Last weekend I finally made it to Vienna to go and see the amazing collection of Klimt paintings. We started at the Secession building which houses the Beethoven Frieze
The frieze takes its theme from Richard Wagner’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and depicts humankind’s search for happiness. Above shows the final scene, female figures symbolizing the arts lead the way into the ideal ream of art. Klimt’s apotheosis of art consists of a kissing couple in front of the choir of Angels, referring directly to Beethoven: the final chorus of Beethoven’s Ninth, based on Friedrich von Schiller’s Ode to Joy, contains the words “This kiss to the whole world.”
And it’s from this section of the frieze that I took my inspiration for the pair of shoes which I’ve called Joy and you can see many of the ideas taken for the patterns in the image above.
We went on to visit the Upper Belvedere Palace where The Kiss is housed, along with many other famous paintings of Klimt's. It was wonderful to 'meet' Sonja Kipps & Fritza Reidlern as well as some beautiful landscape paintings, some of which I had never seen in books before. A couple of these landscapes below are at the Leopold Museum which has more Klimt alongside some great Schiele paintings.