The Sad Story Behind "Ria Munk III" by Gustav Klimt
And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, “sketch” is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.”
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
In 1900, Gustav Klimt was one the most remarkable artists in prewar Vienna and also worldly famous for its women portraits. Enough reasons that led him to be chosen for the Munk family to be the artist that would paint Maria’s Munk posthumous portrait.
Young jewish Ria Munk committed suicide in 1911 after her engagement was called off by her fiance. After the tragedy, Ria’s parents called Klimt to start working on the portrait. The two first paintings were rejected and the one you see below is the third and final one.
But you may be asking yourself: final one? But what about these blank spaces? No guys, these traces aren’t there on purpose but still they’re really there. That’s because in the process of painting the final portrait, Klimt himself died, leaving one of his last works unfinished. Sad, right?
The unfinished painting leaves space for us to wonder about its magnificence. And even with all the sadness atmosphere surrounding it, the piece is until these days a main subject for art researchers mostly because of its sketches that reveal a lot about Klimt’s creative process.
No wonder, in 2010, the masterpiece was sold for more than 25 million dollars.
Ria Munk I and II
Curious about the other two versions that were rejected? It has lost in time which part the rejections came from. From the family or from the artist himself? The first attempt known as “Ria Munk on her Deathbed” were, I guess, rejected by the parents. But why? I have my reasons to think that no parent wants to remember their daughter like that and the painting was already done, which makes me think that, on the contrary, the artist was happy with the result.
The second version of Ria’s Munk portrait is also known as “The Dancer”. This attempt resembles more with the third one where Ria was painted as in life. During my research I’ve found a sketch of what could have been the second portrait but after another rejection was transformed into “The Dancer”, from 1916.
More Unfinished works
Even sad, is a good story to be told. And besides Klimt, other artists have unfinished works as well. Let’s check some of them.
From James Drummond, the piece “The Return of Mary Queen of Scots to Edinburgh” is an interesting example. Actually, the art was finished but some really small details made me doubt if they are the same or maybe there is a second one. But let’s put this dilemma aside and focus on the creative process where Drummond has painted the vestments first then the faces. Nice, right?
Another captivating art that was left in the sketch is that landscape from Vincent van Gogh that makes it very apparent what the first brushstrokes were like before they became extraordinary starry nights.
And to finish this tour with a lot of emotions let’s take a look at one more unfinished painting. The piece from 1945 is the portrait from president Roosevelt. While posing to Elizabeth Shoumatoff — the talented artist behind the portrait — he collapsed and died later that day. The original painting remains undone, but in 1966, Shoumatoff decided to paint a new one inspired by her memories of that day. The new work is almost the same, with just one different detail: the tie in the sketch is red and in the final painting is blue.
