{"id":4503,"date":"2026-07-14T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/366calendar.com\/?p=4503"},"modified":"2026-07-14T16:02:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:02:37","slug":"gustav-klimt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/366calendar.com\/en\/gustav-klimt\/","title":{"rendered":"Gustav Klimt"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Master of Gold and the Viennese Fin de Si\u00e8cle<\/h2>\n\t\t
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July 14 | Today is Gustav Klimt's birthday. With gold leaf, graceful patterns, and an unmistakable fascination with women, he created work that still touches people more than a hundred years later. His biography can be found further down in this blog. The digital edit featuring my interpretation of the Tree of Life in the background and the 366th birthday calendar with his portrait were created by me, Frieke van Thiel.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Who was Gustav Klimt?<\/h4>

Gustav Klimt was born on July 14, 1862, in Baumgarten, at the time a suburb of Vienna. He was the second of seven children in a family that was not financially well-off. His father, Ernst Klimt, was a gold engraver, a profession that left a lasting impression: the use of gold leaf would later become his son's trademark. Klimt rose to become the most important representative of Viennese Art Nouveau and founder and chairman of the Wiener Secession.<\/p>

Youth and training<\/h4>

Klimt's talent for drawing was noticed early on. He was admitted to the Kunstgewerbeschule (the Vienna School of Applied Arts), where he received a classical, academic education. Together with his brother Ernst and fellow student Franz Matsch, he founded the 'K\u00fcnstlercompagnie', a studio that soon secured renowned commissions. Between 1886 and 1892, the trio created murals for the Burgtheater and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, among others, executed in a still fairly traditional, decorative style.<\/p>

In 1892, both Klimt's father and his brother Ernst died shortly after one another, a period that deeply affected him personally and artistically. Shortly thereafter, he began to break away from the academic conventions in which he had been trained.<\/p>

The Vienna Secession and the university scandal<\/h4>

In 1897, Klimt left the established K\u00fcnstlerhaus and, together with Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, among others, founded the Wiener Secession, with the motto 'Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit' (To time is art, to art is freedom). Klimt became the first chairman of this movement, which broke with classicism and focused on innovation in art and design.<\/p>

His ceiling paintings for the University of Vienna, with the titles Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence, caused a great stir around 1900. The explicit nudity and the somber, symbolic representation of knowledge and science clashed with prevailing bourgeois taste. The commission was ultimately never installed in the university building; the works were later lost in a fire at the end of the Second World War.<\/p>

The Golden Period<\/h4>

Around 1900, Klimt developed the style that would make him world-famous: the so-called Golden Period. Inspired by Byzantine mosaics he admired during a trip to Ravenna, he incorporated real gold leaf into his paintings. This period produced some of his most famous works, including:<\/p>