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Visita al Museo Belvedere (Viena) - Eternautas, Viajes Históricos — Transcript

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0:29Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to
0:31Vienna. Today, Monday, October 26th, a
0:36public holiday. It's 2:20 p.m., Vienna
0:40Central European Time. Greetings to
0:44Eternautas, thank you very much for
0:46giving me this second opportunity to
0:48show Vienna today, the Belvedere Palace
0:50. My name is Pablo Rudich, a local
0:54guide for Vienna and Austria. My
0:58brother Miguel is on camera, like the
1:00last time we visited. Today, October
1:0526th, a public holiday, has been
1:07Austria's national holiday since 1955.
1:12It's the day of the Declaration of
1:14Neutrality. We'll talk about that later
1:17because it also indirectly has to do
1:19with the Belvedere Palace. Now we're
1:23going to enter the gardens through the
1:26main entrance to the Belvedere and then
1:28I'll tell you why it's called Belvedere
1:30. Although you may already know, there
1:33are several belvederes in the world. It
1:36comes from the Italian Belvedere. It's
1:39nice to see Belv in French, Bellavista
1:42in Spanish. We'll see that in the back.
1:48After the Shembrun Palace, the summer
1:51residence of the royal family, the
1:54Belvedere is the second most famous
1:57Baroque palace in Vienna, but it was
1:59not built for the royal family, but for
2:02a military man, who was the most famous
2:05, most powerful, most legendary
2:08military hero in Austrian history. But
2:13as they say, no man is a prophet in his
2:15own land. He was not an Austrian, he
2:19was a Frenchman. And he has a story
2:21straight out of a movie. In fact, a
2:23movie has been made about him. This
2:27Frenchman's name was Eugene. I, the
2:29genius, they would say in Portuguese.
2:32Nom is Omen. And he had the title of
2:35prince because he came from a noble
2:37family from southeastern France, the
2:40French Savoy. In other words, his full
2:43name with title was Prince Eugene of
2:45Savoy. He grew up in the court of King
2:51Louis XIV in France in the 15th century
2:54, early 16th century. Louis XIV, known
2:58as the Sun King, because he had
3:00absolute power, but also because he was
3:03a great beautician. The Sun King cared
3:07most about aesthetics, people, things,
3:09and physical appearance. Eugene was the
3:13youngest of five brothers. His mother
3:17was Olympia, a courtesan of King Louis
3:19the Sun. According to nobility
3:23tradition, the older brothers went to
3:25the army, but the destiny of the
3:26younger ones was to enter a monastery
3:28and dedicate themselves to the church,
3:30hopefully holding a position of power
3:32as a cardinal because they were the
3:34youngest. That was their destiny. But
3:38from the age of 15 he resisted, he
3:41wanted nothing to do with that, he also
3:44wanted to join the army like his older
3:47brothers. At the age of 17 he obtained
3:51a private audience with the Sun King
3:53himself and diligently asked him to
3:55make an exception for him, to accept
3:57him even if it was only as a private
3:59soldier or with a small regiment in the
4:02French army. But he did not succeed
4:06because for the Sun King, as we have
4:08already said, the most important thing
4:10was aesthetics and in his army he cared
4:12a lot about the physical appearance of
4:14his soldiers. They should represent the
4:17power of France, they should be big,
4:20strong, muscular. But what happened to
4:23Prince Eugene? Well, I'll tell you the
4:26truth, poor guy, he didn't fit those
4:28characteristics. He was neither tall,
4:32nor strong, nor muscular. Prince Eugene
4:34, according to descriptions, was barely
4:371.60 cm tall. He was skinny, he even
4:41seemed a bit stunted and he walked
4:43crookedly, with bowlegged feet, almost
4:462:10. Then when he was little he had
4:50chickenpox and the poor guy grew up
4:51with all the spots from the chickenpox
4:53on his face, a skinny face, droopy with
4:55an aquiline, slightly crooked nose. He
4:58looks quite pitiful and apparently
5:00because of that pitiful appearance he
5:03was rejected, his pride was hurt, but
5:05Eugene didn't give up on his goals
5:07because of it. What he left behind
5:10forever was his homeland. He ran away,
5:13he escaped from France and came
5:15straight here to Austria. Why here?
5:19Because we were talking about the end
5:21of the 15th century, a pivotal and
5:23legendary year in the history of Vienna
5:26and Central Europe, the year 1683. What
5:32happened in 1683? The Ottoman army,
5:37known as the Turks, who had been here
5:39next door in Hungary for 150 years,
5:41occupying Hungary, arrived for the
5:43second time to besiege the city of
5:45Vienna. This second siege brought more
5:49than 150,000 Ottoman soldiers who
5:51camped around Vienna, and that famous
5:54siege lasted for 3 months in the summer
5:56of 1683. And during those three months,
6:02the Austrian emperor, Leopold I, went
6:04to Germany, to southern Germany, to
6:07gather allies and a large European
6:09Christian military force to stop the
6:11Ottoman invasion, to come and free
6:14Vienna from this siege. So they
6:17accepted volunteer soldiers from
6:19various countries, mercenaries. Eugene
6:21knew this, and that's why he came here.
6:24He arrived here at the age of 19 and,
6:27despite being so ugly, skinny and short
6:30, they soon felt sorry for him and
6:32accepted him as just one of 60,000
6:35foreign mercenaries. But quickly, as
6:39one of them, with a lot of initiative
6:42and good ideas, he stood out and turned
6:44out to be a very intelligent man, a
6:47great military strategist who helped
6:49him rise through the ranks. He had an
6:53incredibly fast and powerful military
6:56career. At the age of 22, he was
7:00already in command of his own regiment
7:02with 1,000 soldiers, which he commanded
7:04. At the age of 30, this ugly little
7:09Frenchman became the commander-in-chief
7:12of all the Austrian armed forces. At 32
7:17, he was named Minister of War and then
7:20First Political and Military Advisor,
7:22the right-hand man of three emperors in
7:25a row: Leopold, Joseph I and Charles VI
7:28. In other words, he outlived three
7:31emperors as their right-hand man. In
7:33the end, and quite rightly so, they
7:35called him the shadow emperor. Powerful
7:39and popular, because he managed to win
7:42every battle against the Ottomans. In
7:47Hungary, all the way to Austria, in
7:49Hungary he drove them out of Hungary,
7:51pursued them in two more major battles,
7:53defeated them in Serbia, where the
7:55Ottoman army remained for over 400
7:57years, and pushed them back to Bosnia.
8:00And from there, the Abbass began to
8:03expand their power towards eastern and
8:06southeastern Europe. So, in the end,
8:11they called him the noble knight, the
8:13great conqueror of the Turks, powerful
8:16and popular, and you can imagine what
8:19else he was immeasurably rich, a
8:21multimillionaire. Part of the succulent
8:28salaries he earned from his high
8:31political positions. Imagine that every
8:35time he won a battle he had the
8:37official right to take a third of the
8:39spoils of war wealth. Plus what was
8:43said at the time that from time to time
8:45was taken when the accounts went wrong,
8:47but that is a separate issue. In any
8:50case, among other things, he had seven
8:55palaces built for himself. His main
8:59winter palace within the walls of the
9:01old city of Vienna, near the cathedral.
9:06His three favorites for the summer in
9:09the countryside 60 km away from here,
9:11two smaller ones in Hungary and finally
9:14a small cabin for the weekends. Here
9:19you have it. What we see all the time,
9:23the Belvedere in the end he used mainly
9:25in the summer and on the weekends. Well
9:29, this palace built by his favorite
9:32architect who designed practically all
9:34his palaces, Lucas von Hildebrand is
9:37Baroque, that is, it is from the
9:39beginning of the 16th century. In 3
9:43years it will be exactly 300 years old.
