Today we will get acquainted with the painting "Three Ages of a Woman", by Gustav Klimt. He is called one of the most refined artists of the 20th century. His works are so frank that at one time people were divided into two camps. On those who considered them brilliant, and those who called it "perversion". But the painting “Three Ages of a Woman” became the most interesting and discussed. He wrote it in 1905. A hundred years have passed, and talk about it still does not cease.
Looking through this work, at the same time we feel both joy and sadness.
It depicts three female figures. This story shows us the life of one woman in three stages. She is carefree, peaceful and hopeless. The image of a young girl in her arms with a child comes out of the ornamental pattern, and an elderly lady stands out from the crowd. There is a huge contrast between them. Aged. And in the way of the image. The young woman is conveyed in a generalized way, and the natural old woman carries a special meaning. The first image is associated with endless possibilities and changes, and the second only brings conflicts with reality. The work completely chains us, gets into our soul and calls us to think about the message that Klimt left.
He expressed on this canvas the longing for fleeting time and fleeting beauty. Not only the plot of the work is amazing, but also its execution. The figures flow into each other. A small child pressed against the chest of a young girl, behind whom an old grandmother is standing and waiting. He conveyed youth in the picture with a delicate blue color, and old age with a characteristic yellowing tint, thanks to which, fear looks even more repulsive.
Leaving alone the image of old age, an elderly woman who covered her face with her hands, in this way presents the image of youth and eternal beauty.
Amazing, because death is an integral part of our being and existence, but Klimt is not at all pleasant, he does not like that helplessness and loss of beauty of a woman. When she gets old. But the image of a young woman with a child gives us a symbol of the rebirth of life, and here he very subtly felt the female nature. As you can see, this picture has a deep meaning. Old age stands on the same step with death, and youth brings an understanding of the cycle of life. To date, the painting is kept in the collection of the Rome National Gallery of Modern Art. And at the beginning of this century, a commemorative gold coin was issued in Italy, on which there is a part of this picture.
Contemporary Art, Rome
"Three Ages of Woman" is a painting by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt.
History of creation
The picture was painted by the artist in 1905. In 1908, this and 15 other paintings by Klimt were exhibited at the exhibition.
Description
The canvas symbolizes the cycle of life, which is one of the central motifs of Klimt's work. The artist expressed the opposition of youth and old age with stylistic contrasts and differences in the perception of reality. On the one hand, a young woman with a sleeping child in her arms - mundane Madonna, itself immersed in a state similar to a dream, passive, stylized, woven into the ornamental background of the canvas. On the other side, an old woman in profile, covering her face in despair. Thus, the contrast between the stylized image of a young woman and the naturalistic image of an old woman acquires a symbolic meaning: the first phase of life brings with it endless possibilities and metamorphoses, the last one - unchanging constancy and conflict with reality.
Confession
In 1911, the painting "Three Ages of Woman" was awarded a gold medal at the international exhibition in Rome, and in 1912 the painting was acquired by Rome's National Gallery of Modern Art.
In 2003, a 50 euro commemorative gold coin was issued in Italy, the obverse of which depicts a fragment of Klimt's painting The Three Ages of a Woman. [ ]
Gustav Klimt is an Austrian painter, a world-renowned master of depicting the female body. At one time, the artist gained scandalous fame with works “saturated” with undisguised eroticism.
For the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, paintings of such a frank content seemed too bold and shocked art connoisseurs who were accustomed to the work of the masters of the classical school. But outrageousness did not become an obstacle to fame, which Klimt was favored in abundance during his lifetime. Representatives of European Art Nouveau consider Klimt the founder of the trend. Today, the master's paintings are sold for fabulous money.
Childhood and youth
By nationality, Gustav Klimt is an Austrian, but Czech blood also flowed in his veins from his father, a jeweler, whose childhood and youth were spent in Bohemia. In her youth, the mother of the future painter also lived in art - she dreamed of becoming a musician. The plans were interrupted by a large family: Gustav - the second oldest of the seven offspring of Klimts, 3 sons and 4 daughters.
The brightest representative of Art Nouveau was born in the summer of 1862 in Penzing, one of the 23 districts of Vienna. Grew up in Baumgarten. Penzing is famous for its picturesque nature, because it is located on a spur of the Eastern Alps, and one third of the area is covered by the Vienna Woods.
The work of his father, a gold engraver, did not bring income that would allow the family to live in abundance. But all the children of Ernest and Anna Klimt, when they grew up, chose art. The sons became artists, the daughters made a career in the fashion industry.
The first steps in the creative biography of little Gustav were made under the guidance of his father, who taught his son to mix paints and apply strokes to the canvas. At the age of 14, the young artist became a student at an arts and crafts school in Vienna. A year later, Gustav's brother, Ernst, also entered the educational institution operating at the Austrian Museum.
Klimt chose to specialize in architectural painting. The idol of the young man during his studies turned out to be Hans Makart, who worked in the historical genre. Surprisingly, in his student years, the future star of modernity differed from his progressive comrades in that he respected the conservative ambush of academic education.
Painting
In the early 1880s, the brothers Gustav and Ernst, together with their friend Franz Mac, painted the theaters of the Austro-Hungarian province with frescoes. In the mid-1880s, young artists decorated the court theater and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, for which Franz Joseph awarded the most talented of the trinity, Gustav Klimt, the Golden Cross. The imperial award, received at the age of 26, opened the way to glory for him. The painter became an honorary member of the universities of Vienna and Munich.
In the early 1890s, Gustav Klimt's father and brother died one after another. Grief from the loss of loved ones left an imprint on the master's work - he soon developed an individual style that made the paintings recognizable. At this tragic time, Klimt met his muse Emilia Flöge, with whom he did not part until the end of his life.
In the second half of the 1890s, the future founder of Art Nouveau led a group of artists called the Vienna Secession. Young Austrian rebels rejected the limits of academic painting, surprising and shocking society with too bold works.
The first works of Klimt, which brought him scandalous fame, were design. In 1894, he received an order for 3 paintings for the ceiling of the assembly hall of the University of Vienna, which he finished 6 years later. The presentation of the paintings "Philosophy", "Medicine" and "Jurisprudence" to society turned into a scandal.
Outraged conservative citizens called the work pornography and called for the painter to be imprisoned. Gustav Klimt did not take government orders anymore, but he did not give up painting female nudes. At the same time, eroticism and sensuality in his canvases did not cross the fine line, beyond which they would turn into vulgarity and vulgarity.
The end of the 1890s is called the "golden period" in the work of the Art Nouveau master. For the works of this time, Klimt used gold leaf, the paintings of the late 1890s are the most expensive and famous. The famous "Kiss" is a vivid example of Art Nouveau, reminiscent of the beauty of the Venetian mosaic. The image of the painting is often used to decorate champagne glasses.
In 1899, Gustav Klimt again caused a shock by presenting to the public a canvas called "Naked Truth". The symbolic naked red-haired girl with a mirror in her hand personified this very “naked truth”. The painter responded to a flurry of criticism, as expected from a brilliant brawler, with a new painting with the same outrageous "character". Called "Goldfish", she showed the public the "fifth point" of the same beauty with fiery hair and magnificent forms.
Gustav Klimt was a darling of fate. He was extolled during his lifetime. The fashion master was bombarded with orders, which were generously paid. He could choose topics and plots that seemed interesting. But everywhere an obligatory element was female bodies and undisguised eroticism.
The most famous paintings of the “golden period” of the Austrian Art Nouveau guru are called, in addition to “The Kiss” and “Naked Truth”, the canvases “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer”, “Water Snakes”, “Hope”, “Three Ages of a Woman” and “Tree love." The last work - a fresco, painted in 1905-1909, can be seen in the Brussels Stoclet Palace. The fresco has other names - "Tree of Knowledge" and "Tree of Life".
The legacy of Gustav Klimt is also landscapes painted in his "signature" style of painting. For them, the master took square canvases, believing that such a form “expands” the space. In the last five years of his life, Klimt painted only landscapes. The most famous are "Apple Tree" and "Birch Grove".
Personal life
The temperament of the modernist was legendary. Klimt's contemporaries whispered that Gustav had connections with almost every model. The master is credited with paternity of 14 to 40 children born to ladies who ordered portraits, models and simply "priestesses of love", to whom he paid money. They say that young ladies of noble families lined up and were ready for a lot, just to get a precious portrait by Gustav Klimt himself.
In fairness, it must be said that there was another opinion: the artist was not interested in carnal intimacy, he was a supporter of platonic relationships. But this version seems doubtful when Klimt's biographers talk about a shameful, but very common disease in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, suffered by the artist. Gustav was awarded syphilis by a girl of easy virtue. The fact is played up in the feature film "Klimt", which premiered in 2006.
No matter how many women were in Gustav's bed, the main muse, who remained in the status of a bride, was Emilia Flöge, a talented fashion designer and owner of a fashion house. He asked her to call when he was dying. Their relationship lasted 27 years, but never ended in marriage and offspring.
Connoisseurs of Klimt's work noticed that the master liked two types of women that he painted all his life. These are lush red-haired beauties (such is “Danae”) and brunettes with delicate features and figures of boys (“Adel Bloch-Bauer”).
Death
The famous Austrian painter died in February 1918. The cause of death of 55-year-old Klimt was pneumonia, which turned out to be fatal after suffering a stroke.
The artist's final resting place was the Hitzing Cemetery in Vienna. Gustav Klimt left dozens of paintings he started unfinished.
Russian connoisseurs of art nouveau in October 2017 had a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the work of Gustav Klimt. An exhibition of graphic works by two famous representatives of Art Nouveau - Gustav Klimt and - was held at the Pushkin Museum. .
Artworks
- 1899-1907 - "Philosophy"
- 1899-1907 - "Medicine"
- 1899-1907 - "Jurisprudence"
- 1901-1902 - "Goldfish"
- 1903 - "Birch Grove"
- 1903 - "Hope"
- 1904-1907 - "Water Serpents"
- 1905 - "Three Ages of a Woman"
- 1905-1909 - "The Tree of Love"
- 1906 - "Adel Bloch-Bauer"
- 1907–08 - The Kiss
- 1907-1908 - "Danae"
- 1912 - "Apple Tree I"
- 1913 - "Innocence"
- 1917 - "Adam and Eve"
The name of the famous Austrian artist, graphic artist and book illustrator Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) is inextricably linked with Art Nouveau, and his paintings are its most striking manifestation. Klimt was one of the most interesting and sought-after representatives of the world fine arts. He never sought to demonstrate to the public his exclusivity. He worked quietly, calmly, doing only what he considered necessary, and, meanwhile, there were not so many masters in the world who would have been so favored by the public, showered with orders and did not experience financial difficulties. This is one of the mysteries of Klimt. Klimt was born in the family of an engraver and jeweler near Vienna. The father could not achieve prosperity with the help of his craft. The family will get out of poverty only after Gustav, having graduated from the School of Decorative Arts, together with his brother Ernst and friend Franz Match, will create a company for the implementation of artistic and decorative works. Within a few years, while the company existed, Klimt won the fame of the best painter-decorator in Austria. However, the artist was not satisfied with himself, his style. Everything was still ahead. The first features of his unique style appeared for the first time in the murals of the Grand Staircase of the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum, created in 1890-1891. In 1897, Klimt headed the Secession, an association of artists created in opposition to official art. In 1900, he began work proposed by the University of Vienna, and presented the painting of one of the plafonds - "Philosophy". It was then that the scandal erupted. On this ceiling, and then on the next - "Medicine" and "Jurisprudence" - the artist violated all the laws of color and composition, combining the incongruous. On his panel, a person appears as a slave of his nature, obsessed with pain, sex and death. Such a Klimt both shocked and fascinated. But the scandal ended with the fact that the artist, having borrowed money, returned the advance to the university, and kept the work for himself. There were so many orders that this allowed him to quickly repay the debt and in the future not to think about money at all. 
