Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In the two rooms full of sumptuous paintings by
Gustav Klimt,
you can get caught up
in his fascination with the beauty and danger he saw in women. To Klimt, all art was erotic
art. He painted during the turn of the century, when Vienna was a splendid laboratory of he-
donism.
The famous painting of
Judith I
(1901) shows no biblical heroine—Klimt paints her as a
high-society Vienna woman with an ostentatious dog-collar necklace. With half-closed eyes
and slightly parted lips, she's dismissive...yet mysterious and bewitching. Holding the head
of her biblical victim, she's the modern femme fatale.
In what is perhaps Klimt's best-known painting,
The Kiss,
two lovers are wrapped up in
the colorful gold-and-jeweled cloak of bliss. Klimt's woman is no longer dominating, but
submissive, abandoning herself to her man in a fertile field and a vast universe. In a glow
emanating from a radiance of desire, the body she presses against is a self-portrait of the
artist himself.
Klimt nurtured the next generation of artists, especially
Egon Schiele.
While Klimt's
worksaremysticalandotherworldly,Schiele'stendtobedarkerandmoreintrospective.One
ofSchiele'smostrecognizableworks,
TheEmbrace,
showsacoupleengagedinanerotically
charged, rippling moment of passion. Striking a darker tone is
The Family,
which depicts
a crouching couple. This family portrait from 1918 is especially poignant because his wife
died while he was still working on it.
The Rest of the Upper Palace:
The Belvedere's collection goes through the whole
range of 19th- and 20th-century art: Historicism, Romanticism, Impressionism, Realism,
tired tourism, Expressionism, Art Nouveau, and early Modernism.
GroundsandGardens:
Thedelightfullymanicuredgroundsarefreeandfuntoexplore.
The only area with an entry fee is the
Orangerie garden,
along the west side of the Lower
Palace (and accessed through that palace).
LowerPalace:
Coveredbyaseparate ticket, thisisthehomewherePrinceEugeneactu-
ally hung his helmet. Today it contains a small stretch of three of his private apartments (re-
latively uninteresting compared to the sumptuous Habsburg apartments elsewhere in town).
The Lower Palace also houses some generally good special exhibits, as well as the entrance
to the Orangerie, privy garden, and stables (until 12:00). If the special exhibits intrigue you,
it's worth buying the combo-ticket to get in here; otherwise, I wouldn't bother to visit.
Facing the old town from across the Ring, the MAK, as it's called, is Vienna's answer to
London's Victoria and Albert Museum.
