Vienna Klimt Trip-Day 2

Day 2 of the Vienna trip for Gustav Klimt thirst. If you have not read my Day 1 you should!

On day 2 we visited Leopold Museum, Klimt Villa, and Schönbrunn Palace.
First let me give you the list of the must see museums for Klimt that I went with the admission price in 2024:

Secession €12

Belvedere €21.5

Leopold Museum €17

Klimt Villa €10

Wein Museum €12? Not sure as we had a free entry because it was the first Monday of the month;)

Albertina €21.5

Do bare in mind that we only had 3 days there and with a 3 year old meant I had to really chase Klimts paintings all around!

Leopold Museum

So first on the list today was Leopold Museum.

Sorry the first few paintings are not Klimts. But I had to take a photo of because they were so strikingly beautiful.

The first one on the left is by Hans Makart titled Modern Cupids in 1868. How beautiful are they? These were from the time Klimt was around and you can see that in Vienna at least the use of gold was a THING. I love how with all the other figures in the painting, it draws the viewers eyes to the cupids kissing in the back. I like the use of white here with the gold. Next the painting on the right is by Hans Canon titled Seated Venus with Fur Coat in 1880. What I love about it is the delicate touch of light values of cool and warm whites and yellows to create the jewelry on her arm. I want to play with this transparency in paintings with watercolor.

1st photo-Believe it or not the first painting is by Klimt. Yups he sure can paint “realistically”. This is titled Seated Young Girl and was painted back in 1894. Klimt didnt want to paint in this style at one point. He wanted to get a away from the classic traditional way of painting taught by his teachers.
2nd photo-The sketch he did was of Juliet from Shakespeare. You can already see he had a distinctive Klimt style AND he put more emphasis on the face and hair and the rest were more abstract.
3rd photo-The beauty of going to museums is running into things like Gustav Klimts business card!!!!! Im sure taking inspirations from his for mine in the future!
4th photo-The painting on the far right top is by Ernst Klimt. Thats right, his brother was a painter too. He passed away in his 20’s and I read few things that Klimt did take it quite hard from losing a brother that was an artist like he was.
5th photo-A simulation of what his studio must have looked like at Fleischmarkt 11.

6th photo-Gustav Klimts artists monk clothing he wore when he painted. Gotta make myself one! Maybe in black or gray!

7th photo-A portrait by Helene Funke titled Eva back in 1926. I like the clear thick impasto brushstrokes but the delicateness of the skin tones in different colors like Klimts work.

The star of Leopold Museum was Klimts painting “Death and Life”. Whats so great about the painting is the composition of the cool/death/skeleton with the warm/life/people. Again, I just love the use of the variety of colors he uses in the skin and the shapes he composes to make the clothing of the figures.

Now I have an artist I admire. Egon Schiele. So I have come across his paintings online and through other artists like Agnes Cecil I love but seeing his artwork in person was quite something. I even bought some things of his from the museum gift shop. Clearly Klimt Gustav being his master who hes taken kind of an apprenticeship, I can see so much hes taken from the artist on the last painting. The skin tones definitely is painted with variety of colors, there are use of strong contour lines and his signature has a box around it like what Klimt used to do at times being influenced by Japan art. BUT Egon rarely used gold unlike Klimt. And that earthy, more mudded feeling in his work with strong impasto feel seperates him from his master. I like his distorted, grotesque yet beauty in his work.

Klimt Villa @ Hietzinger Hauptstraße 11

The Klimt Villa was nice in terms of going to get the sense of what his life after moving from Fleischmarkt 11 must have been like. There are no actual paintings of Klimt here (they sell prints on the second floor) and you cannot actually see the small house he lived in as they built something around/over it to protect it. Nevertheless I am happy I went.

The first photo is what it looks like from the entrance, his contour line sculpture, the back view of the house, a simulation of what his studio must have looked like (and its the actual house he lived in), the actual photo, a bath tub that is under speculation that Klimt might have been using….. and my son looking over the menu at Klimt Villa Cafe.

We decided then to walk to Schönbrunn Palace from here and got on the Panoramabahn which is basically a car/train that goes around the whole palace so we got a full experience of the place easily with a 3 year old that loves trains lol. In the audio tour, “Sissy” came up quite often so I looked her up. It was referring to Queen Elisabeth of Austria and oh boy did I get into the stories of the Royal family. I quite enjoyed it you should have a look. Love how this queen was into horse back riding, travelling on her own and was into keeping herself fit! AND shes so pretty;)

So that was the end of the day. Next Im off to writing on day 3….