Female Nude Study

The prominent artist was seized by the autonomy of the female body, as a focal point throughout his work depicted the beautiful form.

The Female Nude Study dates back to 1901, as a sketch from Klimt's drawings where he analyzed the form of the female body.

From 1901 to 1902, Gustav Klimt worked on the ground-breaking piece of Beethoven Frieze, where he accompanied an array of his colleges, and worked on sketches for the piece. Klimt's work was meant to be a visual representation for The Beethoven Frieze for Beethoven Ninth Symphony.

The artist has used an array of resources to help him depict the woman he desired, seizing inspiration from Greek, Byzantine, early medieval and Japanese culture for his work. He also used inspiration from his contemporise, such as Jan Toorop, Fernand Khnopff, George Minne, Ferdinand Holder and Edvard Munch. Klimt has retransformed his inspiration into new forms, vertically and horizontally placing the woman to find a creative form. This method took multiple sketches and includes the Female Nude Study.

The Female Nude Study illustrates a woman who is arched into a ball, illustrating her backside. Her backside is beautiful carved into her butt, as he hair flows amongst the side of her face. The woman's small feet are illustrated within the piece, as one is placed upon the sole of the other. The pencil lightly glides along the sketchbook, showcasing the artist's quick glimpse into his attention to detail and he showcases the natural form.

As both sketches carry the same style to each other, the small drawing illustrates two different types of forms, as the left example carries more rounded edges compared to the right one. However, Klimt favoured the sketch on the right side, as the red outline in pencil illustrates where the artist wished for the painting to be created. The brief sketch allows the viewer to envision their own interpretation of the drawing, before witnessing the beautiful painting that it is transformed to.

The Female Nude Study continues the theme of a beautiful naked curved woman, using the hair to symbolize the natural flow of water. The sketches were used for the painting Goldfish (1901) by Klimt, which caries the same atheistic as Beethoven Frieze. The artist had considered the sketches a work of art, as he had signed the drawing, and recreated the right one in a future painting known as Ver Sacrum.

Klimt had used a model for these sketches, in order to witness which ones worked best for his work. The woman within the study carries a sexual allure to their presence, always illustrating a glimpse of their naked bodies for the viewer to analyze. Klimt was passionate about the classic style of the female body, as he used his models to painted detailed sketches of future paintings he desired to create. The curving body shape carries an array of caverns and different textures that gracefully flow throughout the piece.