Video: Gustav Klimt's "Fritza Riedler"

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Gustav Klimt's "Fritza Riedler" is an example of his portrait painting that was popular among the wealthy. Learn about this painting with tips from an art historian in this free fine art video.

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Video Transcript

So Klimt was not only a citizen next painter because he could, money rather, from portrait painting as well. And he was very popular as a portrait painter at that time, among the fashionable Venice matrons as well. And Fritza Riedler was one of his friend and she had a fashion shop where she was working and we can see on that early portrait from 1906 characteristics of his portrait painting style. He used on that portrait as well gold leaf and what made the woman rather, how to say, not a living object, rather a decoration, and the living flesh is just seeable only on her hands and her face. Because the clothes around her, the decoration of the clothes were made in a way that it's rather ornamentical and the drapery of the clothes made her a woman without any body. So it's really characteristic of him that he painted the human body only with some hints that this is a living object that we couldn't see body parts outside the hands and the face of the person.

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Gustav Klimt's "Fritza Riedler"

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