A Brush With Passion A Trilogy Book One Vienna Patterns

Onto the stage of Vienna in the late 19th Century strides virile, charismatic painter Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). Standing center stage is a talented and independent fashion designer and businesswoman, Emilie Flöge (1874 -1952). For the next 27 years, the famous and infamous Klimt bears criticism, censure and fame with Flöge by his side. The tempestuous love and fierce friendship of this talented couple – opposites in so many ways –deepens until Klimt’s death . . . and beyond. Vienna Patterns happens during a Time and in a City never equaled for fashion, fabulous art and fascinating personalities. The story of Klimt and Flöge is very theatrical . . . very Vienna.

Onto the stage of Vienna in the late 19th Century strides virile, charismatic painter Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). Standing center stage is a talented and independent fashion designer and businesswoman, Emilie Flge (1874 -1952). For the next 27 years, the famous and infamous Klimt bears criticism, censure and fame with Flge by his side. The tempestuous love and fierce friendship of this talented couple opposites in so many ways deepens until Klimts death . . . and beyond. Vienna Patterns happens during a Time and in a City never equaled for fashion, fabulous art and fascinating personalities. The story of Klimt and Flge is very theatrical . . . very Vienna.

Whether the canvases of Gustav Klimt (1862 – 1918) celebrated the exquisite landscapes of Austria’s Attersee region or caressed the cheek of a lovely young laundress, his appreciation of his subjects was sensitive, sensual and strong. No other painter in Vienna at the close of the 19th century was as revered—and often reviled—as this outrageous artist wearing only a knowing expression and a long blue smock. One of the women who found her way onto his canvas and into his bed was Mizzi Zimmermann (the subject of this book, Dirty Linen), whom he would cherish, in his way, until his death. Mizzi, and the subjects of Book One—Vienna Patterns (Emilie Flöge) and Book Two—Diamonds and Sand (Adele Bloch-Bauer) enjoy everlasting admiration, thanks to Klimt’s brush—A Brush with Passion.

Whether the canvases of Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918) celebrated the exquisite landscapes of Austria's Attersee region or caressed the cheek of a lovely young laundress, his appreciation of his subjects was sensitive, sensual and strong. No other painter in Vienna at the close of the 19th century was as revered--and often reviled--as this outrageous artist wearing only a knowing expression and a long blue smock. One of the women who found her way onto his canvas and into his bed was Mizzi Zimmermann (the subject of this book, Dirty Linen), whom he would cherish, in his way, until his death. Mizzi, and the subjects of Book One--Vienna Patterns (Emilie Floge) and Book Two--Diamonds and Sand (Adele Bloch-Bauer) enjoy everlasting admiration, thanks to Klimt's brush--A Brush with Passion.

Diamonds and Sand Adele Bloch-Bauer (1882-1925) did not seek fame—but acclaimed and passionate artist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) thrust her into the public’s eye by painting two portraits that assured her lasting admiration and speculation. Both portraits were commissioned by her wealthy industrialist husband—and each illustrated different, almost contradictory views of the intellectually curious, mysterious woman. As a child, Adele escaped the rules of a repressive Vienna in the last decades of the 19th century, by conjuring a secret tunnel that gave life to her fantasies. Only when she began sitting for Klimt’s portrait of her did her fantasies slide into reality, bringing both blinding ecstasy and paralyzing guilt. Her journey is intriguing... Join her...

During the great flourishing of modern art in fin-de-siècle Vienna, artists of that city focused on images of individuals. Their portraits depict artists, patrons, families, friends, intellectual allies, and society celebrities from the upwardly mobile middle classes. Viewed as a whole, the images allow us to reconstruct the subjects' shifting identities as the Austro-Hungarian Empire underwent dramatic political changes, from the 1867 Ausgleich (Compromise) to the end of the First World War. This is viewed as a time when the avant-garde overthrew the academy, yet Facing the Modern tells a more complex story, through thoughtprovoking texts by leading art historians. Their writings examine paintings by innovative artists such as Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele alongside those of their predecessors, blurring the conventionally-held distinctions between 19th-century and early 20th-century art. Exhibition: The National Gallery, London, UK (09.10.13.-12.01.14.).--