Gustav Klimt Paintings

The star of the Vienna Secession movement, Klimt's paintings continue to astound a century later

Gustav Klimt's style had elements of Symbolism and Modernism, combined with his own creative imagination and elaborate flourishes.

The basis of his work were delicate touches of draughtmanship, with thick, bright paint then being applied afterwards. As his reputation grew, large commissions would follow, enabling the artist to expand his ambitions.

His work would be a feast for the eyes, with attention and detail covering the whole canvas, even the background. His most famous paintings have helped him to become one of the best known artists of all art movements since the middle ages.

The catalogue of his work has been separated by alphabetical order plus his career highlights are listed in this page. You will see a dominance of portraits alongside some landscapes.

Gustav came from an artistic family but was the only to make such a significant impact on the art scene. Egon Schiele was close to Gustav and they would inspire each other to develop this art movement ever onwards. His work within Art Nouveau also links closely to the achievements of Alphonse Mucha.

As his academic approval was established, Gustav would take in others under his wing, besides just Egon. He was a generous, larger-than-life individual which reflects in his work which is listed below.

See all Gustav Klimt artworks

Gustav Klimt paintings are amongst the best Austrian paintings ever made and the artist himself is particularly popular in the modern era thanks to his bold and contemporary style which still appears surprisingly relevant and uptodate when compared to other more traditional art movements.

This website offers a gallery of the most famous Gustav Klimt paintings and also looks further into the career of this exceptional painter whose skills are now well respected right across the world.

All images have links alongside which take you through to the Art.com prints gallery which holds hundreds of Klimt's originals for sale as high quality reproduction copies.

The career highlights of Gustav Klimt are all household names today thanks to the spread of western art through the modern media and titles like Tree of Life, The Kiss, Water Serpents I, Forest of Beech Trees, Adele Bloch Bauer Portrait, Danae and Mother and Child can now be seen in homes throughout this continent as well as in America as well.

Reproductions of Gustav Klimt paintings are at an all-time high and his originals rank amongst the top ten most expensive auction sales of any painting in history.

Gustav Klimt paintings differs in topic but certainly followed certain characteristics which served his career well, most notably a bold use of colour which helped bring all his scenes to life when combined with stylish detail throughout each large scale canvas.

Much of his detail was used on pretty flowers which were added to different types of topics, such as garden scenes or as elaborate decoration on outfits worn by his portrait subjects in paintings like The Kiss and Virgin.

It is this detail and the bold colours in thick paint which probably helped the artist to become so appreciated in so many countries and his exhibitions are now huge occasions.

You can find the most successful of Klimt's paintings below, which was The Kiss (Der Kuss).

As you will see from the image included of it, the detail across the background is quite extraordinary, where most artists would simply add significant detail only to the important focal points of each art work.

It is clear that the painter enjoyed adding decorative elements such as flowers to his paintings as would take advantage of his super large canvases to actually include as much detail as he could.

Gustav Klimt's highly contemporary art has made it ideally suited to modern media for those looking to buy art reproductions for their homes, be it giclee art prints, posters or stretched canvases. The bright colours are fantastic to contemporary walls which in the main are minimalist and bland, crying out for some modern art to add some interest.

Gustav Klimt reproductions are amongst the most popular now of any artist and you can find links alongside each image included within this website which take you through to the Art.com prints gallery that hosts a huge collection of the artist's finest paintings.

The Kiss is a good example of Gustav Klimt's appreciation of Gold Leaf paint within so many of his best paintings.

You will see it in several different areas of this work which has itself become one of the most reproduced paintings of all time and it's popular continues today as strong as ever.

The Kiss is a romantic art work which shows two lovers intertwined together in a charming pose that clearly proved to be to the taste of so many art fans ever since it was first completed by Klimt who would have spent considerable amounts of time amending elements of it before arriving at the finished piece.

You can also read more on the topic of Gustav Klimt The Kiss here.

Tree of Life is now available as a reproduction in several different forms which underlines how popular it has become and also the need for consumers to be able to find exactly the print or poster that best suits their own home.

There are now cropped versions of the original which focus in on certain parts of the painting, plus darkened versions which re-invent this classic Gustav Klimt painting in a new and contemporary way.

In most cases, however, it is an exact replica of the original which is sought. There is more on Klimt Tree of Life here. All of the links provided in this website have been checked out and used by ourselves, so you can click through with confidence!

A further art work which featured an incredible breadth of detail right across the painting was entitled The Tree of Life, which you can see below in all it's glory.

There is certainly similarites to The Kiss, with a large concentration of gold leaf paint as well as decorative elements right across the painting which ensured that so area of the canvas was in any way bland or of no importance to the viewer.

The Tree of Life focuses on a theme which has always been commonly found within different religious and spiritual teachings and typically represents health and growth, making this a positive choice of topic for Gustav Klimt.

Water Serpents is a perfect subject for Klimt's style which balances the mystical with bright colours and captures a charming scene which has a feminine look that continues throughout most of his other paintings and helped to differentiate the artist from other painters of that time.

There are significant numbers of artists who followed Klimt that held similar styles, having been heavily influenced by the Austrian master, though virtually none came before his ground-braking work. The painting Klimt Water Serpents is discussed further here too.

Water Serpents is a topic covered by the artist several times and the art work found below was specifically his first, and in our opinion best, version which simply became titled Water Serpents I, with II following shortly after and being the other notable work on this topic.

The series has clear similarities to The Kiss with again two people decorated with elaborate materials which swathe around their bodies, which in this case are naked. Water Serpents is certainly a pretty and calming painting that would suit most homes thanks to the bright colours and intriguing detail.

Adele Bloch Bauer was a model chosen by Gustav Klimt in several different portraits, most notably the one that you see above. This particular painting came up for sale at auction recently and went for an extraordinary price, such is the demand that now exists around the artist's original paintings.

The work can now be viewed in New York where the gallery that holds it can be found, along with a whole host of other impressive galleries and art museums with international importance. You can read also more about Klimt Adele Bloch Bauer here too.

Adele Bloch Bauer is just one of a number of models used by Gustav Klimt across his career and as well as the paintings she also appeared in many pencil sketches which were significant in number but far less well known that his work with oils.

The drawings were fundamental to creating the basis by which his grand oil paintings could be constructed and few painters can achieve high levels of work without having good drawing skills with which to plan a work, particularly when portraits are involved.