The "golden" period in the work of Klimt began. He writes a huge number of paintings, which, having looked once, you will never forget. Whether he paints naked, frankly sensual bodies (“Girlfriends”, “Adam and Eve”) or the tension of feelings between two lovers (“Love”, “Kiss”, “Rapture”), or portraits of women commissioned (portraits of Sonia Knips, Fritz Ridler, Adele Bloch-Bauer, Eugenia and Meda Primavesi, Frederica Maria Bier) - in any case, a personal vision of the world around and the person in it is manifested. And it's mesmerizing. Here, for example, . On a dais (platform? hill?), strewn with flowers, against the background of darkened gold, two young lovers are depicted, merged in a kiss. The picture shows only the face of a girl and the head of a young man, the hands of embracing young people and the girl's leg, hanging as if over an abyss. But most importantly, both figures are hidden by decorative clothes decorated with spirals, ovals, circles and other geometric figures, so that it is not immediately possible to distinguish the figures hidden under them. The same manner is characteristic of portraits of real women. There are many of them, Klimt's women. Charming faces, hairstyles, hands, jewelry, but the dresses and the background, as in a magical kaleidoscope, turn into a unique fairy-tale decoration. This is how he saw a person, his beauty, weaknesses, fears and passions. And where it was not, nature remained. The artist painted landscapes for himself. So he rested. Maybe that's why critics for a long time bypassed them with their attention. Today, his landscape painting is recognized as the best part of his work. "Blossoming Garden", "Country Garden with Sunflowers", "After the Rain", "Poppy Field", "Birch Grove" are almost realistic. Almost, because a touch of decorativeness is also present in them, making landscapes light, ghostly, airy. Perhaps this is another side of the artist's personality: simplicity, calmness and lightness, which are so lacking in a person with his passions.
Gustav Klimt - The Three Ages of Woman - 1905
National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome (Italy)
Gustav Klimt (1862, Baumgarten, Austrian Empire - 1918, Vienna, Austria-Hungary), is a well-known Austrian artist, the founder of Art Nouveau in Austrian painting. The main subject of his painting was the female body, and most of his works are distinguished by frank eroticism.
The painting "Three Ages of a Woman" was painted by the artist in 1905. In 1908, this and 15 other paintings by Klimt were exhibited at the exhibition.
The canvas symbolizes the cycle of life, which is one of the central motifs of Klimt's work. The artist expressed the opposition of youth and old age with stylistic contrasts and differences in the perception of reality. On the one hand, a young woman with a sleeping child in her arms is a worldly Madonna, herself immersed in a state similar to a dream, passive, stylized, woven into the ornamental background of the canvas. On the other side, an old woman in profile, covering her face in despair. Thus, the contrast between the stylized image of a young woman and the naturalistic image of an old woman acquires a symbolic meaning: the first phase of life brings with it endless possibilities and metamorphoses, the last one - unchanging constancy and conflict with reality.
In 1911, the painting "Three Ages of Woman" was awarded a gold medal at an international exhibition in Rome, and in 1912 the painting was acquired by the Roman National Gallery of Modern Art.
In 2003, a 50 euro commemorative gold coin was issued in Italy, on the obverse of which a fragment of Klimt's painting "Three Ages of a Woman" is depicted.
50 Euro - Italy - 2003
As in The Kiss, the figures depicted on the canvas are united by a phallic symbol.
Gustav Klimt - Kiss - 1907-1908
Belvedere Gallery, Vienna (Austria)
The image of the old woman in the painting by Klimt is based on the sculpture of Auguste Rodin "The Old Courtesan".
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) - Old courtesan
The plot of the painting "Three Ages of a Woman" by Klimt echoes his painting "Life and Death".
Gustav Klimt - Life and Death
Leopold Collection, Vienna (Austria)
In general, the theme of age-related transformation and the perishability of being is not new in the history of art.
Hans Baldung (1480, 1484 or 1485 - 1545) - The Three Ages of Woman and Death
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (Austria)
