Gustav Klimt: The Magic of Line

Published in conjunction with exhibitions at Vienna’s Albertina Museum in Vienna and L.A.’s Getty Museum to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Klimt’s birth, this luscious hardcover offers 225 color illustrations, including many full-page plates of his drawings (the focus of both book and exhibit), both autonomous works and studies for paintings. In the accompanying text, Albertina curator Bisanz-Prakken (Rembrandt and His Time: Masterworks from the Albertina) follows the artist’s career from the “photographically realistic precision of the 1880s” to “the vehement and nervous handling of the line in his later years.” The contrast between the works on paper and the paintings is striking. The drawings, based on live models, exude a passion, warmth, and soulfulness that’s abstracted out of many of the paintings, which tend to focus on allegory and decorative aspects. As Klimt himself said in 1903: “‘The painter is not called upon to visualize an idea in a sensual way but rather to decorate a space.’” Yet Klimt’s chalk and pencil, with exquisite draftsmanship, evoke a compelling humanity that may appeal to art lovers who find his more formal work too stylized. For those who can’t make it to the Getty exhibit, this book is the next best thing. (July)