Les dessins de Klimt et de Schiele voyagent - 2. Boston
Old Houses in Český Krumlov (1914), Egon Schiele. |
Après une étape au Musée Pouchkine de Moscou (octobre 2017 - janvier 2018), Les dessins d'Egon Schiele et Gustav Klimt de la collection de l'Albertina Museum de Vienne arrivent au Museum of fine Arts de Boston (du 25 février au 28 mai 2018)
Standing Female Nude (Study for the Beethoven Frieze: “The Three Gorgons”) (1901), Gustav Klimt. |
Portrait of the Artist’s Sister-in-law Adele Harms (1917), Egon Schiele. |
Two Studies of a Skeleton (Studies for the Transfer Sketch for Medicine) (about 1900), Gustav Klimt. |
The Artist’s Mother, Sleeping (1911), Egon Schiele. |
Seated Woman in a Pleated Dress (c. 1903) Gustav Klimt. Courtesy of Albertina Museum, Wien |
Egon Schiele - Autoportrait nu - 1910 (Courtesy Albertina Museum, Vienne) |
Gustav Klimt - Lady with plumed hat - 1908 (Courtesy Albertina Museum, Vienne) |
Gustav Klimt - Study for "Love" - 1895 (Courtesy Albertina Museum, Vienne) |
Egon Schiele - portrait d'une jeune fille, vers 1907 (Courtesy Albertina Museum, Vienne) |
Gustav Klimt - Étude pour le portrait d'Eugenia Primasevi, 1912-1913 (Courtesy Albertina Museum, Vienne) |
Nearly 30 years apart in age, Klimt and Schiele shared a mutual respect
and admiration for each other’s talent, although the work they produced
is decidedly different in appearance and effect. Klimt’s drawings are
often delicate, while Schiele’s are regularly bold. Klimt often used his
as preparatory designs for paintings, while Schiele considered his own
as finished, independent pictures and routinely sold them. Despite these
departures, their works are also related. With frank naturalism and
unsettling emotion, both Klimt and Schiele challenged conventions and
expectations in portraits, nudes and allegories.
Beginnings
The exhibition opens with early works that exemplify the artistic
training completed by both Klimt and Schiele. After a two-year
introductory course at Vienna’s Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied
Arts), which he began at age 14, Klimt received a scholarship to
continue at the Fachschule für Zeichnen und Malerei (Technical School
for Drawing and Painting), where he remained until 1883. This training
led him to important commissions to decorate buildings around Vienna.
Three studies for the ceiling decoration Shakespeare’s Theater
in the Burgtheater (1886–87) demonstrate Klimt’s deft handling of the
differentiation of textures—the softness of hair, the firmness of flesh
over bone and the stiffness or rumpled ease of fabric. Meanwhile,
Schiele’s precocious talent made him the youngest member of his class at
the Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) when he began
his coursework in 1906, at age 16. In Portrait of a Bearded Man
(1907), the teenaged artist gave discrete attention to the flowing
beard, slightly bristlier mustache and carefully combed hair. These
examples of their early draftsmanship showcase the beautiful shading and
modeling that are hallmarks of academic training.
Inner Life Made Visible
Soon enough, both artists shifted away from academically grounded
works. Their drawings began to describe a sense of tension or energy in
addition to visible features. Their treatments of the human body became
less conventional and less conservative, permitting them to examine the
inner workings and urges of humanity. Klimt’s Portrait of a Bald Old Man (Study for Love)
(1895) is unsettling—the white illuminates the elderly man’s head and
provides an eerie glow to his unfocused eyes, contributing to the
haunting impression of the figure. This drawing and Portrait of a Child (Study for Love)
(1895), depicting a little girl, served as studies for an allegorical
painting on the theme of love—now in the collection of the Wien Museum
in Vienna—in which Klimt explores the duration and range of experiences a
lasting love might include.
Klimt provided something of an example to Schiele, who saw the older
artist defying conventions. While Klimt was not interested in
self-portraits, preferring above all to paint women, Schiele saw all
bodies, including his own, as subject to appraisal. His convulsive
self-portraits, such as Nude Self-Portrait (1910), show a young
man grappling with himself. The drawing bristles with energy, depicting
his dark hair standing on end as if electrified. With one eye open and
the other closed, full pouty lips and furrowed brow, the facial
expression is dramatic but illegible. The skin is tinged purple and
blue, covering an emaciated body—far thinner than Schiele’s actual
physique—that juts at a dramatic angle into the sheet. It is surrounded
by a thick white band that evokes the inner glow—the radiant energy of
living beings that so fascinated Schiele.
Schiele also applied this approach to portrayals of local
working-class children. Six of these drawings are displayed in the
exhibition, including Two Crouching Girls (1911), in which the
subjects appear at first glance to perch like dolls propped into
position. On closer inspection, however, the unnatural, unhealthy color
of the flesh—particularly in the icy tone of the blonde girl’s skin—and
the outsized hands contradict the initial charm and make them
more unsettling.
