Saturday, September 11, 2010

Klimt and the artistic cul-de-sac

According to the writer Frank Whitford : " Klimt of course, is an important artist - he's a very popular artist - but in terms of the history of art, he's a very unimportant artist. Although he sums up so much in his work, about the society in which he found himself - in art historical terms his effect was negligible. So he's an artist really in a cul-de-sac."
A great quote I found about Klimt, while reading through wikipedia. It'd be an interesting point to argue against, but for the most part I agree and have found to be an intriguing idea that I've been thinking about recently. Because while Picasso was revolutionizing art with Cubism, Klimt (and Schiele) were just continuing to do their thing. It really makes me wonder what Klimt thought of what was going on in Paris at the time.

Though, I find it analogous that while Picasso was incorporating African influences, Klimt incorporated Egyptian influences into his art. The two influences are complementary in a way since African art had a connotation of the "primative" while I would imagine Egyptian art to have been considered an example of high civilization.

No comments: