365 Days in the Garden

Klimt’s Paintings of Women

Confident and powerful women in art.

Section of Portrait of a Lady (Marie Breunig) by Artist Gustav Klimt, 1894. (Painting is in the public domain), Photo by Author, taken at the Klimt Exhibit, Van Gogh Museum.

I’ve been writing every day under a loose theme of 365 Days in the Garden. Although I initially thought my writing would focus primarily on gardening, I’ve found this challenge to myself has taken me to the world of art (such as in this writing), poetry, and family traditions. I wrote about how the challenge has impacted my writing in this haiku/short form writing.

Things I’ve learned about Klimt

In one of the pieces I wrote about my trip to the Klimt exhibit, I said I learned three things. Those three things were:

• His paintings of women evolved, and by the end of his career were large and consisted of women who were confident and powerful.
• His landscapes also evolved over time, becoming stronger and more stylized in later years.
• His artwork was sometimes controversial and even considered pornographic at times.

Klimt’s early work

The photo at the top of this writing is an example of his early work. Painted in 1894, I found it fascinating that the woman’s face was as realistic as any photo could ever be. It really appeared as if she was standing right there, her hand…