Friday Night Photos

There aren't too many waffle nights to occupy my fridays anymore, so I decided to head up to campus and do a little composing. I also brought my camera, just in case I was feeling like an adventure.

As I was driving, I realized that my friend had just put up his BFA show and was having the opening tonight. So I decided I would go to that. On my way to the show, I remembered that there was another show out between the Harris Fine Arts Center and the Museum of Art: The 8-bit sculptures. I checked those out before heading into the HFAC to see my friend's BFA show.

I finally made it to the BFA show and it was really nice. It was an exhibit of photographs of modern Provo and he made white ghost drawings of buildings that used to stand in those places. It was really cool to see a bunch of buildings that I remember that have been torn down.

Afterwards, I decided to head back to my car. I had spent a lot of my time talking to my friend. It was really good to see him and catch up on the awesome things that he has done and has in store for himself in the future.

I was walking back to my car and saw a picture that I really wanted to get.

It was a beautiful night. Peaceful. Calming. Quiet. Something I so desperately needed.

I pressed on a little more and took a few shots of the street that I so frequently drive on.

Finally, I arrived at my car and felt that I should make one more stop. I headed just up the road until I reached the Provo Temple. I took a few shots, but mostly just sat there and looked. Thought. Pondered.

I love this place.

Back to Klimt

Our Fine Arts class went to another museum today, which also features a lot of Klimt. It is the Leopold Museum. Something interesting about this museum is that all of the art was collected and bought by one man. His name is Rudolf Leopold and this museum, which has only been open for 10 years, showcases all of the art that he collected. The total number of pieces of art that he collected is well over 5,000! That's absolutely amazing!

There is a lot of talk going around about Klimt this year because it is the 150 year anniversary of his birth. He is a huge deal here in Vienna. Anyway, I have some images to show you of some of his works that were in the museum.

This painting is titled Death and Life. It's interesting how he titled it in that order, death first and life following after. Death is just patiently waiting to take his next victim. There is nothing that life can do because eventually it must face death. I think that's part of why I think that death seems so patient. He is in no hurry to make people pass his way. He knows that we all will eventually head his direction. There is so much to say about this painting. One interesting fact about this painting is that Klimt redid and added some things 5 years after he originally finished the painting. Below is an image of what it looked like before he changed it. Quite a striking contrast. 

I love it when I am able to get up close to a painting the see the small details of an artist, especially when it is not behind glass. Paintings from a distance look so smooth and well blended, but when approached up close, there is so much more character and personality given to the work. 

Also, what we perceive as one solid color is usually the mixture of many colors. Where Klimt has signed his name looks like yellow from a distance, but in the picture below, we can see yellow, pink, and even some green and gray. So, so, so cool.

Klimt also did a lot of landscape and nature scenes. I think it is very impressionistic, almost Monet-esque.

Aufziehendes Gewitter (Die große Pappel II)

Approaching Thunderstorm (The Large Poplar II)

Wiese mit Obstbäumen

Meadows and Trees

Attersee 

Klimt also painted beautiful portraits.

Klimt was asked to decorate a ceiling in the University of Vienna with images representing Medicine, Philosophy and Jurisprudence. Klimt never did paint these on the ceilings. His versions that he presented were rejected by the school for being too "radical" and "pornographic." These paintings were moved to Schloss Immendorf in lower Austria during World War II to be protected from German SS forces. Schloss Immendorf was set on fire as German SS forces were retreating, fearing that these paintings might fall into enemy's hands, namely the Russians. All that remains from these paintings are a few photographs and sketches. (edited June 5, 2015. Thank you anonymous comment for the correct information)

This is Klimt's depiction of Philosophy. I'm guessing that because Aristotle and Plato weren't prancing hand in hand across a sky full of life's questions was why it was rejected.

