pulled back behind the neck. Neither would look out of place in the eighteenth or even seventeenth century. Their sensuality is matronly, motherly, their nudity decorous rather than exciting.
In the past, pubic hair had – if this part of the body was revealed at all – traditionally been glossed over into a smooth and non-threatening ‘v’ reminiscent of modern-day children’s dolls. Many early medieval or Renaissance paintings which had shown even the suggestion of male or female genitalia had suffered the absurd addition of a floating fig leaf painted in by later, more prudish, types. But even as early as 1896, Klimt had begun to be more explicit in the way he chose to depict the human figure.
Two Girls with Oleander, 1890.
Oil on canvas, 55 × 128.5 cm,
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford (Connecticut).
Woman near the Fire, 1897–1898.
Oil on canvas, 41 × 66 cm.
Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna.
There is, for example, an interesting difference between the final drawing for Sculpture and the painting itself. In the drawing we already see the trademark loose, wild, dark hair and the faintest traces of pubic hair. The woman gazes directly at the viewer, standing as if caught naked in her bedroom doorway, summoning the viewer to caress her. The painting, by contrast, has reverted to a more traditional style: gone is the frontal stance, with the reappearance of the classical sculptural pose. Up goes the hair and the pubic hair disappears.
Secession
These early commissions established Klimt as a successful and prominent artist. Following the death of his father and brother Ernst in 1892, there seems to have been a distinct cooling-off in the working relationship between Klimt and Matsch as Klimt began to explore more adventurous subjects.
In 1894, Matsch moved out of their shared studio, and in 1897 Klimt, together with his closest friends, resigned from the Künstlerhausgenossenschaft (the Cooperative Society of Austrian Artists) to form a new movement known as the Secession, of which he was immediately elected president.
The Golden Knight (Life is a Fight), 1903.
Oil, tempera and gold on canvas, 103.5 × 103.7 cm.
Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan.
The Beethoven Frieze: Suffering Humanity, Ambition, Compassion and the Knight in Shining Armor (left panel, detail), 1902.
Casein on plaster, height: 220 cm.
Secession, Vienna.
The Secession was a great success, holding both a first and a second exhibition in 1898. The movement made enough money to commission their very own building, designed for them by the architect Joseph Maria Olbrich. Above the entrance was their motto: “To each age its art, to art its freedom”. The Secession not only came to represent the best of Austrian art, but was also successful in the bringing together of Viennese-French Impressionist and Belgian Naturalist works, which had never before been seen by the Austrian public.
Klimt was undoubtedly the central figure in this young and dynamic movement, but his success as a modern artist went hand in hand with the loss of his status as an accepted and established painter.
As he moved away from his traditional beginnings, he soon found himself at the centre of a series of scandals, which were to change his entire career.
Scandal
In 1894, Klimt and Matsch had received a commission to produce a series of paintings for the University of Vienna. The subjects Klimt was assigned were philosophy, medicine, and jurisprudence. The nature of the commission can easily be imagined: the university would be expecting a series of dignified, formal paintings in classical style depicting the wisdom of philosophers, the healing virtues of medicine, and doubtless a statuesque blindfolded female figure holding a pair of scales and representing justice.
The Beethoven Frieze: The Gorgons (central panel, detail), 1902.
Casein on plaster, height: 220 cm.
Secession, Vienna.
Cow Shed, 1899.
Oil on canvas, 75 × 76.5 cm.
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Linz.
What they got, several years and much hard work later, caused such a scandal that Klimt eventually repaid the advances he had received and took the paintings back.
Despite the fact that on its first showing in Paris at the World Fair in 1900 Philosophy won him the gold medal, the Viennese were not of the same opinion as the French as to the painting’s merits.
The first appearance of the unfinished Medicine in the following year caused even greater controversy. It is difficult to fathom precisely what Klimt meant to say about medicine in this painting.
The vision is chaotic, almost hellish. Its skulls, wrinkled elderly figures and mass of human bodies speak of human suffering, not of its cure. The viewer’s eyes are drawn inevitably to the two striking female figures at the bottom and top left of the painting. Clearly the figure at the bottom represents Medicine itself as the traditional symbol of the serpent suggests, but rather this art nouveau woman, adorned in gold, looks more like a priestess likely to sacrifice a sick person than to heal them. The naked woman at the top of the picture is remarkable for the dynamic abandonment of her pose. Our eyes are inevitably drawn to the woman’s groin as she flings out her arms in a parody of crucifixion.
The sketch for the figure shows very clearly how bold and excellent a craftsman Klimt was: the heavy line and subtle shading lead our eyes firmly to the woman’s pubic hair. Interestingly though, in the sketch the woman looks as if she may have posed lying down or leaning against something, whereas in the painting she is standing precariously unsupported, as if about to fall.
Both of these, and the other female figures around them, represent a complete departure from the rotund, comfortable women of the traditional nineteenth-century academic style. Klimt’s women are long-haired, slender, lithe, and possess a sexual awareness that is both alluring and almost threatening in its directness.
Klimt’s contemporary, Berta Zuckerkandl, makes the following comment in her memoirs: “Klimt had created from Viennese women an ideal female type: modern, with a boyish figure.”
They had a mysterious fascination; although the word ‘vamp’ was still unknown he drew women with the allure of a Greta Garbo or a Marlene Dietrich long before they actually existed.” (Ich erlebte fünfzig Jahre Weltgeschichte [I Witnessed Fifty Years of World History], Stockholm 1939.) Looking at his 1909 portrait Woman with a Hat and Feather Boa it is easy to see the truth of this statement. The woman’s face, half-hidden by feathers and a hat, looks not unlike a dark-haired version of Marilyn Monroe. The seductively half-closed eyes certainly echo many Monroe poses.
The Secession’s fourteenth exhibition in 1902 led to yet another scandal. The exhibition centred on Max Klinger’s statue of Beethoven. Klimt had decided to contribute
