Austrian Art Nouveau Painter, 1862-1918 Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 ?C February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism--nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil. Klimt's work is distinguished by the elegant gold or coloured decoration, often of a phallic shape that conceals the more erotic positions of the drawings upon which many of his paintings are based. This can be seen in Judith I (1901), and in The Kiss (1907?C1908), and especially in Danaë (1907). One of the most common themes Klimt utilized was that of the dominant woman, the femme fatale. Art historians note an eclectic range of influences contributing to Klimt's distinct style, including Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations. Klimt was also inspired by the engravings of Albrecht D??rer, late medieval European painting, and Japanese Rimpa school. His mature works are characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles, and make use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the "freedom" of art from traditional culture.  Related Paintings of Gustav Klimt :. | The Three Ages of Woman (mk20) | Portrait of Fritza Riedler (mk20 | Beethoven Frieze (mk20) | idyll | Adele Bloch-Bauer I |
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Ulrika Pasch
(10 July 1735 - 2 April 1796), also known as Ulla Pasch, was a Swedish painter and miniaturist. She was one of few female artists known in Scandinavia before the 19th century. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts (1773). Ulrika Pasch was born in an artistic family, daughter of the painter Lorens Pasch the Elder, and sister of the future painter Lorens Pasch the Younger. Her uncle, Johan Pasch, was also a painter. In the 1750s, when her brother was studying art abroad, her father's career declined severely, and Ulrika was forced to become a housekeeper in the home of her maternal aunt's widower. Her uncle however allowed her to spend a lot of time developing her artistic talent, and from 1756, she had become a professional portrait painter and was able to support her father and her sister in this way. After her father's death, she lived with her sister and set up her own studio. When her brother returned to Sweden in 1766, she had been a professional artist for ten years and her clientele had moved from the middle class to the upper classes and the aristocracy. Ulrika Pasch and her brother then worked together as professional artists, shared their studio and guided each other in their work; their collaboration was one of mutual respect and harmony, and she is known to have helped him painting the textiles and costumes, a work he found tiring. Their baby-sister Helena Sofia (1744-96) took care of their household; she is described as somewhat talented in art as well, but she spent her life as her siblings "dutiful" house-keeper, and is said to have been deeply devoted to especially Ulrika.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Frankfurt 1749-1832 Weimar,was a German writer and according to George Eliot, "Germany's greatest man of letters and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust. Goethe's other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also served at length as the Privy Councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar. Goethe is the originator of the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"), having taken great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, Arabic literature, amongst others. His influence on German philosophy is virtually immeasurable, having major effect especially on the generation of Hegel and Schelling, although Goethe himself expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense. Goethe's influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Goethe is considered by many to be the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in Western culture as well.
Teofil Kwiatkowski
(February 21, 1809, Pułtusk - August 14, 1891, Avallon, France) was a Polish painter. Kwiatkowski participated in the November 1830 Uprising. After its suppression, he emigrated to France. His artistic work includes many images of Frederic Chopin, including a picture of him playing at a ball at Paris's Hôtel Lambert and Chopin on His Deathbed (1849).