Gustav Klimt and the Modern Woman

The profound search for modern man must at some point lead, naturally, to the female, who was bound by the spirit of modernity to be more explicit than ever before. Klimt’s study of themes of sexuality and “femaleness” guided his work and the evolution of his style. As one might predict, the moralistic bindings of 19th century culture were not unspecific about the realm of acceptable behavior, especially when it came to sexuality. It would most likely not be unfair to call the bourgeoisie situation in many respects utterly stultifying—after all, where else did Freud get his patients? There are countless testaments, including the works of Klimt, to the idea that behind Victorian restrictions on sexuality lay, especially in women, a sexual appetite which moved beyond simple repression. Peter Gay in his work, Schnitzler’s Century: The Making Of Middle-Class Culture, 1815-1914, wrote of a middle class woman named Alma Schindler who, through her diary, exhibits a kind of sexual frustration which is clearly a result of her conservative bourgeois principles battling with her sexual nature. “She must have exuded an erotic energy that made men notice, and more than notice her,” Gay writes. “What made her all the more alluring is that she apparently scattered intimations that keeping her virginity, after all still the reigning bourgeois convention in her circles, was increasingly at odds with her appetite for sexual gratification.” Gay uses Schindler’s diary as an illustration of the true nature of turn of the century views on sex. He points out that of her later sexual experiences (shared with her first husband, Gustav Mahler), “all her diary reveals is ‘Bliss and rapture’ on January 3, and ‘rapture without end’ the day after . . . But even if the information the historian is seeking in Alma Schindler’s confessions is tantalizingly incomplete, he is left after reading her excited pages with yet one more piece of evidence that not all respectable women of Schnizler’s day were frigid.”
Klimt, in fact, had his own brief flirtation with the appealing Alma Schindler. According to Gay, “his line of seduction, which he tried out evidently with fair success, was that only ‘complete physical union’ turned affectionate relations into true love.” Though, “as a well-brought-up young lady,” she did not fall for his line, the few kisses they shared got her quite excited. [Gay, Peter. Schnitzler’s Century: The Making Of Middle-Class Culture, 1815-1914. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1923. Pages 266-7]. Klimt, it seems, had a somewhat predictable fascination with middle class sexuality. It is rumored, in fact, that when commissioned to paint portraits of society ladies as he often was, rather than simply painting the women he would instead sketch them in their homes and paint them later in his studio. The reason for this, reportedly, is that first from his sketch he would paint the women nude, and only after that would he continue the portrait, painting clothes on over the flesh. Only after his death, when his usually locked studio was finally excavated, was this discovered.
Sensuality is manifested in Klimt’s work through the twining forms, swirls, and geometric patterns which often engulf the flattened features of women, whose two-dimensional nature give them a quality of fantasy, transforming them from person to idea or embodiment. His characteristic gold, tin and copper pigments shine brightly within the paint, tracing sinuous lines and creating glittering surfaces. Often, garments and surroundings are transformed into individually expressive forms, so close to abstract art that they could probably stand on their own, as in the 1907 “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I” or “The Kiss” of the same year. Females are swept up or engulfed in expressive shapes, colors, movements, and flowing lines, as in “Water Snakes” or “Danae.” The messages are diverse—sometimes, as depicted through the twining garments of “The Kiss” or the threat of Judith’s gnarled claws in 1909’s “Salome (Judith II),” there are elements of fear mixed in with imagery alluding to the idea that sex, a chaos of indulgence and temptation, ensnares. As put by Schorske, “In his exploration of the erotic, Klimt banished the moral sense of sin that had plagued the righteous fathers. But in its place arose a fear of sex that haunted many of the sensitive sons. Woman, like the Sphinx, threatens the male . . . The new freedom was turning into a nightmare of anxiety.” [Schorske, Carl E. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, Politics and Culture. New York: Random House, 1981. Pages 224-5] Having dissolved a key belief of the traditional hierarchy from his palette, Klimt subsequently revealed an appropriately Freudian modern problem. Here is a prime example of how Klimt’s search for the modern man leads to an unearthing of much internal trepidation.