9:45It is almost 300 years old. Typical
9:51Baroque, absolute symmetry. Well, in
9:55the main part we see the main portal
9:57with the ramp where the carriages for
9:59the guests would go up. Here it is at
10:02the parties. Above you see the coat of
10:05arms of the Savoy and Piedmont families
10:08of Prince Eugene with the collar of the
10:10Order of the Golden Fleece. Naturally a
10:14member of this famous order. The green
10:17roof was not originally green. What
10:20color was it? Brown. It is a material
10:24that mixes bronze and copper, right?
10:27And over time it takes on this green
10:29patina. And they say that the elongated
10:33parts of the roof represent Prince
10:35Eugene's military tents, while the
10:38corners with the more oriental style
10:40would represent the tents of his
10:43enemies, the Ottomans. Okay, let's move
10:50on to see the backyard. Let's go this
10:55way, please. The backyard of the
10:58weekend cottage and there we will
11:01understand why it is called Belvedere
11:05Bella Vista. We can also see some side
11:16buildings where the gardeners lived.
11:21150 gardeners worked here daily for
11:24this palace, which is obviously an
11:26architecture, both the palace and the
11:29gardening itself, inspired by the
11:32French Baroque style. There are many
11:36who say, "Well, it always reminds us of
11:37Versailles." Versailles is obviously
11:40the pioneer, it is the model for
11:43Baroque palaces. Later, after
11:46Versailles, the same pattern was
11:48followed in many palaces throughout
11:50Europe. The Baroque style was very
11:53pompous, but it did not claim to be so
11:56original. But here we do see many
11:58details that naturally have to do with
12:00Prince Eugene's background. As you can
12:03see there on the tympanum, these
12:06symbols of uniforms, helmets, military
12:08spears and around them, figures that
12:11also represent the love for the arts
12:14and sciences, something that also has a
12:17lot to do with Prince Eugene. Well,
12:27today, as I said, is a day when we see
12:29people out walking. Look how beautiful
12:32the autumn colors are and the Austrian
12:36national holiday, October 26, is
12:42usually also the day of the
12:44presentation of the army that defends
12:46Austrian neutrality. This year is a
12:50little different, but naturally people
12:52take the opportunity to go for a walk.
12:54Other years at this time of year it's 0
12:57degrees or below zero degrees. Today
12:59it's very mild, very warm, with
13:02temperatures of 14 to 15 degrees, very
13:04pleasant. A perfect day to visit. Next
13:11door we have the botanical garden,
13:16which in the days of Prince Genius was
13:18one of his meneri, as they say in
13:20French, a private zoo. He had several
13:23private zoos. He ended up with all
13:27kinds of animals, even giraffes, camels
13:31, and a famous tame lion. And now
13:36Tararán Tararán. The quinche, the
13:41backyard of the weekend cabin, where he
13:45kept a couple of hens, chicks, not bad,
13:48right? But of course, this velvet
13:54garden was too small for Eugenio at
13:56first, so one palace wasn't enough for
13:58him; he needed two. There are two
14:01verbederes below with red roofs. We see
14:07what we call the lower verbedere, the
14:09lower verbedere. There were Eugenio's
14:13private rooms so he could be alone,
14:14quiet, and not be disturbed. While the
14:19upper verere on this side that we see
14:24here, the façade, that is, the back,
14:27that was only for representation, only
14:31for banquets, parties, dinners with
14:34military personnel, politicians, allies
14:37, with artists, because Eugene had no
14:41family. Eugene never married. Some say
14:46he was ugly, others say he was
14:48intelligent, and others say a third
14:50version that is quite likely, perhaps
14:53he was gay. It is very likely, it could
14:56never be proven because he was very
14:58discreet with his private life. We know
15:02some platonic stories, but in the end
15:03it seems that he was a man who remained
15:05quite isolated in his private life and
15:07who lived a long time. We have already
15:10mentioned that he outlived three
15:12emperors and died in 1736 at the age of
15:1874, a very advanced age for the time.
15:24He had already outlived all his
15:26siblings, there was almost no one left
15:28in his family, but he left, imagine, an
15:30immeasurable inheritance, a great
15:31fortune in money. He also dedicated all
15:37his time to collecting art. He was a
15:40great patron of the arts, he had good
15:42taste, he had money, he had the best
15:44collections of paintings, sculptures,
15:47so he also left all this art collection
15:49, his private zoos, his seven palaces.
15:52What happened to all this inheritance?
15:55By chance, by chance, so to speak, it
15:58was inherited by a last remaining
16:00member of the family, Victoria. Who was
16:04Victoria? A second cousin of Prince
16:08Eugene who was 53 years old, who in
16:10physical appearance, they say, quite
16:13resembled her uncle, only she was
16:15considerably plumper. The fact is that
16:19I don't know exactly why, but she
16:21didn't find a husband and lived like a
16:23nun in a semi-cloistered monastery in
16:25the middle of the countryside. Until
16:28one day she received that letter
16:30announcing that her distant uncle had
16:33died and had left her all that
16:35inheritance. What did she do? She
16:39packed her bags and left the monastery.
16:41Her devotion ended and half a year
16:43later she found a husband who was 32
16:46years old. They say it was a kind of
16:49love at first sight, like love at first
16:51sight. The thing is that this young
16:55husband, who was 32 years old and very
16:57handsome, had a small character flaw,
16:58he had a vice, the vice of gambling,
17:00cards, the casino. They had a very fun
17:04life, lots of travel, etc., but in less
17:07than 7 years he managed to squander
17:09away all the fortune, all the money.
17:13And suddenly his passion for her ended,
17:15his love passed, and he divorced her.
17:19She no longer wanted to return to the
17:21monastery. What did he do? He made
17:22arrangements with the royal house. In
17:24the 17th century, Empress Maria Theresa
17:27was already ruling here. So she sold
17:29everything to the Abbaziars. From then
17:32on, these palaces, like everything that
17:34belonged to the prince-genius, the
17:36collections, everything became the
17:38property of the monarchy. Until the
17:41monarchy fell in 1918, the First
17:44Austrian Republic was proclaimed, and
17:46it became the property of the Republic.
17:51Since then and before, we have had art
17:54museums here. The lower Belvedere below
17:57, the museum for temporary exhibitions
18:00that change, sometimes also modern art,
18:03and the upper Belvedere, which is what
18:07we are going to see today, the
18:09permanent collection of the Austrian
18:12National Gallery, because here more or
18:15less 80%of the works are Austrian. But
18:19anyway, before going in, a look at what
18:22gives the place its name. Belvedere.
18:27Nice to see, beautiful view. What do we
18:29see here? The historic center, district
18:33number one, the old city of Vienna. And
18:36I say the old city because until the
18:39middle of the 19th century, until about
18:42160 years ago, it still had its
18:44surrounding walls. What does that mean?
18:47That in the time of the prince here we
18:49were outside the city, not just outside
18:52, but above. The Belvedere dominated
18:55the city. The emperor, hidden away in
18:58this way, showed what his position of
19:00power really was. In the heart of
19:03Vienna, in the center of the city, the
19:06most important symbol of the city, St.
19:09Stephen's Cathedral, with its 137-
19:11meter-high tower, dedicated to the
19:14first martyr of the Bible. St.
19:17Stephen's, a church that is already
19:19more than 900 years old. And those
19:21hills that we see behind us are
19:24geologically the first beginnings of
19:26the Alps, the Prealps, which are all
19:29green because they are a protected
19:31nature reserve. The Vienna Woods, the
19:35outer lungs of the city, very important
19:38. Below are vineyards because Vienna
19:41has many, many vineyards. And on the
19:45highest hill there is a television
19:48antenna 485 meters above sea level,
19:50historically famous because it was
19:53there that the first battle of the
19:55defense of Vienna against the besieging
19:58Ottomans began on September 12, 1683.
