Gustav Klimt, (1862–1918)
Adam and Eve, c. 1917-1918
Oil on canvas
Height: 173 cm (68.1 in); Width: 60 cm (23.6 in)
Belvedere palace, in Vienna, Austria.
Adam and Eve was Klimt's first biblical painting. Certainly it was the only one to present humankind in a state of grace, for the scene would seem to be set before the Fall, perhaps at the moment of Eve's creation. As the sole truly chaste woman, Eve is a heroine very different from Judith. Klimt's contemporaries remarked that his ideal woman generally departed significantly from the Viennese notion of beauty: she was slender rather than buxom, redhaired or brunette rather than blond. This "Old Testament type" (as Klimt's typical heroine was euphemistically called) had an aura of exoticism that was both appealing and intentionally frightening. More on this painting
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions,
were the first man and woman and the ancestors of all humans. The story of Adam
and Eve is central to the belief that YHWH created human beings to live in a
paradise on earth, although they fell away from that state and formed the
present world full of suffering and injustice. It provides the basis for the
belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended
from a single pair of original ancestors. It also provides much of the
scriptural basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original Sin,
important beliefs in Christianity, although not generally shared by Judaism or
Islam. More on
Adam and Eve
Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 –
February 6, 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the
most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his
paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's primary subject
was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. In addition
to his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted
landscapes. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most
influenced by Japanese art and its methods.
Early in his artistic career, he was a successful painter
of architectural decorations in a conventional manner. As he developed a more
personal style, his work was the subject of controversy that culminated when
the paintings he completed around 1900 for the ceiling of the Great Hall of the
University of Vienna were criticized as pornographic. He subsequently accepted
no more public commissions, but achieved a new success with the paintings of
his "golden phase," many of which include gold leaf. More Gustav Klimt
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