Nudes
Klimt and Schiele’s shared interests in human experience and inner
urges are perhaps most evident in their depictions of nudes. Despite the
twinge of voyeuristic unease that they may stir, the compositions are
hard to look away from. The bodies are unidealized, making them seem all
the more real, and often it is hard to tell what they are doing at
first glance. Without the aid of a title, it takes persistent effort to
identify what is depicted in Klimt’s Reclining Woman, Seen from Behind (1916–17) and, even helped by the title, the looping lines by the figure’s face in Reclining Half Nude with Arms Entwined behind Her Head
(1916–17) do not readily coalesce into something recognizable. Both
women lounge seemingly in midair, unmoored from furnishings. Schiele,
too, experimented with such unexpected omissions—The Pacer (1914), for example, looks down at her tensely curled hand as if it holds something, but there is nothing there.
The Stuff of Scandal
Despite their successes and supporters, Klimt and Schiele were no
strangers to controversy. Klimt’s innovative approach to embodying ideas
caused a scandal when he was asked to create large-scale works. In
1894, he and his early collaborator Franz Matsch were selected to design
ceiling paintings for the University of Vienna. Klimt showed his works,
depicting philosophy, medicine and jurisprudence, in process in 1900,
1901 and 1903 with the Vienna Secession, a group of artists who broke
away from the state-sponsored academy to exhibit independently. Although
the paintings were lost in a fire during World War II, related drawings
such as Two Floating Studies (for Medicine) (1897–98) and Two Studies of a Skeleton (Studies for the Transfer Sketch for Medicine)
(about 1900) convey the immediacy and unexpected naturalism that some
of Klimt’s contemporaries found so shocking. Another firestorm of
controversy broke out over Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze, part of
the Secession’s 1902 exhibition, which celebrated the composer. The
frankly depicted, unidealized nude bodies that embody unseemly feelings
such as sexual desire earned the artist accusations of
pornographic obscenity.
Schiele, too, made art and lived a life that flouted polite
expectations. In 1912, a local adolescent who wished to run away from
home sought help from the artist and his girlfriend. Although the child
returned home unharmed, her parents accused Schiele of kidnapping, rape
and immorality—charges that could have meant up to 20 years in prison.
The artist was arrested on April 13 and a trial was held on April 30.
The first two charges were ultimately dropped as unfounded, but the
third held, as the police investigation turned up drawings in Schiele’s
studio that were deemed indecent for minors to see. The artist spent
just over three weeks in jail, before and after his court appearance,
and three drawings made during this time in prison—dated April 19, 23
and 24—are on view in the exhibition. Combining poetic and dramatic
titles with bold compositions, these drawings record Schiele’s
mounting despair.
Plants and Places
Schiele found evocative, emotional resonances all around him—not only
in the bodies and faces of people, but also in nature. Two drawings by
the artist—Red Chrysanthemum (1910) and Yellow Chrysanthemum
(1910)—show flowers of the same species in two stages. The robust red
example, colored with broad strokes, opens to its maximum fullness,
while the frail yellow flower comes undone, with drooping leaves and the
spindly petals of a blossom past its prime. The same autumnal
melancholy also pervades Schiele’s depiction of Old Houses in Český Krumlov
(1914) in the Czech Republic—the birthplace of his mother and where the
artist lived briefly in the summer of 1911, while seeking distance from
city life in Vienna.
Portraits
Portraiture provided both Klimt and Schiele with a way to make money
and connections—as well as a meeting place for their artistic visions
and the individual character of their sitters. Klimt maintained a
lucrative portrait practice among avant-garde patrons and collectors in
and around Vienna. Two studies for a portrait of his supporter Eugenia
Primavesi (1912–13) show little detail in the figure’s face, yet convey a
strong sense of her character. Her raised chin, seen in both drawings,
confirms her commanding presence. Also on view are two studies for a
painting of Primavesi’s daughter Mäda (1912–13)—Klimt’s only
commissioned portrait of a child, now in the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Additionally, three studies for a portrait
of Amalie Zuckerkandl—one of his last paintings, left unfinished—provide
a glimpse into the artist’s process. The sitter’s garment seems to
writhe with energy in each drawing, while her pose and demeanor shift as
Klimt searches for the definitive portrayal.
Klimt came to Schiele’s aid following his imprisonment in 1912, which
left the younger artist devastated and financially ruined. An
introduction to Klimt’s patrons August and Serena Lederer led to
Schiele’s friendship with their son Erich, who would become one of the
leading collectors of his work. The artist’s portrayal of the teenaged Eric Lederer with Red Collar
(1913), seated in a jaunty pose, suggests the awkwardness of his youth.
Additional portrait drawings by Schiele on view depict others close to
the artist, including his mother Edith and sister-in-law Adele Harms.
The skin of both women is rendered with blotchy discoloration—it appears
flushed, bruised and even seemingly decaying. Often seen in his
self-portraits, the effect makes the drawings more complicated to look
at and the reactions they induce more visceral.
(Source)
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