I recently visited the Neue Galerie where I saw for the first time the famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt. This is the painting that sold for $135 million to Ronald Lauder making it the highest sales price for any painting at that point, and prompting the ARTnews article 'Klimt- Overhyped or Worth Every Penny?"
I had seen reproductions of this painting. I think most people are familiar with Klimt's strange geometric backgrounds swirling around beautiful women with transluscent skin. But there was something about my museum guide's tale of this painting that fascinated me.
Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of a wealthy industrialist who made his money in the sugar industry. She married at only 18 and soon after, her husband commissioned Klimt to make this painting of her. Adele is the only woman Klimt painted more than once. She was known to have a deformed finger which she constantly tried to hide when out in public. If you look at her hands you can see that she is holding them in a very unnatural position. My guide said there were rumors that Adele and Klimt had some sort of fling together, though there was absolutely no proof. "As you can see, her cheeks are. . . flushed," (the rest of the crowd giggled) "Well, you can see by this painting that he did like her very much!" I paid the rumor little mind till she began pointing to all the symbols surrounding the figure. The eye shapes on the dress, our guide suggested, represented the all seeing eye of God and were a sign of protection. Interlocking swirls were also celtic signs of protection.
I thought it was rather odd that an artist working on commission would trouble to embed signs of protection into the image if he did not have a special interest and love for her. If you look carefully you can see the shape of a golden thronelike seat behind the figure. The picture opened itself up to me as I saw Adele as a vulnerable woman surrounded by men who showered her with care and elevated her to the status of a goddess. She died about a decade later of meningitis, a sad contradiction to this painting's suggestion of immortality. But her brief youth is forever preserved in this stunning work of art.
2 comments:
Annie, so glad to read your review of this visit. I was surprised that our tour guide was making such painfully slow progress through the gallery, but in the end, I really liked her historical perpective and insight. Plus, her Austrian accent was so nice!
This was in L.A. last summer and I was so excited to get to see it. It's amazing how much more stunning it is in person - all the gold detail is overwhelming. He obviously loved her.
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