Otmar Rychlik

The catalogue more or less does what it says on the title. It offers a quick account of young Gustav Klimt's painting of the spandrels (Zwickel in German) in the main staircase of the new Kunsthistorisches Museum, a contract he fulfilled jointly with his younger brother Ernst and Franz Matsch. Each of the three young men was responsible for one side while the fourth side was completed jointly. I wish the exhibition and the catalogue had not focused almost exclusively on Gustav Klimt. It is a bit harsh to the true Gesamtkunstwerk, an attitude that is also revealed by the unfortunate choice of photographing the staircase with the scaffolding already in place. The modern scaffolding which allows the visitors a close look at Klimt's work truly ruins the otherwise glorious four page spread. The Gesamtkunstwerk was a virtual collaboration of Hans Makart's portraits of famous painters, the Hungarian Mihály Munkácsy's allegorical ceiling painting as well as the Klimt brothers' and Matsch's illustration of different eras in art history. Gustav Klimt painted the spandrels of Egyptian, Greek, Byzantine and early Italian renaissance art in what foreshadowed his later combination of female portraits encased in lavish decorative patterns.… (más)