rlaneri:

Egon Schiele: Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer, 1914; Gustav Klimt: Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer, 1917

I love the art — particularly the portraiture — of fin de siecle Vienna. I have written about the period before (here and here), but it’s such a rich one in terms of women’s changing roles in society and how they were represented by artists. This — combined with the rise of Freud, a growing interest in psychology and an obsession with Orientalism — influenced the dramatic portraits painted during this time, and the fashions worn by Vienna’s bohemians and art patrons as well. 

These two portraits of Maria Beer (who I’m guessing was a patroness to the arts, judging by her luxurious clothes) show her as the typical Klimt muse: self-confident, liberated and somewhat exotic. I love the collagist, technicolor tunic she’s wearing in the Schiele painting (a popular item among bohemian dress reformers such as Klimt — who bought his capes and muumuus in Asia — and his lover/muse Emilie Flöge. In Klimt’s portrait Beer is more extravagantly dressed, in a fur-trimmed peplumed jacket and what looks like bloomers.

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