Gustav Klimt is one of the foremost painters of fin-de-siecle Vienna, and his pictures are widely recognized today for their radical combination of physical realism, technical virtuosity and exploration of a world of instincts and emotions. A prodigious student of the historicist tradition of his time, Klimt became the leader of a young group of intellectuals and artists called the Vienna Secession who sought to separate from the academic realism of their teachers and respond to a historical period imperious in its demand for the “reshuffling of the self.” Their common ground was the rejection of the outworn worship of historical images and their conviction that art must reflect modern life. They desired to create a sensuous art that could provide, if needed, asylum from the pressures and demands of our industrial world. They looked to other artistic inspirations as well, and the story of these inspirations is the central focus of “Golden Boy Gustav Klimt”, the new exhibition of the Van Gogh Museum, organized in collaboration with the Belvedere Museum in Vienna.
Klimt rose to
