Classical Symbolism

As a child of Vienna, Klimt had been raised in a world ruled by classical metaphors and narrated almost exclusively through ancient myths and legends. It was with those classical gods—Zeus, Athena, Apollo, and countless other strict and discerning figures who loomed over the proceedings of everyday life—that Klimt first posed the question and later explored the answer to the question of the Secession: who is man today? In the words of Carl E. Schorske, “like Freud with his passion for archaic culture and archeological excavation, Klimt uses classical symbols to serve as a metaphorical bridge to the excavation of the instinctual, especially of the erotic life.” [Schorske, Carl E. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, Politics and Culture. New York: Random House, 1981. Pages 222-223]. Tones of eroticism, elegance, seriousness, gaudiness, luxury, and beauty are all mixed together in these forms which are sometimes chaste, sometimes “obscene.” Those works depicting classical figures, such as Apollo, Athena, Judith and Holofernes, are revolutionized by a new, and in the case of the 1898 “Pallas Athena,” somewhat threatening, layer of sensuality. No longer are these themes comfortingly “safe” or conventional—Klimt has stripped them of their tired symbolism and given them real meaning again, a true statement to the eyes of the new generation. Conservatives of the time called it perversion, but today, despite this (or perhaps because of it), we call it “modern.”