Here is Klimt's depiction of Medicine. No images of genius doctors saving lives here. There is depiction of death, which is probably the last thing any medical doctor or student wants to think about. They usually try to avoid that at all costs. There seems to be lots of pain and anguish going on as well. From my experiences, this is pretty accurate. I mean, every time I'm at the doctor's office or hospital, there is a lot of pain and crying, so, I've got your back, Klimt. I see where you are coming from. 

The Upper Belvedere

For our Fine Arts class, we went and visited the Belvedere Museum. Just to throw it out there, this is the museum, currently, with the largest Gustav Klimt collection in the world. So, after our German classes, we headed for the stassenbahn.

What a bunch of obedient children. Maybe if we're lucky, we won't end up at the Belvedere, but rather in the middle of a protest...

Well dang, it looks like we made it to the right place. Maybe next time.

This is the front of the Belvedere Palace. It has a huge and magnificent reflecting pond, which is currently frozen. This is what people first saw when approaching the palace. This was the summer residence of the great military strategist Eugene of Savoy. This is the man that finally defeated the pesky Turks who were constantly invading and plundering in Vienna. An interesting thing about this Eugene is that he was a very small man, in fact, he was barely over five feet tall. He was not great of stature and he also had poor health most of his life. This just goes to show that careful, wise and clever planning wins over pure brute strength and force. That sort of reminds me of this.

This is the view from the back of the palace. Belvedere means beautiful view. It looks over all of Vienna. Down below is the Lower Belvedere. This is where Eugene resided. He just had the upper section for guests and parties, which he would normally slip out quite early to get away from everybody. For being such a war genius, he was quite humble and quiet about all of his amazing achievements. Pretty cool.

Now, on to the amazing art exhibit. Unfortunately, they do not allow any pictures inside the palace (Sorry Kristin. This would have been particularly interesting to you). If you want to see the paintings yourself, you're going to have to come all the way to Vienna to do it.

The Klimt paintings were very, very beautiful. His famous The Kiss hangs in this exhibit and it is something to behold. It is actually not as big as I thought it was going to be, but it was still magnificent. The contrast between the actually painting and the gold leaf is surprisingly pleasing to the eye. I have seen plenty of pictures floating around and they simply do not do this painting justice. It has a kind of glow to it especially with the different ways that the light hits the gold and silver. 

Klimt's father was a Goldsmith and his sons started out by taking up the trade of their father. This is part of the reason that Klimt started using gold and silver leaf in his paintings. 

The painting that I was most interested in was actually one of his unfinished works that is titled The Bride. It was amazing to see his creative process in action. Half of the painting is finished, a quarter of it is just sketches and another quarter is in progress. It was really interesting to see that he had actually painted his figures first in the nude and then he would paint over them as if he were dressing them. Now, I have no idea whether he did this for all of his paintings or if this was him trying something new.

During this painting, Klimt suffered a stroke and was rushed to the hospital. Because they were in such a rush to get him to the hospital, his studio was not locked up and this painting was stolen. Before they could find it and get it back, Klimt had died of a brain hemorrhage. 

A Sculpture

Last week, I went wandering, like I often do here in Vienna, and ran into this random sculpture in the middle of a huge square. I searched around trying to find an explanation and who created it but could not find anything. All I found was a sign that said not to climb on it. So, it now can mean whatever you want it to mean. I'm not sure what it means. All I know is that it looked cool and it sucked me in. I guess, in some sense, that is the purpose of art. It engages their audience in some way. For me, I saw it from a distance and something inside of me needed, not wanted, needed to see it up close to see what this really was. 

I love sculpture that allows you to walk around and through it. I have a hard time when it is all fenced off and you can only see it from a certain distance. Believe me, if there weren't any no climbing signs, I would have been all over this.

The craftsmanship of this piece was really cool and quite detailed. Because of the surface, I couldn't tell where any specific welding was. That made each shape seem like it was created from one piece of metal or whatever it was. It felt like metal of some sort. The smaller sections had a great deal of fine detail while the larger sections had less detail.

It even had mirrors, so I took the opportunity to do a little self-portrait. Not a bad picture of me, if I do say so myself.