Gustav Klimt

Austria’s most influential and revered artist at the beginning of the last century was Gustav Klimt (1862–1918). Master of three genres—allegory, portraiture, and landscape—his alluring imagery, decorative colors, and sinuous line seduce the eye and stir the mind. His landscapes are studded with opulent symbols of regeneration and fecundity, while his philosophical allegories enact and question the eternal recurrence of life and death. During an age of lingering societal repression, Klimt’s r…