20:04That is where Prince Eugene's truly
20:06splendid military career really began.
20:10Imagine when he was getting on in years
20:11, he would come here to have tea with
20:13his entourage, his servants, his
20:15friends, whatever, and he would always
20:17look back at where he had started and
20:19how far he had come. And here we are.
20:23So let's head to the museum, the
20:29Austrian National Gallery Belvedere.
20:59Okay, so now we're going to spend about
21:02an hour inside the museum getting to
21:05know the most famous works of
21:08contemporary modernist art. Go ahead.
21:40Okay, we're now in the upper Belvedere.
21:45Here we have three floors with 500
21:48years of art history. We're now going
21:53up to the central hall and we're
21:56currently in what used to be the
21:58entrance when Prince Eugene's guests
22:01came to his banquets and parties.
22:03Everything here was open, carriages
22:06could enter on a ramp. Going up the
22:09stairs we see some reliefs with scenes
22:12of Alexander the Great, another great
22:15military leader from ancient history,
22:18with whom Prince Eugene identified in
22:20many ways. And further up, you can also
22:32see in the reliefs, always cannons,
22:35military weapons, recalling the
22:37exploits, the prowess of Prince Eugene,
22:41the conqueror of the Turks, as he was
22:44always called, the noble knight. Okay,
22:52now we go up to the first floor and
22:55enter the central hall. As you can see,
23:00all of this is very Baroque. The work
23:02of the Baroque architect Lucas von Hil
23:05de Brand, who was Prince Eugene's
23:07favorite architect. He practically
23:10built all of his palaces. And we pass,
23:14as I was saying, the Marble Hall, where
23:17the guests would gather. And the large
23:20rooms were divided to the right and
23:23left, marble, because you can see all
23:25the red marble around them. Also, if
23:28you look up at the ceiling, there is a
23:31large fresco that gives the room
23:34another name: the Carlone Hall. The
23:37Italian painter who painted the fresco,
23:40chosen by Prince Eugene, Carlos Carlone
23:42, shows an opus of Prince Eugene,
23:44surrounded by fame and glory and other
23:46allegories. As you can see there are
23:50also balconies there, where underneath
23:53there are naked men with their hands
23:55tied behind their backs, representing
23:57Eugene's enemies defeated by him. Those
24:00that look like balconies are painted
24:03flat on the wall, but they seem to be
24:06in relief. It's a feint, as they say in
24:09French, feint architecture, trom or
24:11trap, trompe-l'oeil, by another Italian
24:14who specialized in these feints called
24:17Caetano Fant. Okay, from here, the
24:23marble room. Someday I'd like to
24:27celebrate a birthday or New Year's Eve
24:29here. Look at the view that presents
24:33itself to us again here. The beautiful
24:37view towards the Lower Verbedere,
24:39towards the old city, and we are in a
24:42place that is also historical, not only
24:44in the time of Prince Eugene, but also
24:47important, symbolic in the era of more
24:49modern contemporary history. Let's go
24:55back to history a bit. The last to live
24:58here, the penultimate to live here in
25:01this palace of the royal family was
25:03Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the nephew of
25:06Emperor Franz Joseph, who was
25:08assassinated in Sarajebo in June 1914.
25:10With this, World War I broke out. Four
25:14years later, Austria lost the war. In
25:181918, the First Republic was proclaimed
25:21, which lasted barely 20 years,
25:23actually 16 years because in 1934 a
25:26state called Austrofascism was
25:28installed here. But if we count, well,
25:32those four years are 20 years until
25:331938, and that's when Austria ended. It
25:36ended for what reason? Because Germany
25:38Hitlerized Austria, and ate it up.
25:41Seven years later, the end of World War
25:44II, Austria was liberated by Allied
25:47troops, but it remained in 1945 and
25:491955, occupying and controlling
25:53Austrian territory for 10 years. Until
25:57after many arduous negotiations in
25:59Moscow, Berlin, and the Allies, an
26:02agreement was reached for the Allied
26:05troops to withdraw from Austrian
26:07territory within six months and for
26:10Austria to regain 100%autonomy and
26:12sovereignty. With one main condition,
26:16Aosia could not belong to either side
26:19of the Cold War, that is, neither the
26:22Warsaw Pact nor NATO. In other words,
26:25it had to declare neutrality, which
26:28came into effect six months later. But
26:32then the document that stipulated that
26:33the Allied troops would leave under
26:35these conditions was called the
26:37Austrian State Treaty, the Statfetrac.
26:40And where was it signed? You can see it
26:42here. And on what date? Right here. I'm
26:44going to show you with my foot. On May
26:4715, 1955. On May 15, 1955, the
26:50statfetrac, as it says here, the State,
26:54the Austrian State Treaty was signed
26:57here, in the Marble Hall of the
27:00Belvedere, which restored Austria's
27:03freedom and independence. It was signed
27:08in this hall by the foreign ministers
27:11of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the
27:15United States, and France. And one of
27:19the most famous photos in modern
27:20Austrian history is when the Austrian
27:22minister Figel comes out onto the
27:23balcony that we have here. The garden
27:26was full of people, and Austria, uh,
27:29excuse me, Figel shows the document
27:32with the four seals and says, "Austria
27:35is free. Ec is fray." A famous document
27:40. Well, they make up a lot of history
27:42that comes together in this palace, but
27:45as I was saying, today it's the
27:47Austrian National Gallery of Art. In
27:51the 16th century, there was already a
27:54museum here, and then in 1903, the
27:56gallery returned here, and the idea was
27:59to collect Austrian and contemporary
28:02art. Today, we have a section
28:04downstairs that is medieval art. Then
28:07there is a leap towards the Renaissance
28:08; we have practically nothing. Then we
28:11have Baroque art, the 17th century, and
28:13then the most well-known here, Austrian
28:16painting, mostly Austrian. 80%of the
28:19works are Austrian from the 19th
28:20century to the beginning of the 20th
28:22century. The best-known aspect of this
28:26museum is the one we are going to focus
28:28on today. It is the oriental aspect
28:31that we are going to see here on this
28:34side, which are the paintings that mark
28:37a new era, modernism. Modernism is
28:40well-known famous painters, Gustav
28:43Clint in Chile, Ócar Cocoska, among
28:47others. So now we are going to look at
28:49the paintings. Well, we are at the end
28:53of the 19th century, which is when the
28:56Secession movement was formed.
28:58Secession in Latin means separation. A
29:02group of young artists, led by the
29:04painter Gustav Climt, who had some
29:07concerns, wanted to move forward and
29:09get away from, let's say, the limited
29:12world of art that had dominated until
29:14then: historicism, which was rather
29:19oriented towards the past. And, as the
29:21Secession said, they separated
29:22themselves; they wanted to look forward
29:24and, above all, open up the artistic
29:26visual panorama to see what was
29:28happening at that time in other
29:30countries. Beyond the borders of the
29:34Austrian monarchy, what was happening
29:36in Italy, Switzerland, France, Holland,
29:39the new movements, symbolism,
29:41impressionism, etc. So, the Secession
29:44was formed, they received significant
29:46financial aid, they created the famous
29:49Secession building, there were
29:52exhibitions to showcase contemporary
29:55European art and from there works were
30:03acquired for the BBDL National Gallery.
30:06Here we see some of them in this room
30:08that we have here, very mixed with
30:10different styles. One of the important
30:14movements that also opened up a new
30:16vision, especially Gustav Clint, was
30:18what we call symbolism, and one of the
30:20painters who influenced him in a
30:22certain way was Fernan Knopf, a Belgian
30:24. One of the very typical themes of the
30:29symbolists is, as we see here, ponds,
30:31small lakes, still waters, where he
30:33conveys a sense that nature has a
30:36profound message, a profound message
30:38that is transmitted through symbols,
30:41symbols of nature. Symbolism, a
30:44movement that comes from literature and
30:48is based on different objects, I mean,
30:51different moments in dreams, in
30:53oneiricism, in myths, etc. There is
30:56another type of symbolism here as well,
30:59the symbolism of Giovanni Segantini, an
31:02Italian painter who was called the
31:05painter of the Alps, whom Gustav Clint
31:09especially admired for his technique
31:12and Clint, let's say, introduced
31:14himself so that this work could be
31:17purchased for the museum. The name of
31:21the painting says a lot: Bad Mothers.
31:24And what we see here are some women, if
31:27you look closely in the background,
31:29three women dressed as if in ball gowns
31:32with golden hair who come dancing. And
31:36it's like an accusation that the
31:37painter makes of those mothers of the
31:39upper bourgeoisie, of the upper
31:40nobility who brought children into the
31:42world but then didn't take care of them
31:44themselves, they didn't even want to
31:45breastfeed them. And that's why you see
31:47, in an almost proto-surrealist way,
31:50that the heads of babies are emerging
31:52from the branches of those trees; heads
31:54that some want to breastfeed and the
31:56mothers resist, they resist, but that
31:59makes the mothers suffer, until the
32:01figure in the middle that we see here
32:03is one who, in the end, as we can see,
32:05does breastfeed her child, which is
32:07another head emerging from a branch of
32:10the tree, and it's a kind of redemption
32:12that we have. It is a narrative circle,
32:15let's say, that begins on the left with
32:17women who suffer for not fulfilling
32:19their role as mothers, who are finally
32:21punished here; it is punishment. Here
32:23they fulfill it; it is redemption. And
32:26the circle continues to the right,
32:28where in the background they see a sun
32:30rising over the mountains that
32:31symbolizes salvation: punishment,
32:33redemption, salvation. It is a very
32:36moral, very Catholic theme. If we take
32:39into account that Giovanni Segantino
32:42grew up an orphan and was raised very
32:45Catholic by monks in a monastery. We
32:49also have two paintings in this museum
32:51by the expressionist Van Gok. Here is
32:55one of his last works, The Plain of
32:58Over in the South of France. He did
33:02this work shortly before he died in a
33:05psychiatric hospital as a result of a
33:08suicide attempt, and it is said that
33:10the painting somehow denotes his rather
33:13desperate state of mind, on the verge
33:16of exploding, because what we see here
33:19is a landscape typical of the Vera
33:22countryside in the south of France.
33:26Vera, because everything is very
33:28flowery, everything is very, very ripe,
33:30with a strip of sky almost tight in the
33:33background, which is a sky of a charged
33:35blue, it is a heavy blue, a blue full
33:37of electricity. And if we look a little
33:41below at the spikes of the plants and
33:43the part of the foliage of the trees,
33:45we notice that there is a wind coming.
33:48It is like, let's say, those moments
33:50charged with electricity of a heavy
33:53summer day that is about to explode
33:55into a storm. Somehow it is interpreted
33:58that it is a reflection of Van Gogh's
34:00state of mind in that also tragic way
34:05in his life. The same painter Fernan
34:11Knopf, with whom we saw the still pond,
34:13also made this sculpture, as I say, one
34:15of the sculptors who also and painters,
34:17sorry, who greatly influenced Gustav
34:19Clint. And here we have a theme that is
34:23also symbolist, but it is also the
34:25theme of women herself. It is a theme
34:28that we will continually encounter in
34:30Clint's work, in Chile's work. It's an
34:34omnipresent theme in culture, in art,
34:36from the early 20th century. Uh, this
34:40figure here is called Vivian and comes
34:44from the legends of King Arthur. The
34:49magician Merlin, who was King Arthur's
34:51advisor and who meets a fairy in the
34:54forest, Vivian, falls in love with her;
34:56she falls in love with him and he has
34:58the secret of magic and gives it to her
35:01, the secret. But then he has to leave
35:05because he has to go to King Arthur's
35:06court and she misses him. And when he
35:08comes back, he takes away yet another
35:10secret from her, which is the secret of
35:12how to make a person stay in the same
35:14place, as if locked up, without them
35:15leaving. In other words, she takes away
35:17his entire secret. And this is
35:19symbolized here by what she carries in
35:22her right hand, a kind of seashell that
35:24symbolizes the secret of magic and in
35:26the end she has Merlin, her beloved, in
35:29her power. And let's say, starting from
35:35this base, from this symbolic and
35:37mythical base, what we have here is the
35:40image of a beautiful woman, very
35:43sensual, dangerous for men. The fatal
35:48fan, the dangerous red hair, symbol of
35:52sensuality, the wild sexuality of women
35:55. And it was an omnipresent theme at
35:58that time, the theme of the new woman,
36:01the new attractive, seductive, but at
36:04the same time dangerous woman. The
36:08fatal desire. What do we have here?
36:11Judith. Judith and the head of the
36:14Fernes. A biblical story from the Old
36:17Testament that has been treated by
36:19several artists in the history of art,
36:21Goya, Caraballo, Cranaj. In the year
36:25530 BC, the city of Bethuña, near
36:28Jerusalem, the Jewish people are
36:30besieged by the Assyrian troops led by
36:32the commander Holofernes. And Judith, a
36:37chaste, devout young widow, decides to
36:39sacrifice herself, to fix her life and
36:42go out at night to the enemy camp,
36:44pretending to ally herself with the
36:46enemies in order to save her people.
36:50Then the Assyrians celebrate her when
36:52she joins them. They throw her a party.
36:55With her beauty she seduces the captain
36:58of the Fernes, intoxicates him and,
37:01either before or during the lovemaking
37:04or sexual act, cuts off his head. We
37:08know many paintings by these painters
37:10that I have mentioned where a pensive,
37:13chaste Judith appears, showing a very
37:15bloody head of Holofern who grabs it
37:17usually by the hair. Here we see a very
37:21different painting. The head of the
37:23Fernes is barely distinguishable at the
37:26bottom in the right corner, with his
37:28beard, and it is rather a pretext to
37:33show here a woman who does not belong
37:36to the biblical era, but a woman from
37:39the time of Clint; Women who were often
37:42seen on the streets of Vienna: an
37:45emancipated woman, a very
37:47self-confident woman, a woman, above
37:50all, with sexual power and sensuality.
37:54Look at her half-closed eyes, as she
37:56looks down at her parted, lascivious
37:59lips, and then at the sensuality that
38:01permeates her entire face. If we look
38:04below at her body, which is especially
38:07erotic, is that semi-transparent dress
38:09that barely covers part of her breast.
38:13And what has she just done? She has
38:15just cut off a man's head, in other
38:17words, a castrating woman. Here comes
38:19the danger of sexuality that can lead
38:22to death. Heros Thanatos, something
38:25Sigmund Freud discussed extensively at
38:28the same time. In fact, at that time
38:32sexuality always carried a connotation
38:34of danger, illness and death. Syphilis
38:37was omnipresent. Well, Judith is one of
38:41Gustav Klim's most famous paintings,
38:44marking the beginning of his golden age
38:46. The golden age in the sense that, as
38:49we can see in his technique, he used
38:51gold leaf. This was due to a trip he
38:54made to Italy and on his return he
38:56stopped in the city of Ravenna on the
38:58Adria, where he was amazed by the
39:00churches with their gilded Byzantine
39:02mosaics and on his return he began to
39:04experience an era that lasted
39:06approximately 8 years, culminating in
39:08the kiss that we are going to see
39:10shortly. And as you can see here, the
39:13work of art does not end on the canvas,
39:15but rather extends into the frame. Look
39:17up at the frame where the inscription
39:19Judith and Holofernes is written, which
39:22is made of gilded copper and was made
39:24by Georg Clint. Georg Kimt was Gustav
39:27Clint's brother who was a goldsmith as
39:31was Gustav Clint's father. Gustav Flim
39:34came from a family of artisans; in
39:36other words, he had a good background
39:39in applied art. A genius who entered
39:42the Academy of Applied Arts at the age
39:45of 14, a work, a great scholar who
39:48studied ancient art extensively, Greek
39:51art, Byzantine art, as we have
39:53discussed here; then Renaissance art,
39:56the Pre-Raphaelites and took influence
39:59from everywhere, but then he
40:02transformed it into his own art, which
40:05is always recognizable Gustav Clinton.
40:09Let's move on now and see one of the
40:14high society ladies of the Jewish
40:19families of Vienna, with whom Clint
40:22made a good clientele and earned very
40:25good money with portraits of women,
40:28wives, industrialists, businessmen, in
40:31this case Terese Blog Power. Perhaps
40:34some of you are familiar with the name
40:36Blog Power. The best known was his
40:39sister Adele, Block Power, who became
40:42very well known in recent years for a
40:45film, Lady in Gold, which is a painting
40:49with a lot of gold leaf that shows her
40:52sister, who later there was a whole
40:56lawsuit brought by, uh, Block Power's
40:59niece; That is, the daughter of this
41:01one, Teresa Blockbauer, Maria Altman. A
41:05very long story, if you saw the film
41:06you will know. The fact is that since
41:09they were Jewish families, it had
41:10become state property in a somewhat
41:12illicit way and they had to return the
41:14painting to Maria Altman. In any case,
41:17here we see a painting that was done 4
41:19years later of Adele Block Power. We
41:22are still in the Climt era, here she
41:24does not use gold leaf, but she does
41:26use a yellow coat that really
41:28highlights her luminosity. They are
41:31also emancipated women, as I say, from
41:34the upper middle class, well, those
41:37were the main clients for Gustav
41:39Clinton. Okay, let's move on. Now let's
41:44get to the highlight, let's get to the
41:47heart of the museum, so to speak, which
41:51we are privileged to have today all to
41:54ourselves, something quite exceptional.
41:59And here you have it, the Mona Lisa of
42:01Vienna, so to speak. I mean, a large
42:05part of the people who come to this
42:07museum come especially to see this
42:09painting, the loving couple, what was
42:12it originally called? which is the name
42:15originally given to it by Gustav
42:17Clinton, the kiss that was later named,
42:20acquired by the Belvedere Museum itself
42:22and painted in 1908, that is, 7 years
42:25after the Judith that we just saw, as I
42:27said when it culminates with the golden
42:30age. And it is a fascinating painting
42:34for many people because of its colors,
42:37its luminosity, but also because of all
42:40the symbolism that is linked here. It
42:44is a painting that has a lot of
42:45literature surrounding it, many
42:47interpretations and that leaves room
42:48for interpretations that are even very
42:50contrary. I mean, you may ask
42:57yourselves many questions, because I
42:59usually ask this question and when I
43:01have the audience here who see a man
43:04and a woman in a spring meadow with
43:06flowers who are kissing and one wonders
43:08, let's see it a second time, are they
43:11really kissing? Or is it not him who
43:15kisses her? It seems more like it. And
43:18then the question is, okay? And does
43:20she want that kiss or not? And there we
43:24have many alternative answers that are
43:25likely. One that a girl once said to me
43:28, "Yes, because she's about to turn her
43:30head and she's going to give him her
43:31mouth." Others say no, on the contrary,
43:33she's moving her head away. On the one
43:35hand, she seems very relaxed with the
43:37pressure she has on her face. On the
43:39other hand, look at her hands up that
43:41are clenched. They're tense as if she
43:44almost wants to scratch him or pull
43:46away from him. He's grabbing her head
43:49from behind, the man who attacks is a
43:52bit dominant, the active man, the
43:54passive woman. And why do I tell you
43:57this? Because we're talking about the
44:00year 1908, the beginning of the 20th
44:02century, when, as I said before, the
44:04issue of women, the issue of femininity
44:07and masculinity was a very omnipresent
44:09issue in the welfare state. Years
44:12before, the first feminist
44:13organizations had already been created.
44:15Women were demanding their rights to
44:18study, to work, to participate
44:20politically, culturally, and their
44:23rights, their sexual autonomy too. Back
44:27then there were many discussions about
44:29what is a man, what is a woman. In the
44:30Cafés, there was discussion and there
44:32was the cliché that was said, "Well,
44:34women are a danger because they are
44:36very sensual, they are too sexual. Men
44:38are also sexual, but they are more
44:40rational." And this is reflected
44:43symbolically in the dresses of the man
44:46and the woman. If you notice, her dress
44:49has more circular, rounder, more
44:51dreamlike shapes and he has many
44:54rectangles as if it were rational, many
44:57rational rectangles. Some say that they
45:01are even phallic symbols and they are
45:04in a space without time. Notice that in
45:07the background everything is flat. We
45:09do not know if it is day or night,
45:11there is no depth. We will see this in
45:14many works by Clim and other
45:16contemporary artists of his time,
45:17paintings that are two-dimensional, not
45:20three-dimensional. And this comes from
45:22the influence of Japanese art, of
45:24Japonisme, which was also very
45:26important as an influence for Gustav
45:28Clim. But it seems almost like an icon
45:33of the Renaissance, like we sometimes
45:35know the Madonnas, the virgins in the
45:36meadow by Raphael with Adored. Here we
45:40don't have a virgin, but perhaps we
45:42have love with an adored flower that
45:44protects it. It protects it from what?
45:47From an abyss, from a fall. Because
45:50look how curious that the beautiful
45:53spring meadow, with all these flowers,
45:56so peaceful, does not end at the end of
45:59the painting, but is interrupted by a
46:01descent, in an abyss where she barely
46:04holds on with her toes. In other words,
46:08if suddenly they remove her cloak in
46:10that golden hour that seems like
46:12protection, they both fall straight
46:13down. What can we interpret? A million
46:16things. Among them, that moments of
46:19love are moments that in the next
46:22instant could fall and end. Another
46:25interpretation is that we are living
46:28the last years of the monarchy in
46:30Vienna, capital of the empire, shortly
46:32before World War I. They later called
46:35it the labyrinth of the apocalypse. On
46:39one hand, it was full steam ahead, but
46:41with great social problems, with great
46:42structural problems, with great
46:44political problems. An apocalyptic
46:48feeling that many artists captured with
46:50great sensitivity. This could also be
46:54the case with this painting of the kiss
46:56, which we could go on talking about
46:58for hours and hours, but we won't dwell
47:00on it any longer and instead look at
47:02other women by Gustav Clint. For
47:05example, here, this was painted 10
47:13years before the kiss. Clint, as I
47:16repeat, was a great scholar and went
47:19through many different phases in his
47:21work. He was a truly recognizable
47:24artist who, no matter how successful he
47:26was, never settled in the same style;
47:28he was always moving forward. This was
47:31one of the first great portraits for
47:33one of the wives of a great
47:35industrialist who herself came from a
47:37noble family, in other words, a lot of
47:40money. Sonia Knies, as you can see, the
47:42frame was also made by her brother K
47:45Clint, it is part of the work. And here
47:49we also see the incredible technique,
47:52the ability that Gustav Clint had. We
47:55focus on her face, on her features, on
47:58her gaze. Interestingly, she is not
48:02centered in the painting, but rather
48:04she is thrown to the right with a dress
48:06that falls on her in that way. These
48:09Clints made many drawings prior to
48:11these paintings, above all, to capture
48:13the texture of the textile pieces, the
48:15flowers in the background that
48:17symbolize something, let's say, loving.
48:21And yet, despite the fact that
48:23everything is tilted to the right, the
48:26painting is centered with a detail that
48:28is simply that little red spot, a
48:30deeper red that she holds in her right
48:33hand, which naturally accentuates the
48:35pink of the dress. And that is a little
48:39book that Gustav Clint had, where she
48:41made her sketches, her drawings, ideas
48:43that she had, of which she had two and
48:46one of them he gave to her, in which
48:48there were even a couple of love poems.
48:52So, well, there is gossip, the bad
48:54tongues that say: "Well, maybe that
48:58look that we see from her, who is she
49:00looking at? She is looking at the
49:03painter, the artist; it is a very
49:05intense look that may go beyond the
49:07relationship between painter and model.
49:09" There is a lot of gossip about Clint,
49:13Clint and women. Clint grew up
49:16surrounded by women, he never married,
49:19he lived as a bachelor, he lived with
49:21his widowed mother and two sisters who
49:24remained single, but he had his atelier
49:27that they called the harem, where it is
49:29said that he had up to 14 illegitimate
49:32children, of which six are recognized.
49:36Ah, here. Well, and he also said, "I'm
49:40only interested in women in the sense
49:43of being artists, but also as men. In
49:46fact, very few men painted his
49:48paintings in the allegory of the kiss.
49:51We have a few men, by the way, showing
49:53them more the kiss. It is not known who
49:56the models were, but it could be
49:58himself, Gustav Clin, because of a
50:00tunic. He was wearing a painter's tunic
50:03and the one who is kneeling, his close
50:05friend Emilie Flueger, who was taller
50:07than him. Precisely if we think that if
50:10she stands up, uh, she is kneeling, she
50:12would be taller than him, but we do not
50:14know. There are practically no
50:16self-reports by Gustav Clint, no
50:18exception. I mean, women were very
50:20important to him and he had begun to
50:22paint from photographs, which has a
50:24very important technique and he became
50:26famous and for that reason he had very
50:28good clients here. Amuka Candle, who
50:31was also the daughter of a famous, uh,
50:35very important doctor also for the
50:38cultural era of that time, Zucker
50:41Candle. And it is a painting that he
50:46did not finish simply because he
50:48painted it in 1918, which was the year
50:51he died at the age of 56. In any case,
50:54here we see perhaps what was also said,
50:57that he always preferred to paint his
50:59models, women first naked and then
51:02dress them with paint. Here we see he
51:05even drew their hands and everything,
51:07but he never finished it. The one who
51:10did finish in the middle of the golden
51:13age, who still used, as you can see, a
51:16little gold leaf, is Fritza Ridler.
51:19Frit Ridler, clearly also a woman from
51:21high society, as we can see, because of
51:24her wealth, look at the necklace she
51:26wears around her neck, the same
51:28necklace that Judith wore, which was
51:30fashionable among upper-class ladies of
51:32the time. And here we see all the
51:36mastery of Gustav Clint and the era in
51:38which he was in full modernism. When
51:42modernism came along, it also took a
51:45turn, let's say, distancing itself from
51:48the first, more curvy, linear phase and
51:51becoming a more octagonal era where He
51:54used the rectangular and square shapes
51:56a lot. By the way, you will notice that
52:00most of the paintings, portraits,
52:02Clint's kiss, and then we will see
52:05landscapes, are square shapes. The
52:08square was a program, a program in the
52:11sessionist movement. Even the signature
52:15he made of Gustav Linky from 1906 was
52:19square. Uh, we see all the little
52:22squares. The elongated rectangle up
52:25there was a wardrobe, a wardrobe that
52:28the architect Joseph Hoffman, who
52:30worked a lot with Gustaf Climt, made
52:32for his studio. And here we see that
52:36the background also has no depth, it is
52:38flat, it is dimensional, mid, sorry, it
52:40is two-dimensional. The arms, the hands
52:43, that is already three-dimensional.
52:46And here Clint plays with great mastery
52:48, mixing two-dimensionality with
52:51three-dimensionality, mixing his figure
52:53, his body with what is the whole chair
52:56in an almost abstract way, that even
52:59reminds us of Egyptian art. Here all
53:03the influences come together and
53:05harmonize in a really great way in
53:07Gustav Climt's masterpiece, which
53:09absorbs it, as I say, all those
53:10influences, but he transmits them in
53:12his own way. It is even said here
53:16precisely what we are seeing now, that
53:19he pays homage to the painter
53:21Velázquez, which is what we see in the
53:23background, a kind of window behind her
53:25head and that window, that shape
53:27recalls the hairstyles of Velázquez's
53:30meninas. Gustav Clint painted
53:42allegories, as we have seen in The Kiss
53:44, biblical portraits as we see in
53:49Judith, portraits mainly as work and
53:51something private for himself that he
53:54did for almost 19 years. Landscapes. I
53:57painted about 60 landscapes, as we see
54:00here, almost all the same format, a
54:03square of 110 x 110 cm. What he did not
54:08do, as other painters like Egon Shil
54:10did neither, was that he did not mix
54:13landscape, landscape, portrait,
54:15portrait, but he did not put human
54:18beings in the landscapes as you did.
54:21For, as I say, about 18 years, Gustav
54:23Clint would go every summer with his
54:26friend Emilia Flugel to Lake Atar,
54:28which is the lake that Here we see the
54:30area near Salzburg, a very, very
54:32beautiful area. And there he would
54:35spend sometimes up to two months or
54:37more, he would go to the countryside to
54:39make his sketches that he would then
54:41finish in the Atelier Allah in Vienna,
54:44those paintings for himself, but he
54:46would offer them on the market. If he
54:50sold, let's say two of these paintings,
54:51with what they gave him he could buy
54:53himself a house if he wanted, in other
54:54words, he was already very well-priced
54:56in his time. Well, most of the
55:00paintings don't have much depth. This
55:03one we have here is from a boat,
55:05because one of the sports he liked to
55:07do, and sometimes he would make his
55:10sketches and paint from the boat, and
55:12this same small castle called Cramar
55:14Castle, he painted it from the boat on
55:16the lake, let's say, the part from the
55:19back, as we can also see here from the
55:27front. And it's one of the few
55:31paintings that has depth like that. And
55:35if you look at this kind of entrance
55:37with these trees, this Alameda, the
55:40contoured trees, that contouring way
55:42surely reminds us of the work of Bang
55:45Goku. Here we have Another painting by
55:58Clint. As you can see, very detailed,
56:02you almost never see the sky, sometimes
56:04it seems almost like a point-and-click
56:06painting, but he liked to immerse
56:08himself in the microcosm of nature as a
56:10way of reconciling himself with the
56:12world. For that, he often carried a
56:16kind of telescope or the binoculars he
56:18used when he went to the theater to
56:19capture nature up close. In other words
56:22, more than the macrocosm, he liked to
56:24immerse himself in the microcosm.
56:36Another contemporary painter, although
56:38in reality 28 years younger than Gustav
56:41Clint, was Egon Chile, who saw himself
56:44as a successor, he saw himself as a
56:46successor to Clint. Egon Chile was born
56:49in 1890, he got to know Gustav Clint.
56:55In Chile he was a great painter, but
56:57first and foremost he was a draftsman,
57:00and it was no longer so much the
57:02modernist movement in him, but he was
57:04one of the first expressionists who
57:06really, in his sometimes heartbreaking
57:09painting, always conveyed, let's say,
57:11the emotions, the musings, that he
57:13carried here. inside. Here we see a
57:17painting that shows a self-portrait.
57:21Unlike Clim, who hardly made any
57:23self-portraits, he made more than 100
57:25self-portraits of himself. And we see
57:28the embrace. Previously we saw the kiss
57:32by Gustav Clint. Here is the embrace.
57:34As Ventura, you will see that they are
57:36very different, but thematically they
57:37have much, much in common. Just as we
57:40saw the contrasts between the masculine
57:42and feminine principles, the man and
57:45the woman in the kiss, here we also see
57:48it symbolized in the way that Egon
57:50Chile painted the man, himself with his
57:53back turned, and who was his wife,
57:56probably his wife Edith Shile or Edith
57:58Harms. They contrast, because he was
58:03much harder, more gnarled, darker. She
58:06was much brighter, more transparent,
58:08right? And they were in a loving
58:11embrace, but at the same time also
58:12desperate. One of Gon Chile's most
58:16expressive forms, more than in his eyes
58:18, was in his hands. The clenched hands
58:21and often the gnarled hands with thin,
58:25long fingers were his own hands. And
58:28like They said that for him his
58:29greatest expressiveness lay in the line
58:31. Many times he would grab the part of
58:34the brush, the back of the brush, and
58:35go over the line with the line of the
58:37brush to highlight the strength, the
58:38expressiveness. Here it seems like a
58:42desperate embrace that is also about to
58:44fall into an abyss. Here again, the
58:46background is undefined and just as in
58:48the kiss we had a golden auricle that
58:50protected them, here it is the white
58:52mantle that practically protects them.
58:59As Egon Shil said, like Clint, he also
59:02painted mainly houses or landscapes or
59:04figures, but he did not mix. So we have
59:08, for example, here a portrait from the
59:11year 1910; he was exactly 20 years old
59:14then, Edward Cosmac, who, as you can
59:17see, well, this painting is impressive.
59:21You can imagine that these were not
59:23paintings that sold very well in the
59:25art market at the time, unlike Gustav
59:27Clim. As a conchile, he really went
59:30hungry and was lucky to have a couple
59:32of acquaintances in the arts who
59:34supported him and bought some. of his
59:37works. The case of Edward Kmark, the
59:39publisher who was also one of his
59:41clients. Here we also see the influence
59:44of Japonism. Again, the background is
59:46undefined, it is flat, it is
59:48two-dimensional and the figure of this
59:50Cosmac stands out, who is all
59:52compressed in on himself, as if he were
59:54being squeezed by machines from right
59:56to left. All the energy, all the energy
59:59, compressed with some withered flowers
1:00:01on the side, because that is a theme
1:00:03that is also recurrent in Gonchile's
1:00:06work: life and death at the same time.
1:00:10And this head with a white halo around
1:00:12it, like the halo, the halo was talked
1:00:14about a lot at that time, let's say a
1:00:17time that emphasized the subject of
1:00:19psychology and spirituality a lot and
1:00:21what was very much in vogue, with which
1:00:23Sigmund Freud had dealt a lot, was the
1:00:30hypnotic power, uh, hypnosis, right?
1:00:33and it seems that with his gaze that
1:00:36fixes us with his gaze, he is trying to
1:00:38hypnotize us or he himself is
1:00:40hypnotized. In fact, the looks on Egon
1:00:44Chile's faces are always glances that
1:00:47seem to pierce us and are introspective
1:00:50glances at the same time. They stare
1:00:53fixedly into the distance, but with an
1:00:55inward gaze, always with an existential
1:00:57question. What is the reason for
1:01:00existence? Where do I come from and
1:01:02where am I going? Well, this painting
1:01:06is also from Chile, where he said," If
1:01:09I hadn't been a painter, I would have
1:01:11liked to be an architect. "" It's
1:01:15called City on the Blue River. The Blue
1:01:19River is the Vltava River that
1:01:20surrounds the city where his mother was
1:01:22born in the Czech Republic, Chescre
1:01:24Krumlov. A traveler, he always passes
1:01:27through there. The city is beautiful,
1:01:30where Consomante, who was his model and
1:01:32they were thrown out, is located. He
1:01:34had a hard time and has many paintings
1:01:36by Jeffrey Kumlov, of course, with a
1:01:38very unusual perspective, a completely
1:01:41vertical perspective, where the
1:01:45architecture of the houses also has its
1:01:47own life, where you can always see a
1:01:49bit of the passage of time, the passage
1:01:52of life, the decay in the, uh,
1:01:54architecture itself. As we can see here
1:01:58, there was also a paint manufacturer
1:02:00who also supported him and bought his
1:02:03paintings, but he once told him, "But
1:02:05please change the perspective. People
1:02:09don't know how to look at your
1:02:10paintings. If they have to stand on
1:02:12their heads to understand the painting,
1:02:14it looks like it's coming down on us,
1:02:16like the wall is collapsing on us."
1:02:19It's the facade of a house where
1:02:21everything is very organic. Look, the
1:02:25windows are dilapidated, they're about
1:02:27to fall down. The cheerful colors of
1:02:31the house contrast with the decadence,
1:02:33as I say, the passage of time that is
1:02:35coming down. Okay, now we continue with
1:02:41Eon Chile, who as I say, he also
1:02:50captured much of the secession movement
1:02:53in Bangkok, but look, Bangkok is known
1:03:01for its sunflowers and that's how
1:03:06Conchile painted sunflowers, life and
1:03:09death. In one painting we see the
1:03:12passing of life. Vanitas, uh, 1911.
1:03:15Here is Gon Chile's signature, uh, the
1:03:18same year he painted the small painting
1:03:21that we saw with the houses and the
1:03:24river around it. For comparison, we
1:03:30also have here a sunflower by Gustav
1:03:32Clint painted 3 years earlier. That he
1:03:37doesn't have that strength, I mean, he
1:03:39doesn't have...he's not expressionist
1:03:41like Shil, so to speak, but he also has
1:03:46, let's say, always a kind of meaning,
1:03:48because this sunflower was once placed
1:03:50next to a painting he did, a portrait
1:03:52of his close friend Emilia Friga, who
1:03:54was so tall that she barely fit in the
1:03:56painting, and here it seems that the
1:03:57sunflower was really a person who
1:03:59barely fit in. Notice that it's turned
1:04:02like the head of the sunflower is
1:04:04turned to us as if it were bending down
1:04:06because it barely fits in the painting.
1:04:15Returning to Gustav Clint, here
1:04:17everything is a bit mixed up, another
1:04:20square-format painting, a painting that
1:04:22has a lot, a lot to do with the theme
1:04:25of Clint and women, with the obsession
1:04:27there was with sexuality, with the
1:04:29sensuality of women, uh, and with
1:04:31Clint's drawing. To make this painting,
1:04:35Clint drew drawings and he was very
1:04:37interested in the line, the contour of
1:04:39the line, depending on how the line
1:04:41moved, it revealed a different attitude
1:04:43. And that has a lot, a lot to do with
1:04:46the discourse on sexuality in bourgeois
1:04:49Vienna. On the one hand, it was said
1:04:52that the proletariat, which was very
1:04:54promiscuous because they all lived
1:04:56together, riotously, and there was no
1:04:58morality, projected the sexual
1:05:00fantasies of the bourgeoisie. On the
1:05:03other hand, there was a double standard
1:05:05in the bourgeoisie. Men could afford
1:05:07many things, but women should arrive
1:05:09virgins when they get married. And so
1:05:13Clint called this painting The Bride.
1:05:16The Bride. And so he imagined how a
1:05:19virgin bride of the bourgeoisie awaited
1:05:22her first sensual experience, her first
1:05:25night. So who is the bride? They are
1:05:29all brides, each with a different
1:05:31attitude. If we look at the top, there
1:05:35is one very dreamy, then there is
1:05:37another very seductive, another with
1:05:39her eyes closed, another very romantic.
1:05:43There is one who is turning her back on
1:05:45us, who does not want to know anything
1:05:47about the subject, who is rejecting it.
1:05:49There is another one that sees
1:05:51sexuality, procreation, fertility,
1:05:53family, the baby that is going to be
1:05:55born. Here, and among all those women,
1:06:01the image of a man always appears,
1:06:04always contrasting a somewhat
1:06:06threatening man, a somewhat androgynous
1:06:09man, but a man. We will have the bride
1:06:14in various poses and here we also have
1:06:17Heros and Thanatos, because here we
1:06:19have the bride of death. Who is the
1:06:22bride of death? She is the most
1:06:24unhealthy figure that we see here. A
1:06:27very, very thin figure, very erotic,
1:06:30the way he painted this kind of skirt,
1:06:33this transparent skirt above her pubis.
1:06:38What he did not finish, because the
1:06:41painting was not finished, is the year
1:06:441918. He did not finish painting what
1:06:46would be her head and, apparently, if
1:06:49you notice, coming out of what was
1:06:51going to be her head, which is only
1:06:53drawn, a skull of a head appears
1:06:56looking down; a skull that would be,
1:06:58according to interpretations, a skull,
1:07:01a skeleton that gets inside the body as
1:07:03a result of sexual intercourse. Once
1:07:07again, we return to what we discussed
1:07:09earlier, the danger of syphilis, which
1:07:11was imminent. As we know, Gustav Clint
1:07:14was quite promiscuous and always feared
1:07:17the issue of syphilis. Even Alma Mallar
1:07:20, the femme fatale who was also on the
1:07:22verge of having something with him,
1:07:24commented that she had heard that he
1:07:26had syphilis. If he did, he was lucky
1:07:29that it was a case that did not
1:07:31progress much. If it did progress, for
1:07:37example, in the case of Gon Chile's
1:07:39father, when Chile was 15 years old,
1:07:41the father died crazy, syphilitic.
1:07:45That's why he also has that, ah, a bit
1:07:48of desperation inside him and he
1:07:51touched a lot on the subject of
1:07:53sexuality, sensuality and this is one
1:07:56of Gon Chile's best-known paintings
1:07:59that has a lot to do with a critical
1:08:02and decisive moment in his life. 1915.
1:08:09The painting is called Tod un meden, uh
1:08:12, Death and the Maiden. Death is the
1:08:15same. Again a self-portrait as a skull,
1:08:19a Capuchin monk and the maiden was Vali
1:08:23Nozil. Vali Nozil was a very young
1:08:25model, very low class, very simple, one
1:08:28of the many models that Gustav Clint
1:08:30had. And when Gon Shill was just a
1:08:32young student, he went to visit Gustav
1:08:34Clint, they exchanged drawings. Clint
1:08:37told him that the best draftsman was
1:08:39with Chile and introduced him to Bali
1:08:41Nozil, as if he lent her to him as a
1:08:43model. And Bali, no, from that moment
1:08:46on, became not only the model, but also
1:08:49the muse, the concubine, the very
1:08:51faithful companion to him; she
1:08:53accompanied him through all his most
1:08:55difficult moments, when he was even in
1:08:57prison for having been accused of
1:08:59painting child pornography, etc. In any
1:09:01case, the First World War began, he was
1:09:03sent to Prague. with the army and he
1:09:07told her, "Look, I can't take you."
1:09:09They were very low class and they had
1:09:11been thrown out of another place for
1:09:13not being married, he didn't want to
1:09:14marry her. There they gave him an
1:09:17atelier in a very good neighborhood and
1:09:18he met two sisters from the bourgeoisie
1:09:20across the street. He married one of
1:09:23them and then he told Valetil that they
1:09:26could continue seeing each other once
1:09:28in a while or maybe make a marriage.
1:09:33She didn't accept it and it's the
1:09:35moment of farewell that is reflected
1:09:37here, as if she still wants to hold on
1:09:40to him and what he is bringing her is
1:09:42death itself. In fact, she left in
1:09:46World War I as a nurse in the area of
1:09:48what was later Yugoslavia and was badly
1:09:51injured, her traces are somewhat lost.
1:09:54A very, very heartbreaking picture
1:09:57about this painting. Well, a biography
1:09:59of Gon Chile was written with that name
1:10:02of the painting and now there is a
1:10:04recent Austrian film with that same
1:10:06name, Death and the Maiden. Here we
1:10:11also see one of the last paintings of
1:10:13Gon Chile. Another self-portrait of him
1:10:19. His wife, whom he had married 3 years
1:10:22earlier, as we said, in 1915. The
1:10:27original name he had given the painting
1:10:30was A Crouching Couple, Both Crouching.
1:10:33And in the middle he had painted a
1:10:35basket of flowers. Then he found out
1:10:38that his wife was pregnant, so he
1:10:40erased the basket of flowers and
1:10:41painted the child, already projecting
1:10:43the family. Later, art historians
1:10:47interpreted the name as the family,
1:10:50right? Dad, mom, and baby. A family
1:10:54that one would say was united, but not
1:10:56that united. If you look at the gazes
1:10:59of the three, each one has a different
1:11:00gaze, but they are lost gazes. His as
1:11:03always, that gaze a little lost in the
1:11:05distance and in himself, with his hands
1:11:08very symbolic. She has a resigned gaze
1:11:11and the baby has a gaze that seeks
1:11:13protection from whom it is not known.
1:11:16The parents are both naked. In fact, a
1:11:20family that never came to fruition like
1:11:22the one We see here why this baby was
1:11:24not born. We are talking about 1918,
1:11:27the end of World War I. A great
1:11:31epidemic arrives, which we remember
1:11:34quite a bit today, the Spanish flu,
1:11:37which is said to be going to kill many
1:11:40more people than the First World War.
1:11:43She, pregnant, gets infected, dies in
1:11:45October, three days later, when they
1:11:48were going to bury him, Gon Chile dies.
1:11:52Egon Chile died at the age of 28, half
1:11:55a year after Kusav Clint had died. He
1:12:00had died of a stroke at the age of 56.
1:12:031918, the same year that the monarchy
1:12:06fell, that the empire died, several
1:12:09important artists of modernism died.
1:12:18Well, here again outside in the back
1:12:21gardens of the Belvedere Palace, the
1:12:23balcony from which Minister Figel spoke
1:12:27and showed the Austrian State Treaty,
1:12:30if you remember, 1955. There are few
1:12:34people here now. It was full of people.
1:12:37Imagine after World War II under Nazism
1:12:39, 10 years of occupation by troops.
1:12:42Allies. And it was from that balcony
1:12:46that Figel spoke the famous phrase, "Is
1:12:50fray, Austria is free" behind the
1:12:53Marble Hall. And then, six months later
1:12:58, when the last soldiers of the Allied
1:13:01troops withdrew, on October 26,
1:13:04Austrian neutrality was declared as a
1:13:07condition of that treaty. Since that
1:13:12day, October 26, 1955, every October 26
1:13:14we have a national holiday, which is
1:13:17precisely today. So we see people
1:13:21enjoying this beautiful, pleasant day
1:13:24and to say goodbye to you with the view
1:13:27of Vienna behind, which is waiting for
1:13:30them with open arms, as I do. A big
1:13:34greeting to Eterna, to all Eternaotas
1:13:37customers, be well, take good care of
1:13:40yourselves. Thank you very much, Miguel
1:13:43, thank you for the camera. I hope you
1:13:46enjoyed it and until next time. Thank
1:13:48you very much.

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