Gustav Klimt Quotes

She closed Dan's door and walked down the hall to her room. He makes a good boyfriend, she repeated to herself. What the hell was that suppose to mean? She didn't just want a good boyfriend. She wanted that thing Gustav Klimt had captured so perfectly in The Kiss. That radiant, electric, hold-me-tight-so-I don't-fall-from-up-here-in-the-sky feeling of being in love. Well, don't we all, sweetie?

Truth is like fire; to tell the truth means to glow and burn.

All art is erotic.

I have the gift of neither the spoken nor the written word, especially if I have to say something about myself or my work. Whoever wants to know something about me -as an artist, the only notable thing- ought to look carefully at my pictures and try and see in them what I am and what I want to do.

Whoever wants to know something about me, they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.

Happy he who forgets what cannot be changed.

Any nonsense can attain importance by virtue of being believed by millions of people,” Einstein

to every age its art; to art its freedom.

The lawyer was Randol Schoenberg, the grandson of a venerated Viennese composer who had fled the rise of Hitler. The return of this ominous heir was anything but welcome. The painting Schoenberg sought was a shimmering gold masterpiece, painted a century earlier, by the artistic heretic Gustav Klimt. It was a portrait of a Viennese society beauty, Adele Bloch-Bauer.

Vienna art institutions had turned out to be more corrupt than Klimt had ever imagined.

Then a new generation emerged, of Austrians who did not drink from the communal well of self-pity, denial, and deceit.

Even before the First World War there was a strain in European art and music – in Germany more than anywhere – that was turning from ripeness to over-ripeness and then into something else. The last strains of the Austro-German Romantic tradition – exemplified by Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Gustav Klimt – seemed almost to have destroyed itself by reaching a pitch of ripeness from which nothing could follow other than complete breakdown. It was not just that their subject matter was so death-obsessed, but that the tradition felt as though it could not be stretched any further or innovated any more without snapping. And so it snapped: in modernism and then post-modernism.

antithetical to the new Germanic cultural identity undermined

of dark passageways, their footsteps echoing. Schoenberg

where

Repentance was scarce. Austria was awash in self-pity.

In this bleak Vienna, there was almost no one left who had not betrayed the decency of Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt.

The racially loaded culture wars of turn-of-the-century Vienna were on. It was only a matter of time before “degenerate” would be aimed at Jews.

This intensely lyrical vision of the pregant woman in [i]Hope I[i] is set in an ambiguous context peopled with masks, death's heads and allegorical monsters such as Sin, Disease, Poverty and Death, all threatening the incipient life.

Austrians were allowed to paper over their pasts and portray themselves as unwilling participants. They felt sorry for themselves, and for the proud family names sullied with the taint of Nazi collaboration. The Cold War began in earnest, and the West was eager to hang on to Austria. A 1948 amnesty brought a premature end to Austrian de-Nazification. Austrians began to deny their jubilant welcome of Hitler and to claim that Austria had been “occupied” by Germany, like

Then, improbably, a door opened. In 1948, the state of Israel was declared…Nelly loved her new home from the moment she saw the ancient stones of Jerusalem in the desert sun. She was not a Zionist, or a partisan. She was an orphan of a hostile world. Now she had a refuge. A place where people who had lived through hell were embracing life, joy, idealism, and love.

A palavra falada, tal como a palavra escrita não me saem facilmente e muito menos quando tenho de me expressar sobre mim mesmo ou sobre o meu trabalho. (...) Aquele que pretende saber algo sobre mim - na qualidade de artista porque apenas esta minha faceta é digna de interesse - deve olhar atentamente para os meus quadros e tentar depreender deles o que sou e o que pretendo.

Research from Denis Dutton, Brian Boyd, V.S. Ramachandran, William Hirstein and E.O. Wilson, among many others, is clear on the subject: we are enticed by forms, shapes, rhythms and movements that are useful to our existence. We find Vermeer’s “The Girl with the Pearl Earring,” beautiful, for example, because her face is symmetrical, a clue to her strong immune system2. As the neuroscientist Eric Kandel suggests in The Age of Insight, we are fascinated by Gustav Klimt’s Judith because “at a base level, the aesthetics of the image’s luminous gold surface, the soft rendering of the body, and the overall harmonious combination of colors could activate the pleasure circuits, triggering the release of dopamine. If Judith’s smooth skin and exposed breast trigger the release of endorphins, oxytocin, and vasopressin, one might feel sexual excitement.

Sam was different. Sleek. Brooding and angular. An Egon Schiele portrait. Schiele if she remembered correctly had been a protégé of Gustav Klimt and had a propensity for drawing himself in the nude.

Some elements appear in this picture which would be decisive in Klimt's subsequent work: for instance, the use of gold and the transformation of anatomy into ornamentation, of ornamentation into anatomy.

Eros and Thanatos were always the source of his inspiration, even though, from this time on, they usually appear in the guise of two simple and fundamental themes: flowers and women. These themes offered him the greatest opportunity to give a certain permanence to all that can be grasped in passing: an ephemeral sensual joy, the ecstasy of life.

I could still remember the sharp scent of varnish and turpentine in my nose, the careful, steady hands of the man bent over a Gustav Klimt painting. I’d watched raptly as the man carefully peeled back the layers of dirt and the patina of time from the old canvas. One side was dull and grey-brown, the other slowly coming to life in vivid color the way it had looked at its inception. It was magic. The purest form I’d ever seen. Something about it resonated with me then as it did now. The idea that with careful dedication, you could unearth your truest self even after years of brutal wear and tear. It gave me hope.

Achter het doek, schilderde de ezel, Gustav Klimt.

This is magnificent,” said Justine. “I’ve never seen anything like it. But I can’t make out the artist’s name?” “It’s by a friend of mine,” said Irene. “His name is not known outside of Vienna, but it will be—I think someday soon, all of Europe will be talking about Gustav Klimt. I was the model for this one. I don’t know if you can see the resemblance.

Ada perasaan yang kadang tak sanggup diungkapkan melebihi perasaan perasaanku. Apa yang bahkan tak mampu aku utarakan kepada seorang ibu. Bagaimana aku menyimpan semuanya sendiri, juga tentang mimpi mimpi yang tak pernah aku ceritakan kepada siapapun termasuk kepada ayahku. Demikian aku belajar untuk mengenali diriku sendiri. Ibuku memiliki sebuah taman kecil yang tersembunyi di samping rumah. Taman yang ia sebut sebagai sanctuary. Tempat di mana ia menanam segala macam perasaan yang ia sebut sebagai kebahagiaan. Kebahagiaan yang tumbuh dari hal hal fana yang tidak aku kenal dan mungkin juga tidak sepenuhnya aku mengerti. Seperti tangan yang mengusik lelap tidurku dan berusaha menciptakan sebuah karya seni yang indah. Ibu adalah sebuah lukisan yang  memenuhi seluruh pikiranku. Ia lebih menakjubkan dari lukisan lukisan karya Rembrandt, Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir atau bahkan Van Gogh sekalipun. Jeli matanya adalah kegairahan musim semi yang menumbuhkan rupa rupa tanaman di dalam taman itu. Ulas senyumnya dan lembut bibirnya adalah kehangatan ciuman matahari yang membuat bunga bunga bermekaran. Dan sentuhan tangannya adalah sihir, belaian sejuk angin yang membuat setiap pohon berbuah. Dan setiap kali aku dapati ia menari. Ia menari dengan seluruh tawa riangnya. Sekujur tubuhnya menari bersama celoteh burung dan goyangan daun daun. Tangannya bergerak gemulai serupa awan berarak setiap kali ia menyebar benih, mencabut rumput, mematahkan ranting kering, atau memangkas daun daun yang menguning. Ada lompatan perasaan yang tak terlukiskan setiap kali ia melakukan hal itu, seperti seolah ia sedang jatuh cinta lagi. Bukan kepada ayahku melainkan kepada dirinya sendiri. Sebab, di dalam diri ayahku aku temukan bayang bayang lain yang seakan tak mau pergi. Bayang bayang yang tak mampu meninggalkan dirinya bahkan di tengah kegelapan malam. Ayah adalah sebuah patung kayu yang usang dan berdebu. Ia menyembunyikan segala sesuatu dan menjadikannya rahasia yang ia simpan sendiri. Seperti sebuah pintu yang terkunci dan anak kuncinya hilang entah kemana. Tapi ia tak pernah bertengkar dengan ibu. Mereka juga tak pernah beradu mulut atau menunjukkan amarah antara satu dengan yang lain. Sepanjang yang mampu aku ingat, mereka adalah pasangan yang harmonis. Walau tak pernah sungguh berdekatan dalam artian yang sebenarnya. Setelah bertahun tahun lamanya, mereka masing masing tenggelam dalam dunia yang mereka ciptakan sendiri. Sejak kanak kanak, aku tak berani masuk ke dalam sanctuary ibuku. Aku hanya berani mengintip dari balik keranjang cucian dan tumpukan pakaian yang hendak dijemur. Dari balik ranting dan juga rimbun dedaunan yang tumbuh di dalam pot pot besar berwarna hitam yang menyembunyikan tubuh telanjang ibuku yang berkilauan ditempa matahari. Pernah sebelumnya aku menangkap sebuah isyarat dari tarian hujan yang ia ciptakan, ketika merdu tawanya berderai di antara dengung suara pompa dan guyuran air yang turun tiba tiba dari langit. Suara hujan itu keras berdentang di atas genteng galvalum dan menimbulkan suara berisik. Dan raga  ibu yang berpendar kehijauan seolah terbang ke langit menyambut suara guntur dan halilintar. Kadang kadang aku menangkap bayangan tubuh ibuku berjalan hilir mudik di dalam sanctuary itu entah dengan siapa. Acap aku dengar ia tertawa tergelak gelak. Suaranya bergema seperti di dalam gua. Aku selalu mengira ia tak pernah sendirian, selalu ada orang orang yang datang menemaninya entah darimana. Sering kulihat ia menjelma menjadi burung dengan warna bulu yang memesona atau menjadi bidadari yang cantik dengan sepasang sayap berwarna jingga keemasan. Dan dari balik perdu yang merayap di dinding, aku dapat melihat senyumnya yang sangat menawan, seperti menyentil kesadaranku dan membuatku terbangun dari mimpi.

Our next stop was Terceira’s surest shot for a tourist attraction: Algar do Carvão, probably the only known place in the world where you can walk inside the cone of a volcano. There was an initial explosion some three thousand two hundred years ago, and then two thousand years ago another eruption at the same site spewed molten lava inside the mountain. When the lava drained, it left chambers whose rock walls were as varied in colors of bronzes and golds as the cloak of the lover in the Gustav Klimt painting The Kiss.

Her, though! Once when I was in high school she caught me doing something or other, imitating my Spanish teacher, perhaps with a pair of tights on my head, and said, like someone at the end of her rope, “What are you, a queer?” I’d been called a sissy before, not by her but by plenty of other people. That was different, though, as the word was less potent, something used by children. When my mother called me a queer, my face turned scarlet and I exploded. “Me? What are you talking about? Why would you even say a thing like that?” Then I ran down to my room, which was spotless, everything just so, the Gustav Klimt posters on the walls, the cornflower-blue vase I’d bought with the money I earned babysitting. The veil had been lifted, and now I saw this for what it was: the lair of a blatant homosexual. That would have been as good a time as any to say, “Yes, you’re right. Get me some help!” But I was still hoping that it might be a phase, that I’d wake up the next day and be normal. In the best of times, it seemed like such a short leap. I did fantasize about having a girlfriend—never the sex part, but the rest of it I had down. I knew what she’d

The discovery of a golden scroll in a child’s grave near Vienna with a Jewish prayer—“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is Our God! The Lord is One!”—placed the Jewish presence at least as far back as the third century, suggesting Jews were co-founders of Roman Austria.

Like many things and many people in Austria, the bunker beneath the Belvedere possessed a mysterious pedigree.

In fact, Hitler was the beneficiary of kindness from Jewish Viennese…The Jewish owner of a frame and window store, Samuel Morgenstern, became the buyer of Hitler’s drawings and watercolors. Morgenstern, a kind, entirely self-made man, felt sorry for Hitler and managed to interest his customers in Hitler’s mediocre architectural scenes…

The Jew is not a burden upon the Charities of the State, nor of the city. When he is well enough to work, he works; when he is incapacitated his own people take care of him,” Twain wrote a friend in Vienna. “His race is entitled to be called the most benevolent of all the races of men.

To please many is immoral.

Adele’s life was a triumph of Jewish assimilation, but her portrait was a relic of assimilation’s tragic failure. Adele symbolized one of the most brilliant moments in time, but also one of the world’s greatest thefts: of all that was lost when one woman and an entire people were stripped of their identity, their dignity, and their lives.

Hitler was Austrian, though the world forgets this.