Thursday, February 16, 2006

Klimt






Ok, what I need to know is how does he do it? It's proto-psychedelic, deep space, the enchanted realm of flora, overgrown and buzzing like pixels or soda bubbles. I want to paint the woods, maybe a clearing in the woods, something, somewhere far away, a comatose woods where branches are like brain-parts, little micro information carriers, some kind of encompassing, tangling blur, but with a sense of recessing nows, thoughts that shrink into the background. Something like that.

And ps, thanks for feeling funny and wanting to kill puppies. Thanks for the owl sacrifice, and the lion taming. Your smells are always the smells of your captors. This is the way of the apocalypse, proven by figure skaters tearing their shirts off to reveal gold flames. We are all victorious in our damp and fibrous journeys to success and the disappearing past.

37 comments:

Mountain Man said...

God I love Klimt's landscapes. Keep just staring at them. Recently bought a book of just the landscapes, it's mesmerizing. Also Fernidand Hodler, I will have to do a post on him too. Anyway, I am woods obsessed today. Such bloody events have occurred in the woods of our forebearers. Bloody killings and hiding, wearing animal hides held together with thorns, prancing with the wild imaginary beasts andtearing at the flesh of the weaker with dagger teeth. It's time for bed. I am silly.

Anonymous said...

Klimt is one of my favorites, an emblem of decorative times gone by. The flickering happiness of spots, leaves, and bark are beautiful but not without meaning. It fulfills me to look at them.

Corny said...

I have the same book of landscapes, they are too much. I saw a bunch of them at the Nueu Galerie last year and found they made me restless to look at, almost hard to stand in front of for too long. Every stroke looks alive, and like it represents a living world within a world.
I love them, they are extreamly powerful paintings. Maybe you have to be strong to even look at them, or maybe I was overwhelmed by the mystery of How does he do it?

The catalogue essay discusses the the artist's use of the telescope and its meaning for his art... I need to read it. But it's interesting how he uses focus.


I just came across this Klimpt quote from a Donald Goddard review of the book's essays

"it is an awkward situation for a thinking being to stand in a borderless space, without knowing whence and whither, being only one of countless other similar creatures, who push, drive, and torment, restlessly and rapidly develop, and pass away, in a time without beginning and end: with nothing persistent except matter and the recurrence of the same, differing organic forms, over certain paths and channels which just happen to exist."

Anonymous said...

I am rooted by something that was given to me on a rock or a tree stump. There was air, there was whispering, a reconaissance mission. I am putting forth the best version today.

The formation was whispery.

Anonymous said...

Oh my god, Corny! I must be in some kind of ultra-sensate state. Must look into the text in my book because that quote makes me cry. Jeez.

Anonymous said...

There is so much information inside just a rock, just on its surface and the things you can imagine you see inside it. Rocks are for throwing, as well as licking.

Anonymous said...

Ocularity breeds insularity. That is my crutch.

Anonymous said...

This dappled sun, many particulate make much luck to you, Mountain. Please throw head open to this light. Most sun on neck and trunk.

Anonymous said...

Yes it's too much in the best way.

Anonymous said...

The second one looks like my backyard.

Mountain Man said...

You must have a nice backyard. But by backyard to you really mean your real backyard or is it a euphemism for your nice round behind?

Anonymous said...

I want a robotic spanking arm to punish my backyard right now. and maybe a brownie.

Anonymous said...

I mean both.

Mountain Man said...

You got it. Robotic spanking arm, come down from the heavenly cloud where you perch and give Krixfort the rough and tumble love she needs. And then the brownie will come via short wave radio. Do not worry Krix!!! Your salvation is nigh!!!

Anonymous said...

Seeker will you join me in my journey into the ways of the rocks?

sloth said...

MM, these paintings are making me tingly. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Sushi I miss you all the time when you're not around. You are unlike anyone I've ever encountered before.

fairy butler said...

How great is Klimt? jesus. Corny, that quote was perfect - really beautiful and apropos. I just love the dense decorative mysticalness of these. and the color - the greens - the allover touch. fucking great.

fairy butler said...

that last painting is killing me.

Anonymous said...

I am inspired but I cannot move. My arms and legs have been removed by a pulley system.

Anonymous said...

I am addicted to all these blogs....why have you done this to me???????

sloth said...

MM and others: I have temporarily moved out of Logworld and into painting #3. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Me too, Sloth, can I move in too? I am an unobtrusive roommate, very quiet, very pitter pat.

The Capt'n said...

Right now I'm loving painting #1 with its creepy cold light and claustrophobic & vaguely threatening yet also seductive and inviting space. There is such an overwhelmingly strong sense of presence there, like the woods are a being or an energy, a living thing but a very psychological thing. The joy and the nervousness and whatnot.

Anonymous said...

Breathless disappearance and inertia looms large in the panic of swells from wet bag against wet bag. All I can hope for is to push and tingle against the surface of the wet bag next to me.

ME said...

The Finch protest starts today

Anonymous said...

I tingle and ache.
The actuality of this work, the very fact that it exists causes all sorts of synaptic whirling dervi to course through my skullroom. A skullroom is like a ballroom, yet no one waltzs and the dancers are smaller, more frenetic. A subatomic two-step. These paintings are completely referential and completely fabricated simultaneously. They are two. They live inside and are consensual. We agree to understand their meaning and yet they mean so much more. An ominous existential fact is alluded to here. An unavoidable and terrifying beauty.

Anonymous said...

regi
thanks, maybe, for reminding us, but can't this fowl just leave this forest....it begs to be pure.

Anonymous said...

get Cheney in here...

Anonymous said...

D, have you ever seen the surface tension of two droplets give way into each other, that reverse mitotic union. It is very much like agreeing that we are looking at a forest. Very believable. That is to hope for, not all, but something.

Anonymous said...

is painting number #4 taken yet? I am in need of a new hidey hole and that looks like it just might work.

gracias Hombre de la Montagna.

Mountain Man said...

Yes take them all into your own backywards, wetbags and mini-droplets. Let's put them there, for safe-keeping.

Anonymous said...

There are charms suspended in mid-air. I am withering but willing to stick it out, willing to resurrect and play undead one more time. After today, all bets are off.

Anonymous said...

Now what's so radical about this landscape crap? Really? You wusses are really starting to irk me with your excitement about painting and art and stuff.

Anonymous said...

Painting 4 ith tho denthce yet there ith thpace, the thunflowerths look like their three dimentional. Iths very tricky optical thtuff.

Anonymous said...

Althso, the treeths in painting one look like they're catching fire, dathzeling and utterly gorgeouth.

Anonymous said...

I love Klimt. These are all marvelous.
Someone else here posted about the Neue Galerie. What a great place. I saw Klimts there too, and also a room full of Schiele self-portraits. So great....