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Klimts the kiss3/15/2023 Instead the spotlight is very much on the Klimts. The Amsterdam exhibition title puts the spotlight on the influence of three key artists-Rodin, Matisse and Van Gogh-but they are sparsely represented in the show. And he was a master at extracting from all these influences the elements that most suited his artistic aims and independently adapting these to his needs.” © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) and Kunsthaus Zug (Stiftung Sammlung Kamm)Īs Emilie Gordenker, director the Van Gogh Museum, points out: “Klimt observed and absorbed the artistic trends of his day. Two telling juxtapositions are presented in the current Amsterdam exhibition.ĭetails of Van Gogh’s Daubigny’s Garden (July 1890) and Klimt’s Italian Garden Landscape (1913) The colour contrasts in Klimt’s landscapes become stronger and the compositions more stylised. The impact of Van Gogh is most apparent in Klimt’s paintings of the early 1910s. He also encountered the Dutchman’s work in the homes of several prominent Viennese collectors and probably during a visit to Paris in 1909. Klimt later saw Van Gogh’s work at key exhibitions in Vienna: a one-man show at the commercial Galerie Miethke (1906) run by the artist/dealer Carl Moll, a huge presentation of modern art known as the Internationale Kunstschau (1909) and a later display of New Art at Miethke (1913). But when the Klimt exhibition moves to Vienna, The Plain at Auvers will be a centrepiece. This painting is also missing from the Van Gogh Museum’s exhibition, because its loan is being requested for an important show in Amsterdam next May on Van Gogh’s Auvers period. The Plain at Auvers (July 1890) was purchased for what would become the Belvedere gallery. © Belvedere, Vienna and Austrian National Library, Vienna Van Gogh’s The Plain at Auvers (July 1890) and a photograph of the 1903 Secession exhibition (with the Van Gogh circled in red) As it closed, the Secession made the courageous decision to become the first institution to buy a Van Gogh for a museum. It included six Van Gogh works (five were recorded in the 1903 catalogue, but the curators have now established that one of the Sunflowers on a yellow background was also included). Klimt discovered Van Gogh in 1903, when a group of radical artists known as the Secession (which he had helped establish) held a pathbreaking exhibition on Impressionism. But the show does include some fabulous Klimts, such as Water Serpents II (1904-7), which is unveiled after being hidden away in private collections for over 60 years. Although The Kiss (Lovers) (1908) is not actually in the exhibition, the masterpiece somehow hovers over the show, as an omnipresent icon. After Amsterdam, the show will travel to the Lower Belvedere in Vienna (3 February-). With allusions to the Austrian artist’s greatest hit, the show is entitled Golden Boy Gustav Klimt: Inspired by Van Gogh, Rodin, Matisse (until 8 January 2023). But a new exhibition, opening at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, throws fresh light on the Viennese artist and his debt to European avant-garde predecessors and contemporaries. The Viennese government bought the work even before the exhibition had ended, as it was deemed a national interest.In Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, an entwined couple set against a golden background may seem far away from the art of Van Gogh, who had died 18 years earlier. However despite this, the exhibition actually initiated the astronomical success of The Kiss. The event was received with fierce criticism and ended in financial disaster. Additionally, after breaking away from the Secession, Klimt organised The Kunstschau exhibition where he presented The Kiss for the first time to the public. Although Klimt left the movement due to disagreements, he remained its main representative along with Egon Schiele. They explored the power of a delicate touch, an embrace, a kiss, a moment of violence or an erotic scene. The Vienna Secessionists painted “what they shouldn’t have painted”, refusing to remove sexual elements from their works. This group aimed to break ties with the Academy of Fine Arts and its conservative values. Moreover, he had just left the Vienna Secession, despite having founded and acted as the first president of the movement. The paintings were described as pornographic, and Klimt had reservations about his work and corrupted reputation. He had just received scathing criticism for his University of Vienna ceiling paintings, Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence. Klimt painted The Kiss at a critical moment in his career: in the midst of an artistic panic. His other works in this series, Philosophy and Jurisprudence, were also destroyed. The only complete photograph of Klimt’s renowned piece Medicine, which was destroyed by the Nazis during WWII.
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