Gustav Klimt: In Search of the Total Artwork

For much of his career, Gustav Klimt was at the center of a movement taking hold in Viennese culture, the goal of which was to create unity among art forms: fine arts, architecture and design. This movement transformed the city, physically and philosophically, and made Klimt a celebrity. This gorgeous exhibition catalog highlights many of Klimt's most important works and traces the significant stages of the artist's career: his involvement with the Viennese Secession, his collaboration with the Wiener Werkstatte, and his role as the foremost portraitist and landscape painter of the Jugendstil period. In this volume, readers will find beautiful color illustrations of Klimt's masterpieces. His famous Beethoven Frieze is reproduced in its entirety. His paintings Judith I and Adam and Eve, superb examples of Klimt's experiments with gold and mosaic style, allow close inspection of every detail. Other sumptuous paintings display the broad range of Klimt's oeuvre, while his drawings and erotic sketches offer an intimate glimpse into his artistic process and technique. Essays from the world's foremost scholars on Klimt shine light on his personal life and the various influences on his work.