What was gustav klimts inspiration

He revered the foremost history painter of the time, Hans Makart. Unlike many young artists, Klimt accepted the principles of conservative Academic training. In his brother Ernst, who, like his father, would become an engraver, also enrolled in the school. The two brothers and their friend Franz Matsch began working together; by they had received numerous commissions as a team they called the "Company of Artists".

He also became an honorary member of the University of Munich and the University of Vienna. In both Klimt's father and brother Ernst died, and he had to assume financial responsibility for his father's and brother's family. The tragedies affected his artistic vision as well, and soon he would veer toward a new personal style. Klimt became one of the founding members and president of the Wiener Sezession Vienna Secession in and of the group's periodical Ver Sacrum Sacred Spring.

He remained with the Secession until The group's goals were to provide exhibitions for unconventional young artists, to bring the best foreign artists works to Vienna, and to publish its own magazine to showcase members' work. The group declared no manifesto and did not set out to encourage any particular style -- Naturalists, Realists, and Symbolists all coexisted.

The government supported their efforts and gave them a lease on public land to erect an exhibition hall. The group's symbol was Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of just causes, wisdom, and the arts -- and Klimt painted his radical version in These works constitute the only genre aside from the figure that seriously interested Klimt, and are of a number and quality so as to merit a separate appreciation.

Formally, the landscapes are characterized by the same refinement of design and emphatic patterning as the figural pieces. Deep space in the Attersee works is so efficiently flattened to a single plane, it is believed that Klimt painted them while looking through a telescope.

In , Klimt was commissioned to create three paintings to decorate the ceiling of the Great Hall in the University of Vienna. Not completed until the turn of the century, his three paintings, Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence were criticized for their radical themes and material, which was called "pornographic".

Klimt had transformed traditional allegory and symbolism into a new language which was more overtly sexual, and hence more disturbing. The public outcry came from all quarters — political, aesthetic, and religious. As a result, they were not displayed on the ceiling of the Great Hall. This would be the last public commission accepted by the artist. All three paintings were destroyed by retreating SS forces in May His Nuda Verita defined his bid to further shake up the establishment.

The starkly naked red-headed woman holds the mirror of truth, while above it is a quote by Schiller in stylized lettering, "If you cannot please everyone with your deeds and your art, please a few.

In The Dancer , one of the side panels of the Frieze , the position of the character can be associated with Egyptian art , as can be the several eyes — a recurrent motif in Egyptian mythology — that are dispersed on her ornamented dress.

Connections can also be made with Ancient Greece and its astonishing mosaic frescoes. Moreover Klimt was inspired by the mosaics of Ravenna that he visited during a trip to Italy in His use of silver and gold leaf is said to have begun upon his return from this trip as well. Like many artists of the Art Nouveau period , Klimt's paintings also take after Japanese woodblock prints from the Edo period with their flat surfaces that are paid the same detailed attention as the lifelike faces of their characters.

His intriguing Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt is a great example of this 'Japaneseness' that can be found throughout his life's work. Finally, one of Klimt's main sources of inspiration is the female form , its body and its spirituality. Although he remained discreet and always maintained his reputation , the master is known to have fathered no less than 14 illegitimate children and to have entertained intimate relations with most of his models.

Among these countless women, two stand out as having marked him more specifically. Klimt then found himself assuming financial responsibility for his late brother's wife Helene and their infant daughter. He soon met Helene's sister Emilie and grew particularly close to her even though their relationship seems to have remained platonic throughout their lives.

His mature works are characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles, and make use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the "freedom" of art from traditional culture.

Topics wise he would also paint ideas concerning the dangerous side of sexual attraction, the destructive "femme fatale" side of women, and even castration in the Freudian sense During the early years of the 20th century Gustav Klimt took trips to Venice and Ravenna, both famous for their beautiful mosaics, where he studied their gold technique and was inspired by the Byzantine imagery. In Klimt collaborated with other artists on the lavish Palais Stoclet, the home of a wealthy Belgian industrialist, which was one of the grandest monuments of the Art Nouveau age.

Klimt's contributions to the dining room, including Fulfillment and Expectation, were some of his finest decorative work, and as he publicly stated, "probably the ultimate stage of my development of ornament. Klimt himself normally wore sandals and a long robe with nothing underneath as he worked and relaxed in his home.

His simple life was somewhat cloistered, devoted to his art and family and little else except the Vienna Secessionist Movement. He avoided cafe society and other artists socially. Klimt's fame usually brought patrons to his door and by this time he could afford to be highly selective. His painting method was very deliberate and painstaking at times and he required lengthy sittings by his subjects. Like Auguste Rodin , Klimt also used mythology and allegory to thinly disguise his highly erotic nature, and his drawings often reveal a strong sexual interest in women.

His models were routinely available to him to pose in any erotic manner that pleased him and he had quiet bohemian affairs with many of them. Klimt wrote little about his artistic beliefs or this methods. In a rare writing called "Commentary on a non-existent self-portrait" he wrote: "I have never painted a self-portrait. I am less interested in myself as a subject for a painting than I am in other people, above all women There is nothing special about me. I am a painter who paints day after day from morning to night Who ever wants to know something about me He became more interested in representational drawing and his work was more self-reflective as his dwelled on his life and old age.

He also had become stubborn in his old age and did not consider any part of the human anatomy ugly, shameful or ignoble and thus drew or painted them all. A famous figure in Austria's art world by this time he was chided for embarrassing the nation with his "pornography".

In his painting Death and Life received first prize in the world exhibitions in Rome, one of the greatest highlights of his career. In his mother Anna died. Gustav Klimt died three years later in Vienna on February 6, , having suffered a stroke on January 11th and a bout of pneumonia. He was interred at the Hietzing Cemetery in Vienna. Many of Klimt's paintings were left unfinished. Klimt's paintings have brought some of the highest prices recorded for individual works of art.

Both works had been recently restituted to the heirs of Adele Bloch-Bauer. On August 7th Christie's auction house announced it was handling the sale of the 4 works by Klimt that were recovered by the Bloch-Bauer heirs after a long legal battle. Gustav Klimt Quotes "After tea it's back to painting - a large poplar at dusk with a gathering storm. From time to time instead of this evening painting session I go bowling in one of the neighbouring villages, but not very often.

I believe this myself and a few other people say that they believe this too. But I'm not certain of whether it's true.