"The Golden Period" Of Gustav Klimt

A picture is worth a thousand words.  That is how I felt as I read Jorie Graham's "Two Paintings by Gustav Klimt".  I actually pulled up the picture of Buchenwald on my computer, and after each stanza I read, I looked at my computer, and understood where Graham was coming from with her words about this painting.  It is an exquisite painting. "These timeless masterpieces of sensuality and power are the most expensive paintings in the world"(klimtreproductions.blog.com).  As I read Graham's poem, I felt like I was in the wooded area, feeling each line she depicted of Klimt's painting.  The only part of this that throws me is how can a painting look as beautiful as it does, and the painter names it after a Nazi concentration camp?  I feel that puts a damper on the painting.  That isn't the kind of power I was thinking the painting was giving off to his spectators.  I guess in a way, people can have their own thoughts of a picture, no matter what the name is called.  Graham spoke of a second painting that was half finished by Klimt as well.  Line 64-68 states "he had begun to paint a delicate garment (his trademark) over this mouth of her body.  I actually looked up what his "trademark" was and according to a source I found, Klimt enjoyed "a lone woman in a plain environment wearing an elaborate outfit"(abcgallery.com).  I wonder if that was the "trademark" that Graham was describing.  Between the poem and the painting, I very much enjoyed both.

Works Cited:

http://www.abcgallery.com/K/klimt/klimtbio.html

http://klimtreproductions.blog.com/2010/09/19/buchenwald-birchwood/

The Picture that I searched on the internet:

http://klimtreproductions.blog.com/2010/09/19/buchenwald-birchwood/