After Egon Schiele (1890-1918) freed himself from the shadow of his mentor and role model Gustav Klimt, he had just ten years to inscribe his signature style into the annals of modernity before the Spanish flu claimed his life. Being a child prodigy quite aware of his own genius and a passionate provocateur, this didn't prove to be too big a challenge.
His haggard, overstretched figures, extreme depiction of sexuality and self-portraits, in which he staged himself with emaciated facial expressions bordering between brilliance and madness, had none of the decorative quality of Klimt's hymns of love, sexuality and yearning devotion. Instead, Schiele's work spoke of a brutal honesty, one that would upset and irreversibly change Viennese society.
Defining Decadence The legacy of Gustav Klimt A century after his death, Viennese artist Gustav Klimt (1862 1918) still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. In this neat, dependable monograph, we gather all of Klimt s major works alongside authoritative art historical commentary and privileged archival material from Klimt s own archive to trace the evolution of his astonishing oeuvre. With top quality illustration, including new photography of the celebrated Stoclet Frieze, the book follows Klimt through his prominent role in the Secessionist movement of 1897, his candid rendering of the female body, and his lustrous golden phase when gold leaf brought a shimmering tone and texture to such beloved works as The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer I, also known as The Woman in Gold.
