Adam and Eve Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)

Description of Gustav Klimt’s Adam and Eve

Klimt is a modernist. Just about all of his paintings fit that style, the Art Nouveau style. They are all vivid and memorable, as, in fact, is all that was done within this style. It is impossible to pass by a building or a masterpiece of art nouveau without paying attention to it. It’s all about elegance, it’s all about representation - the softness of forms, the flexibility of details.

Klimt’s style is unimaginably beautiful. Suffice it to recall his painting "The Kiss". Behind the colorful pattern of the cloak, not immediately discerned kissing. "Adam and Eve" - as if the continuation of the theme of "Kiss", but only more explicit. The dominant image on the canvas is that of Eve, the naked Mother of the World. She is depicted against the background of her husband. By the way, the figure of Adam is depicted as vaguely.

We see his face and shoulders, but his legs are covered by the skin of a jaguar. This is most likely a depiction of the couple after the Fall. Look at Adam’s face - it is tired and haggard, while Eve is glowing with some kind of universal peace, but there is slyness in her eyes. A leopard’s skin covers Adam, and there are flowers at Eve’s feet. Even in spite of the glaring nudity and clearly provocative - Eve is beautiful.

Klimt reminded us with this painting of where woman came from. Adam is depicted in this kind of clay color. After all, according to legend, he himself is made of earth, but the woman is made of a man’s rib. And here’s how the artist did it: the right hand of the hand seems to dissolve into Adam - this is a hint or even a symbol of the unity of the souls.

Needless to say, that Klimt’s paintings in Soviet times were, strictly speaking, covered up and only specialists knew about them. For the general public of the former Soviet Union paintings by this artist were fully opened only during Perestroika and after the collapse of the country. This kind of forgetfulness was created precisely because of the erotic frankness of the paintings. Although, of course, recognized the genius of the painter.

Klimt did not create as many paintings as some of his great colleagues, but what he has is enough to recognize him as a great master of painting.