Brustbild einer Dame nach links

THE MYSTERY OF WOMAN

Autonomous half-length portraits date from every period of Klimt’s career as a draughtsman. From the point, in the mid-1890s, where he made a definitive stylistic shift from Historicism to Symbolism, Klimt was above all concerned, in such drawings of usually anonymous models, with exploring particular facial types, emotional values, and psychological states: his autonomous half-length portraits became, in effect, metaphors for the mystery of woman. The work in its original frame, designed by Klimt’s brother Georg, is an outstanding and rare example of the sort of female portraits in black chalk and, as here, in pastel that Klimt was producing in 1897/98, the years of the founding of the Viennese Secession. Works of this sort are characterised by infinitely subtle chromatic shifts and chiaroscuro effects. The combination of profile presentation and a downturned gaze typify the “art of the soul” of the early years of the Secession. [...]

Translation: Elizabeth Clegg, London