21. -Today we came to the Belvedere once again, but this time to go inside for a tour. While waiting outside, I tried my first Hugo, which will be my goal to find on my return to the States. Prosecco, Elderflower Cordial, carbonated mineral water, and some mint leaves, and you’ve got the most delicious, classy drink you can ever experience. {LINK TO HUGO}. I will miss Austria.
In the first stairwell inside the Belvedere, there were three modern statue installations that people reacted to. The first was a hooded man, but not many noticed him. Front and center was an emaciated man with arms outstretched, vulnerable, and to counterbalance him to his right was a tall, muscular statue of a woman in a sort of Arnold Schwarzenegger shoulder flex. This was my favorite part of the museum, as you could instantly watch the psyche of each male without them realizing it. Every man’s instant reaction to the powerful woman was a desire to fight, or sleep with, or dominate her in at least some manner. The woman is not in any violent position, she’s if anything standing at a form of parade rest. What is it that drives men to an instant desire to fight? Some sort of basic instinct and excitement that the statue works against.
Inside the Belvedere Doctor O expressed to us the concept of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, which dominated the upper Belvedere. The lighting, the art, music, the gilded walls, the marble flooring, the people in proper attire, everything works together in an entire setting, to give Eugene of Savoy’s Summer home a cathartic quality.
We looked at some examples of Biedermeier paintings, which were all much more focused on singular moments of families, sitting together reading a book or sharing dinner, or a landscape painting. Works which show no concern for anything happening in the world. There w
Arnold Schönberg led the Second Viennese school, and his entire early drive was to expand the theories of harmony, until he finally moved beyond harmony altogether in his atonal music. His early work I have always (always being since I first heard him a couple years ago) enjoyed more, as I feel more heart and creativity in the early efforts. As Schönberg developed his 12 tone music, it became far too systematic for my taste, and music students also began to hate him as people would no longer study what chord changes and melody he was focusing on but rather what part of the 12 tone system he was on, measure by measure. This is the point where “classical music” began to detach from popularity, as the composers stopped caring about what the listener wanted to hear and instead indulged deeply into their own desires. It is the same masturbatory approach that drove jazz away from popularity, or modern art, or poetry, or many high-art forms. They are only just now beginning to make a comeback as artists care again about an audience. This fits right in with the processes of Modernism, as they looked for alternative expressions to represent the new industrial world. But I understand Modernism best by looking at Post-Modernism. The Modernist was much more confident that their progress was the correct progress, it was far more Western/Anglo-centric, and pushed its opinions outward. Post-Modernism comes after the Great War, when the realities of Progress and Industry were shattered, and the Western world realized they can still be just as violent as any other culture, if not more so. Hence, to me, Modernism is about expressing the answers they knew they had in different manners, without asking questions, and Post-Modernism is about asking questions in new methods but never arriving at an answer. Klimt and Schiele were at that very edge of what would become Post-Modernist. The entire Secession was an early form of looking at the dominant culture around and pushing against that, but Schiele went much further, expressing the beauty in the underrepresented (such as prostitutes), even in a distraught and ‘ugly’ painting style. Klimt still painted the rich, and in so doing pandered to their tastes of higher fashion. I am not so fond of his gold-leafed paintings. However, I love the post-orgasmic expression of Judith, and the Kiss is a powerful work. Each person has their own opinion of it, but personally I feel that it is closer to a rape. The toes of the woman seem to be grasping at the grass beneath her, and the edge of the cliff seems to be something she would fall off if the man were to let go. It is entirely up to the man to keep her or release her, as he overpowers her and supports her. The girl seems to enjoy the kiss but can she truly enjoy it if she has no choice, and is she merely playing into the role so that she does not plummet? I much prefer Rodin’s ‘the Kiss’, as it is a perfect balance between to equal participants, or Schiele’s in which both are in the middle of prayer. Schiele’s Doctor O said I would see at the Leopold.
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