Tea at Trianon: Klimt’s Idyllic Landscapes

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Klimt’s Idyllic Landscapes

From ArtNet:

Gustav Klimt, a Viennese Symbolist painter and co-founder of the Viennese Secession movement, first came to prominence as a mural painter. Later, he became known for his paintings of women, including those prominent in Viennese society around 1901–09. This period in the artist’s career was dubbed the “Golden Phase,” and was characterized by striking portraits adorned with glistening gold leaf, which have captured the public’s imagination for decades. Now however, the Neue Galerie is focusing on a significant part of Klimt’s oeuvre that has been overshadowed by the artist’s famed late portraits, with the exhibition “Klimt Landscapes.”

In the winter of 1903, around 20 landscapes featured in the artist’s only substantial one-man show in Vienna before his death. Known for their innovative square format, which betrayed the artist’s interest in photography, and produced en plein-air (outside), an approach also favoured by the Impressionists, these bucolic works were praised by contemporary critics and were highly sought after by collectors. (Read more.)

A legal heir of a lost Klimt comes forward, HERE.