Klimt and the Birth of Modernism in Vienna

High culture of all genres gravitated towards Vienna at around 1900. Exciting and pioneering discoveries were being made in the world of literature, visual arts, architecture and music with an intensity hardly seen elsewhere. In 1910 Vienna had a population of two million, making it the world's fifth largest city and the uncontested cultural capital of Central Europe. Gustav Klimt's pictures reflect the artistic and scientific discoveries and developments that shaped the period. His oeuvre charts the course from the Ringstrasse era to the early days of abstraction: influenced by Hans Makart, the defining Viennese painter of the late 19^th century, Klimt, his brother Ernst, and Franz Matsch accepted a number of commissions to decorate buildings on Vienna's showpiece Ringstrasse boulevard. The staircases of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Burgtheater are two outstanding examples of their work. Klimt's creative output and the style he developed in later years paved the way for his younger contemporaries, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka.

The legacy of Klimt and his fellow artists' 1897 protest against outdated concepts of art, a move that culminated with the foundation of the Secession movement, can be seen to this day: created by Joseph Maria Olbrich, a colleague of Otto Wagner, the new Secession Building exhibition hall bears the prescient motto of "To every age its art, to art its freedom". Klimt contributed the Beethoven Frieze for the building. Architect Josef Hoffmann was one of the co-founders of the Secession movement. Together they worked on the Palais Stoclet in Brussels to create the world's definitive monument to art nouveau. Klimt also had a major impact on the Wiener Werkstätte (estd. 1903 by Hoffmann and Kolo Moser), a company that would change the course of design forever. Works by these artists and their contemporaries are not confined to Vienna's museums and exhibition halls; they actually shape the cityscape.

Society too underwent dramatic changes at the turn of the century. Klimt's portraits of females give an indication of the emergence of an increasingly confident middle class. His 1898 portrait of Sonja Knips elevated him to the role of portraitist of a well-heeled Viennese bourgeoisie. His likenesses of Fritza Riedler and Adele Bloch-Bauer (one of the most expensive paintings in the world) have lost nothing of their appeal to this day. Likewise that of his companion until the end of his life, Emilie Flöge, who was an emancipated and modern woman.

With 24 pieces by the artist, Vienna's Belvedere is home to the world's largest Klimt collection. There are also major works on display at the Leopold Museum, the Wien Museum and the Albertina. Contemporary documents and other exhibits at the MAK and the Austrian National Library reveal yet more about Klimt and his life.

During 2012, Klimt's anniversary year, visitors to Vienna can experience how the artist and his Wiener Moderne contemporaries shape our thoughts and lives to this day, and discover why this era has lost nothing of its allure over time.