Gustav Klimt & the Art Nouveau Woman's Fighting Spirit

The Vienna Secession is arguably rooted in the creation of Modernism. As a criticism of the conservative institutions in Vienna at the time, the movement challenged existing ideas on philosophy and artistic style. Secessionist artists proposed and created new aesthetics which challenged historical art and pushed for new aesthetics.

Klimt served as the first president of the Vienna Secession and is arguably the creator of the Art Nouveau movement as well. In an effort  to separate itself from the conservatism of Victorian Europe, the Art Nouveau movement embraced female sensuality, power, and strength across different mediums such as fashion, art, and architecture.

The fighting spirit of the Art Nouveau woman can arguably be found in Klimt’s portrayals of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881-1925), a Jewish socialite of Vienna who rejected society’s norms of womanhood. The turn of the nineteenth century was a period of political and cultural tension in pre-World War I Europe, with rapid industrialization occurring simultaneously with rising antisemitism.

One archetype of the Art Nouveau woman was as a sex symbol, according to art historian Jan Thompson. The provocative woman was the standard outside of the archetype Klimt created. Bloch-Bauer represented this new woman, whose beauty played alongside intricate ornamentation. The socialite was arguably Klimt’s greatest muse, whose husband commissioned two portraits, by the artist after establishing their relationship at the turn of the century with Judith I (1901).

Klimt’s heavy use of gold and gold leaf in his works Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I and Judith I was inspired by his visit to the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, where he was inspired by the heavy use of gold in Byzantine Christian art.

The significance of the ornamentation is reflective of Bloch-Bauer as a person. The socialite was a progressive intellectual who rejected social norms regarding the roles of women. Instead of being confined to domesticity, Bloch-Bauer inserted herself into the predominantly male world of intellectual society. At the turn of the nineteenth century, this would have been an uncommon ideology and not socially accepted.

Given Bloch-Bauer’s views of womanhood, this makes Klimt’s portrayal of her as the biblical heroine Judith, who divinely used her beauty to defeat her Assyrian enemy and save the Israelites from tyranny, incredibly significant to his artistic career.

It’s important to note that Klimt was not Jewish, therefore the Jewish iconography portrayed in Judith I reflects the pervasiveness of Jewish culture in mainstream society during this time, despite the ascension antisemitism. Klimt’s choice of Bloch-Bauer as the model is critical to its function since it directly combats the aforementioned anti-Semitic views of Jewish persons in pre-World War I Europe.

The Book of Judith is in the Catholic and Orthodox Christian Old Testament canon. And although Judith was Jewish, the Book of Judith was excluded from the Hebrew Bible, known as the Tanakh. Italian Renaissance and Baroque scholar Elena Ciletti and Medieval scholar Henrike Lähnemann suggest this exclusion is due to Judith’s sexuality in relation to the gaze of Holofernes.

Klimt’s inclusion of Judith as partially nude, while ornamented with a large gold necklace and makeup, showcases the heroine in a modern light: one where female sexuality is embraced and does not compromise piety.

Bloch-Bauer perfectly represents Judith in her original context in this way since she was wealthy, wise, and sought a life of leadership. This type of woman was regarded as a “degenerate” by the Nazi party in an attempt to demonize and brutalize women's ambition. Degeneracy would later be used to categorize Modern art as a whole in the Degenerate Art Exhibition (1937) once the idea evolved past gender roles and into ideas of racial purity.

Not only did Klimt’s Art Nouveau archetype challenge the one-dimensionality of others’ interpretations of female sexuality, but his portfolio as an artist challenged notions of tradition and aesthetics. Klimt’s showcasing of Jewish strength not only revitalized Judith as a Modern icon, but transcended the sociopolitical tensions of pre-WWI Europe. In this way, his Art Nouveau archetype stands strong as a beacon of justice against fascism.