Customer Reviews

Gustav Klimt: Drawings & Watercolors

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wonderful. Quick, immediate, and from the heart - or some other organ of animal intensity. Despite the title, there aren't so many watercolors, nearly none. The drawings are superb, though.

Klimt was an intense sensualist. He was often photographed in a floor-length painter's smock, probably wearing nothing underneath. Also, he was commonly seen in his studio amid models not just nude but naked, in intimate and revealing poses, often in couples and more-somes. Add in the fact that Klimt acknowledged three children out of wedlock, and posthumously faced claims of fourteen more. He was clearly a man profoundly moved by female beauty. His life ouvre of painting shows that.

Thousands of his drawings are available to scholars, but the few hundred here show Klimt's passion even more clearly than his lush paintings ever did. Some are studies for his well-known paintings; he was known to do hundreds in preparation for major works. Other sketches can also be traced to known paintings, though with less certainty. Still others are too vividly sensual to have been shown in his own time.

The author includes helpful and revealing biographical notes, largely at the beginning and end of the thick book. I must caution readers with eyes aging like mine are - although the lines of type have wide, airy spacing and low x-height, the text itself looks like 8-point or smaller. Some readers will be so physically uncomfortable from eyestrain that they will lose all the value, or at least enjoyment in those written words. Dear author and publisher: check the book's layout with graying readers before committing it to type, I beg you.

Outside of that, the physical presentation is impeccable. The book is thick, as I said, but that is largely due to the heavy, bright, opaque stock on which the pages are printed - it's a 400 page book with 600 page bulk. I am not criticizing. That quality of paper takes the fine detail of the reproduced drawings beautifully, without glare, and without showing through from the back. It looks and feels luxurious. The book's rich physical sense perfectly complements its visual sensuality. I recommend this book very highly, whether your interest is in Klimt, in arts related to Nouveau, or in simply womanly beauty.

//wiredweird

From all the books I ordered in my last purchase, this has to be my favorite. Not only does it have rare studies and designs from Master Klimt. If there is a book you should buy to understand his works a bit more, this is the one :)

The material is obviously great, but I can't fully recommend this book because everything's so tiny. It's like being on a webpage gallery and seeing awesome thumbnails and not being able to appreciate the whole image. If it was bigger 5 stars, highest recommendation; but this, no. That being said, please make a big version. thanks.

This is a great book especially regarding the price. It gives a very detailed review of Klimt's works. Recommended for the fans of Gustav Klimt.

I love the drawing style of Klimt and Schiele but the overall experience was spoilt by he poor text typeface and the miniscule point size. Buy it for the pictures, not the words!