abstract and stylized as expressions of a programmatic symbolism. Klimt's 3 paintings, Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence are the result of a long and complex production process marked by many preliminary studies and a few provisional realizations.
A formal analysis of the painting suggests a highly abstract, amorphous background, with the figures appearing to emerge from it or sink back into it. The composition seems to be divided into two: on the left side, a pillar of human bodies rises upward, some of them separate, others intertwined. There are human beings of different genders and ages depicted in archetypal situations of life, all rendered with great plasticity and kinesic expressiveness. Thus, at the bottom left edge of the painting is an old man whose gestures communicate despair, in the middle a couple clearly kissing and embracing, and toward the top of a woman, a man in a gloomy, thoughtful pose, and children. Although the compositional arrangement does not follow a coherent pattern of development, let alone a circular developmental trajectory in the sense of a cyclical depiction of human life, it is nevertheless quite clear that various basic stages or existential situations of life are represented. The other pole of the composition is constituted on one hand by the head of Knowledge rising up from below and on the other by the Enigma of the World dominating the right half of the painting, which is derived from a four-headed marble sphinx in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. With its emphatically clear and draftsmanly, sharply delineated conception and its wide open eyes, the image of Knowledge suggests the positive sciences with their methods of empirical description and rational analysis. However, it is in a marginal position, largely detached from the events of life, vis-a-vis the central figure of the Enigma of the World, which is characterized as such by its misty, painterly sfumato. The painting shows a group of figures on the left, ranging from children at the top to a decrepit old man at the bottom. On the right is a sphinx-like head, suggesting that only with the aid of philosophy or knowledge, represented by the female head at the bottom of the picture, can one make sense of the world. Philosophy was immediately criticized for its mysterious, allegorical imagery, which was at odds with the academics' perception of themselves as rational beings. Not only do the figures have no recognizable aim, worse, the painting illustrates a widely held idea of the period (although it was unpalatable to the academics): that the purposeful progress of history was ultimately governed by incomprehensible and uncontrollable cyclical forces of nature. The resulting thematic structure or symbolism may be characterized as follows: Human life conceived in analogy to the conception of positivist biology is distinguished by drivenness and agitation, by a thrownness into the various states of this condition humaine, which is marked by enduring and suffering rather than self-determination and happiness. The sciences stand aloof from this lived human existence and are incapable of discovering any meaning or metaphysical explanation; human life and the world remain an enigma.
Critics have highlighted the clear structural analogies between Klimt's philosophical conception and Schopenhauer's pessimism as well as Nietzsche's philosophy of life with its more positivist inflection.
THE FULFILLMENT:
The woman's closed eyes, the golden light, and the starlit sky point obliquely to another literary source: the myth of Cupid and Psyche. In Apuleius' Metamorphoses, the beautiful but unmarriageable Psyche is abandoned on a 'precipitate mountaintop' by her family; from there, as foretold, a 'monster' is to take her as his bride. sometime thereafter, Psyche awakens to find herself 'on a flower-sprinkled turf' near a palace. With a floor that is a 'mosaic of gems' and 'walls inlaid with ingots of gold', the palace never grows dark, continuing instead to 'exude illumination'. Cupid makes himself her husband, at first against Psyche's will. Stealing to her bed only at night, he forbids her ever to see his face. Psyche falls in love with him in spite of this, and describes Cupid as her only light.
BEETHOVEN FRIEZE:
The Beethoven Exhibition achieved a realization of the Viennese modernist conception of Raumkunst that was both unprecedented and never again to be equalled. For his own contribution, Klimt was allotted one of two elongated lateral spaces. The frieze occupied three walls. In devising his composition, Klimt drew on the account of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony that had been published some decades earlier by another great German composer, Richard Wagner. This evoked imagery inspired by his own experience of listening to Beethoven's music, and dew on a poem by Johann Wolfgang on Goethe as a framework for his own analysis of he Symphony's four movements. Klimt's own response to Wagner's understanding of Beethoven is a monumental rendering of human experience, a masterpiece of late Symbolism on the theme of Humanity's Desire for Happiness and of the Hope for Salvation.
The first long wall depicts the Desire for Happiness. The sufferings of Weak Humanity. Its appeal to the outer strength of the well-armed Strong Man and to the inner motivation of Compassion and Ambition for assistance in the Struggle for Happiness. In the hovering figures depicted here Klimt establishes one of the leitmotifs of the frieze: A horizontal chain of dreaming, idealized figures in linearly stylized gowns, each serving as one fragment within a single, endless movement.
On the central, short wall we encounter The Hostile Powers. The Giant Typhon, against whom even the gods fight in vain, and his daughters, the Three Gorgons. The brazen nakedness and provocative sensuality of these last parts were to ensure that Klimt would again, in due course, face severe criticism. The catalogue's description of this part of the frieze goes on to identify figures symbolizing disease, madness, death. Lust and lewdness, excess, gnawing care. The desires for wishes of humanity fly above and beyond these.
On the second, and final long wall Klimt depicts the Desire for Happiness, finding solace in Poetry. Finally, the Arts lead us on into the Ideal Realm, the only one in which we can find pure joy, pure happiness, and pure love. A choir of angels from paradise: joy, beautiful spark from the Gods, the kiss for the entire world.
KLIMT'S PAINTERLY IMAGE OF HUMANITY AND THE WORLD AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE 'FACULTY PAINTINGS' AND THE BEETHOVEN FRIEZE:
Gustav Klimt was commissioned by the Senate of the University of Vienna to produce a series of paintings for the ceiling of the university's great hall. While Klimt's paintings draw on the existing tradition of history painting, particularly as practiced by its Viennese exponent Hans Makart, they already exhibit stylistic features that will characterize the subsequent development of his artistic thinking, including a symbolically heightened Neoclassicism and an orientation toward contemporary life and thought. This development continues in the "Faculty Paintings" - Klimt chose to represent philosophy, medicine and jurisprudence - which also become increasingly abstract and stylized as expressions of a programmatic symbolism. Klimt's 3 paintings, Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence are the result of a long and complex production process marked by many preliminary studies and a few provisional realizations.
A formal analysis of the painting suggests a highly abstract, amorphous background, with the figures appearing to emerge from it or sink back into it. The composition seems to be divided into two: on the left side, a pillar of human bodies rises upward, some of them separate, others intertwined. There are human beings of different genders and ages depicted in archetypal situations of life, all rendered with great plasticity and kinesic expressiveness. Thus, at the bottom left edge of the painting is an old man whose gestures communicate despair, in the middle a couple clearly kissing and embracing, and toward the top of a woman, a man in a gloomy, thoughtful pose, and children. Although the compositional arrangement does not follow a coherent pattern of development, let alone a circular developmental trajectory in the sense of a cyclical depiction of human life, it is nevertheless quite clear that various basic stages or existential situations of life are represented. The other pole of the composition is constituted on one hand by the head of Knowledge rising up from below and on the other by the Enigma of the World dominating the right half of the painting, which is derived from a four-headed marble sphinx in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. With its emphatically clear and draftsmanly, sharply delineated conception and its wide open eyes, the image of Knowledge suggests the positive sciences with their methods of empirical description and rational analysis. However, it is in a marginal position, largely detached from the events of life, vis-a-vis the central figure of the Enigma of the World, which is characterized as such by its misty, painterly sfumato. The painting shows a group of figures on the left, ranging from children at the top to a decrepit old man at the bottom. On the right is a sphinx-like head, suggesting that only with the aid of philosophy or knowledge, represented by the female head at the bottom of the picture, can one make sense of the world. Philosophy was immediately criticized for its mysterious, allegorical imagery, which was at odds with the academics' perception of themselves as rational beings. Not only do the figures have no recognizable aim, worse, the painting illustrates a widely held idea of the period (although it was unpalatable to the academics): that the purposeful progress of history was ultimately governed by incomprehensible and uncontrollable cyclical forces of nature. The resulting thematic structure or symbolism may be characterized as follows: Human life conceived in analogy to the conception of positivist biology is distinguished by drivenness and agitation, by a thrownness into the various states of this condition humaine, which is marked by enduring and suffering rather than self-determination and happiness. The sciences stand aloof from this lived human existence and are incapable of discovering any meaning or metaphysical explanation; human life and the world remain an enigma.
Critics have highlighted the clear structural analogies between Klimt's philosophical conception and Schopenhauer's pessimism as well as Nietzsche's philosophy of life with its more positivist inflection.
THE FULFILLMENT:
The woman's closed eyes, the golden light, and the starlit sky point obliquely to another literary source: the myth of Cupid and Psyche. In Apuleius' Metamorphoses, the beautiful but unmarriageable Psyche is abandoned on a 'precipitate mountaintop' by her family; from there, as foretold, a 'monster' is to take her as his bride. sometime thereafter, Psyche awakens to find herself 'on a flower-sprinkled turf' near a palace. With a floor that is a 'mosaic of gems' and 'walls inlaid with ingots of gold', the palace never grows dark, continuing instead to 'exude illumination'. Cupid makes himself her husband, at first against Psyche's will. Stealing to her bed only at night, he forbids her ever to see his face. Psyche falls in love with him in spite of this, and describes Cupid as her only light.
BEETHOVEN FRIEZE:
The Beethoven Exhibition achieved a realization of the Viennese modernist conception of Raumkunst that was both unprecedented and never again to be equalled. For his own contribution, Klimt was allotted one of two elongated lateral spaces. The frieze occupied three walls. In devising his composition, Klimt drew on the account of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony that had been published some decades earlier by another great German composer, Richard Wagner. This evoked imagery inspired by his own experience of listening to Beethoven's music, and dew on a poem by Johann Wolfgang on Goethe as a framework for his own analysis of he Symphony's four movements. Klimt's own response to Wagner's understanding of Beethoven is a monumental rendering of human experience, a masterpiece of late Symbolism on the theme of Humanity's Desire for Happiness and of the Hope for Salvation.
The first long wall depicts the Desire for Happiness. The sufferings of Weak Humanity. Its appeal to the outer strength of the well-armed Strong Man and to the inner motivation of Compassion and Ambition for assistance in the Struggle for Happiness. In the hovering figures depicted here Klimt establishes one of the leitmotifs of the frieze: A horizontal chain of dreaming, idealized figures in linearly stylized gowns, each serving as one fragment within a single, endless movement.
On the central, short wall we encounter The Hostile Powers. The Giant Typhon, against whom even the gods fight in vain, and his daughters, the Three Gorgons. The brazen nakedness and provocative sensuality of these last parts were to ensure that Klimt would again, in due course, face severe criticism. The catalogue's description of this part of the frieze goes on to identify figures symbolizing disease, madness, death. Lust and lewdness, excess, gnawing care. The desires for wishes of humanity fly above and beyond these.
On the second, and final long wall Klimt depicts the Desire for Happiness, finding solace in Poetry. Finally, the Arts lead us on into the Ideal Realm, the only one in which we can find pure joy, pure happiness, and pure love. A choir of angels from paradise: joy, beautiful spark from the Gods, the kiss for the entire world.
October 11, 2021
The book was a comprehensive look at the Klimt and Rodin Exhibition held at the Legion of Honor in SFC. It had great color plates and is a good reference book for these two artists.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews