Product Description: Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was one of the most brilliant artists of the Austrian avant-garde. Admired for his sensual images of women and his powerful original vision, he became the principal painter of the Art Nouveau movement and produced some of the most haunting and evocative images of all time.
Review by Skid Lo, courtesy of Gunter Kelm This is truly a wonderful book. The paintings are beautifully re-produced and printed. The analysis is in depth and fascinating. I would like an index of all the works contained in the book. Perhaps individual critical analysis of each print would be better, but it's difficult to criticize a book selling for 10 dollar! This book was originally published in 1990 so it does not have the current developmets of Klimt's art: such as the 2006 auction of Adele Bloch-Bauer I for 135 million dollars - the highest price ever paid for a painting. A B-B I is hardly critiqued in this book. But overall, the book is a must read!
KLIMT by Gottfried Fliedl My disappointment comes from the printing process rather than the content, which is chock full of color plates of Klimt's paintings and some great photos of Klimt's life and times. All of the color plates and the photos are printed soft-edged and the wonderful vibrant golds are somehow absent. None the less, it is a lovely book with a very good text and a marvelous range of his work.
Revealing, Educational and Loads of Photos First of all, the book is not covered as shown in the amazon photo which shows the famous "kiss" painting. The book, apparently updated in 2006, shows a cover photo of Klimt's famous Danae (1907-8) oil on canvas painting. I think this cover is more provacative and more organic and softer than the famed Kiss painting which reveals a couple entwined in gold looking rather stiff. Danae was certainly a better choice for the cover. The book is definitely not written for the casual art reader. It is written with extreme depth as what I'd expect from a historian of the arts on a university research level. As verbose as it is, it has plenty, if not hundreds of photos of the famous works, including all of Klimt's paintings and lesser known sketches. The author discusses several of Klimt's famous paintings in depth and reviews various critics of Klimt's time period as well as Klimt's personal opinions and struggles. Culture, politics, and various movements in the arts is also discussed at length. This book is too deep for the casual browser or reader but makes a great coffee table book if only for the pictures alone. It is a high quality book and the pages are high quality (acid free) and glossy. The painting photos are rich and fully colored, better than other books I've bought on Klimt (where the precious gold paint is reduced to lousy brownish or greenish prints). The gold tones in this book, so famous in Klimt's work, are reproduced extremely well as well as the other vivid colors so characteristic of Klimt's work. It's a bargain to get this book at the price.
Gustav Klimt Over the years, I've only looked at Klimt from the edges - that is, I was aware only of the more popular poster images you couldn't help seeing here and there. But this book is a big revelation to me. Such genius! He is truly amazing, and I had no idea of the range of his thought or the depth of his talent. He was a superb draftsman, which enabled him to take risks with the figure because he knew exactly what he was doing.
A well-designed book - a complete visual pleasure, and fire to the imagination.
Great painting but the book is too small Spend more. get a bigger book. the painting are worth it.
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