Gustav Klimt's The Kiss is one of the best- known and loved decorative paintings in the history of art. Its popularity derives, perhaps,from its unique combination of ornateness, realism, and sensuality. These arc qualities which inform all his paintings of women, the subject which exerted a lifelong fascination upon him, whether in formal portraits, brief pencil sketches, or vast mural decorations. Klimt's family was quite impovc,'ished but boa'sted a wealth of artistic talent: his father was a gold-engraver and two of his brothers, Ernst and Georg, were both artists...

Gustav Klimt"s The Kiss is one of the best- known and loved decorative paintings in the history of art. Its popularity derives, perhaps,from its unique combination of ornateness, realism, and sensuality. These arc qualities which inform all his paintings of women, the subject which exerted a lifelong fascination upon him, whether in formal portraits, brief pencil sketches, or vast mural decorations. Klimt"s family was quite impovc,"ished but boa"sted a wealth of artistic talent: his father was a gold-engraver and two of his brothers, Ernst and Georg, were both artists.

Klimt"s earliest works are very accomplished exercises in Renaissance-style allegories, but from the start he revealed a talent for painting decorative works on a monumental scale. The breakthrough to a more personal idiom came in the 1890s when he developed a symbolist style during his involvement with the Vienna Secession which provided a forum for artists who worked outside the norms of academic painting. But Klimt"s best-known works remain those of his "golden period," in the early years of the twentieth century, when he painted such famous works as Judith, Salome, and the Beethoven frieze.

Keith Hartley, an art historian with a special interest in early twentieth-century Germanic art, traces Klimt"s life and work through all the complex stages of his development. He sets his oeuvre in the context of fin-de-siecle Vienna and discusses Klimt"s importance vis5.-vis the modern movement in general and Viennese art in particular. More than 60 of Klimt"s finest works, from early allegories through symbolist images and" golden portraits to lyrical landscapes, are reproduced in large-scale full colour. These are complemented by a selection of preparatory sketches, mosaics, and photographs of the artist and his associates, to make Klimt a beautiful and informative monograph on this most mysterious but alluring artist.

Introduction

Fable

Idyll

Auditorium in the Old Burgtheater

Portrait of the Pianist and Piano Teac Joseph Pembauer

Ancient Greek I and II, Ancient Egyptian I and H

Portrait of a Lady (Frau Heymann ?)

Love

Music I

Tragedy

Portrait of Sonja Knips

Pallas Athene

Medicine

Nuda Veritas

Schubert at the Piano

Portrait of Serena Lederer

Hygieia (detail for Medicine)

Island in the Attersee

Goldfish

Portrait of Emilie Floge

Beech Wood I

Hope I

Water Snakes (Friends I)

Judith I

Beethoven Frieze

Stoclet Frieze

The Three Ages of Woman

Portrait of Margaret

 Stonborough- Wittgenstein

Portrait of Fritza Riedler

Cottage Garden with Sunflowers

The Sunflower

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I

Danae

Hope H

Judith H (Salome)

Schloss Karnmer on the Attersee

Schloss Kammer on the Attersee III

The Kiss

Lady with a Feather Hat

Lady with a Hat and Feather Boa

The Park

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer H

Avenue in the Park of the Schloss Kammer

Portrait of Ma"da Primavesi

Death and Life

The Virgin

Church at Cassone

Portrait of Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt

Unterach on the Attersee

The Friends

Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer

The Dancer

The Bride

Baby

Adam and Eve

Portrait of Johanna Staude

Portrait of a Lady

Portrait of a Lady, Facing

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments