Drawing the human figure was Gustav Klimt’s starting point for exploring overarching themes of existence †the cycle of life, human suffering, happiness, love and longing. “Gustav Klimt: The Magic of Line,” on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum July 3⁓eptember 23, is the first major museum exhibition devoted entirely to the modern master’s drawings.
Klimt (Austrian, 1862‱918), the father of Viennese Modernism, is renowned for his ornate paintings, but he was also an exceptionally innovative and gifted draftsman. Featuring more than 100 drawings, many having never before been exhibited in North America, this exhibition traces Klimt’s radical evolution from early academic realism and historical subjects in the mid-1880s to his celebrated Modernist icons that broke new ground in the beginning of the Twentieth Century.
This major loan exhibition was organized by the Albertina Museum, Vienna, in partnership with the J. Paul Getty Museum, to mark the 150th anniversary of Klimt’s birth (July 14, 1862). Throughout 2012, the city of Vienna will celebrate this anniversary with special events and exhibitions in the region, including the exhibition at the Albertina, which houses one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of Klimt drawings.
This thorough chronological examination of Klimt’s drawings begins with those made in his early style of Historicism †popular in the 1880s †that depicted grand historical and mythological scenes in a realistic manner. From its earliest moment, Klimt’s art was based on drawing the human figure from life, as it would be for the rest of his career.
In the mid-1890s, Klimt’s approach to the figure gradually became more ambiguous both formally and psychologically, with modeling and perspective abandoned in favor of the flat plane of the paper or canvas. At the same time, the wider European movement of Symbolism began to influence Klimt’s work, as he rejected optimistic, unambiguous historical subjects and began to investigate troubling psychological and emotional worlds of dreams, melancholy and sexual desire.
In 1897, alongside other young Austrian artists and architects, Klimt broke away from the Vienna “Artists’ House” (Künstlerhaus) †the exhibition venue dominated by academically established painters. Calling themselves the “Secession,” the group sought to revolutionize the visual arts in Vienna. At this time, Klimt took up Symbolism more fully and developed dreamlike themes, including the floating female figures that became a recurring motif in his work. The figures are often cropped at the feet and hands, which heightens the sense that they are floating in space, while paradoxically anchoring them on the page.
This section of the exhibition features masterpieces of Klimt’s graphic art, such as the large drawing “Fish Blood,” made to be reproduced in Ver Sacrum †the Viennese Secession’s art periodical, which is represented in the exhibition by an issue from the collection of the Getty Research Institute. In this gallery on the Secession, visitors will also find familiar images, including studies for Klimt’s famous “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I.”
The Getty Center is at 1200 Getty Center Drive. For information, www.getty.edu or 310-440-7300.
