Product Description

At the turn of the 20th century, the Vienna Secession shook the worlds of art and design, breaking the rigid constraints of an esthetic dominated by slavish emulation of prior styles. Nowhere is this paradigm shift better exemplified than in the works of the two Austrian creators featured here. Architect Otto Wagner (1841-1918) famously rejected the eclectic imitation and combination of historical styles that had dominated European architecture, advocating instead constructions aware of modern materials, modern needs, and modern society. Painter Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) broke with an academic art style to develop an intensely personal style favoring fluid lines, bold colors, provocative imagery, and diverse media. Otto Wagner/Gustav Klimt, the third title in the Duets series, brings together the work of these two artists in order to present a rich comparative study. Essentially three volumes in one, a section on each artist presents a brief biography and an examination of some major works, with a third section that compares the images and ideas of the two artists. Art and architecture lovers will treasure this book for years to come.

Customer Reviews (1)

Easy to enjoy
I've always like Klimt's work, even though he may never be known as an Old Master of his era. The work does, however, combine many factors that I find appealing.

He may be best known for extravagant use of gold leaf in his paintings. That's been done since the middle ages, to highlight images of exceptional value. Klimt, however, seemed to use it in an ironic way, to fill the least important parts of his paintings. Flat, featureless planes of gold just framed what really mattered, the human figures.

Far more often than not, the figures were female - a fascination I can understand. This book shows very few men at all. The one full adult male figure (in "Here's a Kiss") is blocky and crude. Klimt's women, however, expressed everything there in in the human condition.

"Sonja Knips" is an early painting, and shows how much meaning Klimt could assign to one person. Sonja is a young, willowy woman in the full dress of the time. Her expression, however, is piercing and alert. Her pose is seated, but ready - something in her approaches the tension of a runner at the starting blocks.

Other paintings cover the whole range of human reality and myth. "Danae" depicts that woman's beauty, innocence, and violation, but with drawing-room elegance. "Hope", more than once, appears in the figure of a woman pregnant and near full term. "Woman Friends" shows two lovely and delicate figures, but hints at the strength of a physical friendship.

This book starts with a brief, informative biography of Klimt, including a three-page time line. The rest of the book reproduces a selection of his paintings. Sometimes, just a detail is shown from a larger work. I know that the whole painting, reproduced on the page, would shrink important features below visibility. Still I think more attention could have been paid to those wholes.

It's an enjoyable book, though. It's informative without being dry and scholarly, and it focuses on the paintings themselves. The book is interesting in its own right, and interesting enough to encourage more study of his work.

//wiredweird ... Read more